Fresh Meat at GTI

Just had my 1st hometime. My wireless card for my laptop came in so I'll be able to update from the road now.

Outside of weekend planners being nuts.. "gee, I know you only have 1 extra hour on your clock, but could you swap loads with this guy and run 50 miles further?"... things have been good. Overall, my loaner truck runs like a champ, and they are sending me back to Salt Lake to pick up my original (supposedly fixed) rig. Gonna be hard to give up the APU, I've gotten spoiled. Due to how nice the rig and APU are, I'm thinking about swapping fleets.

Pay is ontime and accurate. Loads are decent to good. Miles are about 2300 a week so far, which I expect to get better once I'm back in the 4 axle truck. Right now the hvy division is stealing loads from the normal (3 axle) western 11 to keep me rolling. One nice thing is Cat scale tickets go directly on the company card intead of paying out of pocket and getting reimbursed.

There are the standard foolish things happening. For example: I was in Salt Lake, got a load out of Ogden (40 miles north). Fuel plan came in and wanted me to run to Ogden, get 50 gal, grab load, return to Salt Lake to fill, then return to Ogden to head east. 80 miles r/t out of route for fuel, during rush hour. So much for trusting a computer to figure fueling..... talked to the planner and got it fixed, no problem. Often the computer planner will run you thru small towns and cities on 2 lane highways (speed limit 25mph!) to save 20 miles, instead of leaving you on the big roads to save time and fuel. I've gone out of route a couple of times to avoid this with no negative feedback from the desk jockeys.

So I guess my only negative so far on the company is that they trust their computers too much instead of using the grey matter between their ears. Any tool is only as good as the person using it.

 

That's good to know. Still figuring out how things work here. Flew down to Salt Lake to get my normal truck back, but discovered they hadn't fixed the real problem. Mind you, they did make it a lot better, but the primary problem still persists ( loss of power on hills, check engine light).

All told, I think I've found a trucking home.

 

Nope... didn't know they were on facebook.

 

well, I tried running rollover hours... what an un-mitigated disaster... lol. Just doesn't work on the runs they assign me. From here on out it's run hard and reset.

 

still on paper logs.

 

Grrrr.... injured heel tendon. 5 day vacation... Guess I'll have to file L & I. I hate paperwork.