Valley Bulk/Washington, PA

The trailer is an 07' although it doesn't show it, it's hard to keep them clean with what we haul. I'm finally getting the hang of it, I've ran pneumatics before coming here, the difference being I've never been properly trained on them prior to coming here. What I thought was working I learned quickly wasn't the right way of doing things, after a major malfunction and plugging the hell out of this thing my boss took me to the side and showed me how to correctly unload, since then I've had zero issues.

 

I think it's hwy 119 out of Uniontown PA, maybe it's 40 I'm not sure, that has posted 13% grades on them, talk about a hill, I about #### my britches when I went over that thank god I was empty.

 

So my 5th week is in the books, still very busy. My birthday was yesterday, Oct. 6th and while riding down the road to get loaded my phone rings and it's our front office lady calling to wish me a happy birthday. This is a family run business and she is the sister of John, the owner of the company, a simple gesture like this goes a long way in my book and actually makes me feel like part of the family. And to top things off, attached to my paycheck today was a birthday card with 50$ cash inside signed by everyone in the office. I don't know how to act being treated like a valuable asset to this company, I thought respect from emloyer to employee only existed in my dreams.

 

Really no difference. I worked for CCC in Brooksville back in 04' and seem to remember that they would not let us pump off over 10 pounds or so, up here we regularly pump off at 15. We do loads from down south and transfer them up to a facility in north PA where they have 6 spots to unload, 3 in the front of the facility and 3 in the back. What's weird is you're pushing product with 2 other trucks and if they're pushing 20 pounds they will essentially push product back into your trailer and plug you up, how do I know this you ask? It happened to me a few weeks ago before they fixed my pop off valve, it was going off at 11 pounds and these guys were pushing 18 pounds and it made for one hell of a mess.

The only real difference here is the places we go, coal mines are on some of the smallest, hilliest, steepest grade roads I've ever seen in my life. The experience I'll gain over the next year will be in-valuable over the course of my career.