Time to start Houffing -- new gig at Houff Transfer

Yeah man. They been keeping me busy. I've finished every day with either my 11 or my 14 (or both) running on fumes, and did not have the mental wherewithal to provide a detailed update.

They do lots of short hauls. I think the longest run I've had was 215 miles. Most are in the 120-160 mile range. But I'll do 3-4 load assignments a day. Pick up in Richmond, drop in Hershey, PA. Pick up in York, PA, drop in Reading, PA. Pick up in Harrisburg, drop in Baltimore. Pick up in Baltimore, drop in Richmond. Takes me back to my early Abilene days where I'd walk past all the drivers sitting on the porch waiting for a cross-country load, get a short haul from dispatch, make delivery that same day, and then get another load afterwards to keep me rolling. Wound up getting more miles than they did.

Have not had an overweight load since that first day. I did have one that probably would have been overweight if I'd had a full tank of fuel. But I rode in with 3/4ths of a tank, and slid in under the wire at 79,300.

They run a very tight ship with respect to idling. Their trucks don't idle for longer than 20 minutes. They've got a bunk heater for when it's cold, and the truck will automatically start itself to recharge the battery when the battery gets low. They have a similar setup for when it's hot. Truck will start and run the A/C when the cab gets too warm. I didn't sleep at all my first night in the truck. But the subsequent nights have been fine. Even got a solid 7 hours last night. Either I sleep through the truck starting up and shutting off 20 minutes later, or I wake up and then fall right back asleep.

The biggest adjustment I'm having to make is that they REALLY want you to fuel up at one of their terminals. And they've sent me to the Richmond yard a few times this week, so I've always had an opportunity to fuel up there instead of on the road. Which means that I'm no longer getting free shower credits from TA/Petro and no longer getting free points from fueling up there, which means I'm having to pay out-of-pocket for showers and parking. I'm spending the night at the Jessup TA (Oh Boy), and it's the 2nd time this week. So that's $50 I've spent of my own money to have a place to bed down for the night. Houff does have showers at their Richmond and Weyers Cave terminals, but they're only cleaned twice a week.

Their ELD is much more navigationally cumbersome than Abilene's Qualcomm. It runs on a tablet instead of a dedicated piece of hardware, and getting into and out of the various things you need to do to update dispatch on your status is kind of a pain. On the other hand, nobody has asked me to update them every time I put the truck in reverse, so there's that.

I have run into a couple folks in operations who were very clearly Not Interested in establishing any sort of interpersonal bond with the drivers, but nobody has been actually rude or unpleasant. Just very straightforward and businesslike and not wanting to socialize even slightly beyond the bare minimum necessary to answer my questions. But I have also run into a couple of very pleasant folks who don't mind chatting a bit when I call in. There's one dispatcher I really get along with, and the recruiter has called me a few times to check in and she is very nice. The guy I rode along with last week has called me a couple times as well.

The place just feels very old school. I have met many drivers over the course of my career who would fit right in, as long as they didn't mind running through DC and Baltimore and Philadelphia rush hour on the regular.

They have so far honored their word with respect to not running me overnight. I've been putting the truck in gear every morning between 5:30 and 6:00, and that is exactly how I like to run. They're also keeping me out over the weekend. Most of their other drivers go home on the weekends, but they've already got me a load for tomorrow, picking up a trailer out of their Baltimore terminal and taking it to the Wal-Mart DC in Mount Crawford. So they've kept their word on that, too.

I was hoping they'd run me 8-9 hours a day so I could just run on recap and not take a 34, but they've ran me enough that I won't have any hours on the clock come Monday and will have to take a reset. But I'm the only guy they're running over the weekend like this, so I figure it's a learning process for everybody.

 

A thing I forgot to mention which will warm the ####les of the hearts of many readers of this forum: Wearing flip-flops is expressly against Houff Transfer company policy.

I felt you'd wish to know.

Picked up a load of empty beer bottles in Ringgold, VA. Apparently the plant has managed to convince every trucking company that does business with them to work as ad-hoc yard jockeys. Standard procedure is to drop your empty into a door, and then move a loaded trailer out from another door and park it off to the side. Note that the loaded trailer you move doesn't necessarily belong to your company. I moved a First Fleet trailer tonight before hooking up my pre-loaded Houff trailer. Makes me wonder how this arrangement came to be.

Apparently they sometimes have you move more than one, and you get paid $10 per every trailer moved. This is an improvement on the Sam's Club account we had at Abilene for a while, where you'd wind up playing yard jockey for some Sam's Club store somewhere and not get paid for it unless you raised a modest amount of hell. Sometimes you'd only have to move one trailer, which was no big deal, but other times you'd move 3-5 and it would take an hour or so.

 

That's pretty much how I feel about things. However, we were told in orientation that this is part of our expected job duties at this specific shipper. Their money, their truck. If they want to accept that risk, that's their lookout. At least I'm getting paid for the work.

 

Still trucking along. No real complaints yet.

They've managed to work me harder this week than they did last week. Last week at this time I had 20 hours and change left on my 70. This week I have 18. They've put some longer loads on me. I've had several trips in the 390-400 mile territory. Been through Cumberland, MD on 68 more times in the past three days than in my last two years with Abilene. (68 is a great way to add 45 minutes to your drive if you're hauling a full load of freight, so I always avoided it.)

Last week they talked me into taking a 34, which I took at home. That was a mistake. Barely got settled in before it was time to head back.

So this week I'm going to take the bull by the horns and see if they can run me short over the weekend. I've got about 4.5 hours of driving scheduled for tomorrow. My guess is that they're going to finish me up at the Richmond terminal with the expectation that I will go home for another 34. But I plan on staying in the truck and seeing if they will run me 6-7 hours on Sunday. That will leave me with 6-7 hours on Monday, and I'll be in recap starting Tuesday. We'll see how it goes.