May Trucking, My Newbie Adventure begins

Apparantly three inches of snow on the ground is reason to not show up for work. That's what happened at the Henderson, North Carolina Walmart Dist Center. 34 employees called in, sdo when I showed up two hours early for my 2:45 PM appt on Monday, they were still unloading the last night's trucks. They finally got to me about 6 pm, and was done by 6:45. Exactly 4 hours after my appt. At may, you qualify for detention pay only after 4 hours after appt. time. so i waited the four, and no detention pay, oh well, at least i can move on. next dispatch is in mountain home, nc. gotta get there monday night, because i need 10 off before my noon appt on tuesday. then i was to deliver in louisville, ky at ten that night, no room for error on this one.

well, of course, there was an error. shipper said my appt wasn't till 4:45pm. i said no, it's at noon, gotta be in louisville by 10pm. of course, shippers don't care about drivers, said they'd get to me when they could. 5 hours later, i am finally loaded and had to go scale. took two re-weighs to get it right, but at least i'm legal. now i head off with only 6 hours to do an 8 hour drive, plus i gotta fuel in knoxsville, tn.

needless to say i show up late, also no thanks to the lousy directions sent via quallcomm. (i have started sending in updates to May for their bad directions to shippers and receivers, let's hope they actually use them.)

Consignee says no dice, i'm late have to reschedule. At this point I have exactly 35 minutes left on my 14 to get to the nearest truck stop.

Made it to a pilot down the road in simpsonville, and no, I didn't see bart or homer. In the AM, today, finally get an updated delivery time. tonight at 9pm. They made me wait 23 hours cause i was 2 hours late. Can we ever penalize shippers and receivers for being late? as they always seem to be? That's a whole other issue. Don't even get me started.

So, now I'm still at the Pilot, waiting to leave at 8pm for the consignee. Then I'm straight off to Cincinnati to pick up by midnight. Then off to Goddard, Kansas by Friday morning the 31st at 8am. Did the math and the route calculatuions and it can be done, as long as nothing else goes wrong. Like getting delayed at the consignee again tonight. We'll see! This next trip leaves no room for error. And as i'm discovering, errors are rampant in the trucking industry.

Gotta love it. We'll see if it all works out.

On a side note, My battery box door won't stay shut. Thanks to a driver in NC for giving me a shout about it flopping in the wind on the radio, i was able to get it strapped down with a bungee till i can get to a terminal. need new batteries, can't even run the bunk heater at night without getting up 3 or four times to start engine. oh the woes of a used truck. otherwise truck runs fine since breakdown.

good luck all, and happy new year. will post again soon.

the adventure continues....

clutch

 

Clutch here again, with helpful advice on adding storage without screwing anything to the truck.

I like to keep the upper bunk folded up, so I don't feel so trapped in, plus, was tired of wacking my head on it. I found a great way to add storage while keeping that bunk folded.

I bought four shower caddys from home depot. And four wire baskets from walmart. I folded (or bent) the top part of the shower caddy that hangs on the shower pipe, and bent it over and down, so that it would tuck behind the folded bunk. then the rest hangs over the front. Now shower caddys don't have enough storage in their little bins, but this one had two little hooks on the bottom, I bent them just a little bit, and was able to hang the wire baskets from there. strap down with some bungees to the bottom part of the folded bunk, and viola! extra storage, up and out of your way. plus you can move them to your next company truck easily and quickly.

also, every driver needs one of these. if you're solo, that area by the passenger seat goes to waste. i bought a three drawer plastc rolling shelf unit from walmart, a big 15 bucks i think, that slides right in between the dash, and passenger seat at an angle. i can reach it easily from the drivers seat. the top drawer is for all of my snacks and cigarrettes. the middle has my notebooks, truck stop guide, clorox wipes (handy for quick hand clean-up), and flashlight. bottom drawer has my window cleaner, phone charger, laptop charger, and many other small loose items i didn't know what else to do with, but wanted access to easily, instead of storing under the bunk. the best part it, my qualcomm sits perfectly on top. and due to it's rubber side grips, doesn't slide around. that way i have easy access to it, it's off the floor, and with it right in front of me, i'm better at remembering to change status as it happens.

I'll try to post pictures of all of this soon, just running out of time tonight.

these couple of things have made life in the truck much better.

more to come....

clutch

 

Ok, I'm trying to upload the pix. Let's see if it worked.