USX drivers...how's your day??

Sitting in Laredo waiting for a load up through Dallas to drop off this student and pick up another. Got some awesome miles this week. Atlanta to Columbus to Chicago to L.A. to Atlanta to Laredo. Meanwhile my trainee's gf and future team mate is frustrated because her trainer doesn't want to run at all.

 

I'm down in Laredo, too Vince. Where are you, in the yard or at the TS?

 

Well son of a gun,so am I. Trucks gotta go to Freightliner in the morning so it lools like ill be here for a few. Oh well,need a reset anyways They ever gonna get the washer fixed?

 

Truck wash? What's that?

94000 miles on the "new" truck, its been washed once.

They need to get a better system.

 

It's too bad they don't have an account with Blue Beacon & let everyone wash every 3 weeks or so. More in the winter with all the salt/sand on the roads. Even the trailers would benefit from that. I've seen some real nasty ones that I didn't even want to touch anything on!

 

Its my understanding that they did let the drivers wash at the Beacon prior to when I came to work here. It certainly would be much more convenient for us because we're there regularly anyways getting trailers washed out and they offer a discount on the tractor when you get a trailer washout.

I'm not used to riding around in a filthy truck, at my last company my truck was washed at least every other week.

 

Yep. At the other company I worked for, we hauled reefers so we were there almost daily getting a washout. When we would get the truck washed, my trainer would mark the date with a dry erase marker on her vent window so we would know when it was time for another truck wash. Our truck was a VERY old (05) Freightliner, but at least the outside was clean. Can't say the inside ever was, though. Or her for that matter!

As for the present--I am in the final stages of closing this office down. Sending all the paperwork to the home office and getting things finalized for the last days. The office has to be vacated by the end of March, but my boss said if I need to go earlier, so be it. Talked with unemployment about how much my weekly payment would be & was shocked. I shouldn't have been though, since I was basically working for peanuts at the 1st trucking company I was with and taking the per diem at USX affected my pay so unemployment is pretty much a joke for me this time!!!! So, called USX about coming back. Recruiter said should not be any issues, but will see. They are running my license & whatever else they supposedly do before you get there. I am going to call them again today to see what's up. Maybe I should talk to Scarlett just to be sure. I actually missed being on the road (shhhh...don't tell my husband! ) So, maybe I'll be seeing y'all soon.

 

Used to be able to go to Blue Beacon every six weeks and then it went to 8 weeks and then terminals only. Saves over a million dollars a year but the trucks sure look bad.

 

I made a post here a few days ago and I guess it got lost. Dropped of my student but my next one ended up going home sick. That's a shame because he only had 55 hours left. Oh well.

Since then I've been cobbling together hours to make these runs. Made for a couple late runs because they couldn't find repowers, but I did what I could on my end.

Right now I'm sitting about 15 minutes from my delivery but my appointment isn't until 1330 tomorrow. After that I should be heading toward home. I'm all set up for it since I'm on I-75 a little north of Dayton. Hopefully they'll find me something headed straight back down. My guess is from here back down to Atlanta then down to Florida.

 

Hopefully everyone is keeping busy. We haven't really noticed our miles picking up yet, but the loads are starting to line up a little better which is a good sign. Getting preplans that hold up a day before you deliver the previous load is always awesome.
Recent trips for us include:

Oxnard, CA to Tomah, WI
Bolingbrook, IL to Sumner, WA
Tieton, WA to Indianapolis, IN
Anderson, IN to Mira Loma, CA

Today we loaded in Yuma, AZ going to Annapolis Junction, MD. From there they will have to figure out how to get us to Michigan for home time on Friday.

Also had a nice talk with my former boss, so a change may be coming up for us if he can speak my language.

$$$$$

We'll see...