Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

Whoops. I said week in advance. I ment 10 days in advance. I was trying to get home Friday, I sent my request in on Wednesday the week before and a reminder on Monday.

 

I usually give my home time request 3 weeks in advance. I tend to get in a loop, so I use my own brain to know when I need to remind my dm to look for my southbound load. Sometimes there's no freight headed your way, and as much as it sucks, it's part of the job. I've been out here a year now. In my 3 months otr fleet I never once made it home on time. The first time I was late by 2 days, and I lived with it. The second time it became apparent I wasn't going to make it on time so I asked my dm to postpone one week, which worked out. I've only been home 4 times, but since getting on Kraft I have always gotten home on the day I asked to be home by telling my dm at the right time and reminding him at the right time. It's a learned skill.

Another thing that takes time to learn is where the freight headed towards home comes from (if you're not in a major lane). If I got a load headed to pa, I know there's a Hershey's run headed to home for me, the same way I know atl has a nabisco load headed home for me. It takes time to learn these things, and you're just starting out Aaron.

I know it's cliche, but it gets better.

 

Please don't think that we are all "ganging up" on you guys. You are new (1-2yrs) and are still learning. Anyone who says they know it all, clearly has a closed way of thinking. I have been doing this a while, and I still learn new things, almost every day.
We are all here as wells full of knowledge and experience. just ask to dip the pail in and take what you will, just don't spit in the well, we tend to lose our calm demeanor and cheery attitude.

 

Before I get confused or anyone else posts about my hard times, lol. I am not failing, struggling, or surprised by the way things are going. It's tough to make it as a single lease/op as I am sure the lack of them on here illustrates. If you have had a preventable, I STRONGLY advise you to wait your year to ensure your habits get better and if, heaven forbid, you do slip up again, you're not stuck with making a lease plus higher insurance and a deductible work together. You put in one minor (MAJOR) event at home and you are almost assuredly going to fail! I am very good at living on bologna and planning for my home time. The one really large one hurt but surgery is not something you can work around it's just there. Then you have little things that you won't know like, hey go get a yearly inspection and maintenance for your truck ($320), followed with, "Oh, that inspection isn't covered in Utah! Get one here that covers everywhere and some more maintenance if you don't mind because we found that your windshield wipers and some fasteners on your hoses and belts just need replaced ASAP. That one was right after my big hole I dug. I ran 4,400 mile in 8 days to knock out a huge negative and still managed to get paid. You cannot depend on miles like that because sometimes you get stuck in a bad route. Running nights to deliver mornings is a pain in the butt. You can communicate all you want with night dispatch and they'll just say thanks a lot and their isn't anything I can do. Lol. Oh, and the $3,00 is definitely a goal to have in my maintenance acct, but obstacles keep getting in my way! I'm pretty even right now. The bills are paid and I'm not surviving off of bologna and canned soup. I keep pushing and I try to run smarter not harder. I've found more sleep equals better planning for me. It's also easier to maintain my sanity and flip flop my sleep patterns when I have to! Three weeks I get rid of my deductible and get my .005 raise! Lol. Stay tuned because here comes the downhill slide. I hope!!

 

Good luck to you.

 

Oh, I forgot home time. You KNOW about when you want to be home. Mention your plans, if you have any, a month or so out. Then mention them again a couple of weeks out. If they want tou to go ahead and send the request in earlier, there's a chance it'll get approved right away and you've got that much more time to be reminding them what you're trying to do. I've only had two problems getting home in almost a year. Once I was almost late for a date night with my girl (my DM saved my bacon on that one!). The other one I just rolled with it and altered our plans. Things still worked out and I had a great visit. This is definitely not a perfect world, but if that's what you're looking for, go get addicted to drugs or pop out 5-6 kids and live off us working folk. Those people always seem to have nicer shoes than me...

 

Save your money frost! If I've learned one thing better than anything else it's that the good times lead to great times lead to lean times. I've netted over 6k one month and only 3.5k the next. Save when the feast is in so you can still sleep when the downturn gets you. It's never just one thing, it's a week of slow loads, then maintenance, then home time, then trying to get back into your lane. You just need the capital to stay comfortable through the lean weeks.

 

As someone who's family lived a few months on public assistance as a child, I assure you you're better off out here. Back then brand names were for rich people, today I'm debating whether to rent or own an aircraft (just a little one, of course).

Btw, when I put my requests in 3 weeks early, they're approved within 30 minutes.

 

Baby steps! I'm getting there and I'll have everything under control about the time the wheels fall off of my truck! Lol. Once I get my one year (what's a nice name for my mistakes that won't get filtered?!) "special-trucker" free, I'm going to try to get into training. I've considered running a team but I'm the kind of person who believes in having 3 months living expenses in my pocket. If I had a partner I'd need business expenses and their paychecks in the bank before I even considered it. Last time I did the math, it was looking like about $12,000 before I felt comfortable taking the risk of trusting someone with my truck. So, although it might happen, I can for now make due on my own. If I do start running with a partner however it happens, I'll have 250K miles on the truck before my lease is up. What's the longest you guys have pushed a truck?! Also there are things about the truck I feel I should know better. Running mountains in the lowest gear to maintain speed versus relying on the jake, finding out if it's next to impossible or quite easy to overdrive a new truck (heard both out here), and ways to increase fuel economy are issues I pay a lot of attention to. I've scoured this forum and other spots on the net but it seems like mechanics are pretty close lipped about putting their knowledge out there unless you're standing in front of them with less than 30 minutes until your next appointment. Then they talk your ears off!! Lol. Anybody got good resources for increasing your knowledge base?

 

Your right Central is an OK company to get your CDL some experience and if you want to be an O/O you get financed and by your own truck, that way if you Lease onto a company and don't like it you can leave and take YOUR truck with you!

I don't see many Solo drivers post here about how great the Lease program is, its all trainers and teams, No disrespect to Lady K and Klingon but they are a team and the money is going into one bank acc and a solo probably couldn't get onto the dedicated account that they run!

I am so sick of seeing all the judgemental posts if someone says the Lease program isn't the best thing since sliced bread!

Do you guys even know who his DM is? have you walked in his shoes? No didn't think so.

I try not to judge people I don't know, as I don't know the situation ....I could assume that someone who has had a cdl for 7yrs and is still working at a starter company has no get up and go to actually become a real O/O! BUT THAT WOULD BE AN ASSUMPTION now wouldn't it!