Ashley Furniture? Good company?

Well made it to ECRU, did 590 Mon, 608 Tuesday, and going to advance Wednesday 5900 in weight 614 pay miles, it will be close but going to try and make, last time last week, I ran out at ex 174 and parked at the shell station by the overpass about 8 miles form Advance. But I take the long way from Ecru to avoid Atlanta and all the mess between there and Advance, I-40 threw the smokey s.

Must be at least 100 loaded trls waiting to be picked up for delivery here at Ecru.

 

Well made it to Advance in one day going up and over and threw the Smokeys, had 7 mins to spare for driving, then got dispatched to Cherryville NC, Pepsi drop and hook, then-to Granite Falls NC, then drop and hook at Richmond VA, home store-now dead-head back to Advance to pu my home load to Brandon Fl.

Will be in Advance this morning about 11 am.



3125 miles this week and 6 d/h =$1383.12, will be home late morning this Saturday.

 

well after sitting till 1300 waiting on the load out of leesport they ran the #### out of me the rest of the week.

ended up with 3265 with 6 drops and one stop. what a difference a week makes.

got lucky and didn't get stuck in the loop out of leesport. up to Syracuse then Elmira heights to Allentown, Allentown to leesport and leesport to advance. back out of advance to Chattanooga then deadhead to ecru and ecru home.

got lucky a couple of times this week. dodged a DOT party at the rest area on 86 coming out of Elmira heights. both sides everybody in and as I was hitting the ramp one was pulling out so I had to take the spot. guy just sits there in his SUV in the heat. couple of minutes go by and he's still sitting there but I'm not getting out and walking to him going to make him come to me lol. few more minutes go by finally a trash hauler pulls in and takes the spot next to me which wasn't even a parking lane at all. mr DOT guy finally gets out of the SUV walks over and I've got all my stuff ready and roll down the window to hand it to him and he says 'you can go ahead and go Ashley. we're looking for equipment violations and I'm pretty sure you don't have any....but this guy I'm not so sure about. have a good day' lol said yes sir and rolled didn't even give him a chance to change his mind. not that I had anything to worry about but I've had enough of my time wasted this week didn't want to tie up another 30-45 for a clean inspection.

the backhaul from Allentown to leesport I was in a hurry to get because of a short clock coming back. never a good thing to get in a hurry. picked the wrong route into penn foam in Allentown. really tight narrow turn going in and when I got there had to do 3 trailer moves to get my load out and my empty dropped. I knew when I made the left coming in that the right going back out was going to be a #####. went ahead and slid my tandems all the way up. just on a side note to this one actually had to justify the management drop and go back and forth between dispatch and Helen to get it. first time I've had to do that they usually just offer it but I wasn't letting this one go. 3 trailer moves to get one? yeah, I'm getting that drop. in the end Helen approved it. anyway......coming out I got back to the right turn back out to the highway and it's time for school to get out. billions of cars. nothing frustrates me more than being in town anywhere in Pa off the highway. whoever decided it would be a good idea to put light poles right out on the edge of every corner should be hung from one of them. the route I took I was going to have to block the entire left turn lane at the intersection to swing the right back to the highway. a mile of cars piled up behind me coming from the school and my trailer wasn't even clear of the left turn lane and they ALL start squirting around my left into the left turn lane. #### #### ####. I was screwed at that point. did the best swing I could do given the traffic and it wasn't enough. I knew how much I had on my right and sure enough about 1/2 way down the trailer was as far as I got before the light pole is right there. I stopped well before I touched it and still way off the curb but I'm still committed halfway into the intersection and the turn and stuck with about 3 inches between the light pole and the side of my trailer. I'd been in this situation once before very early on and guess I forgot the lesson it taught me. patience and just sit still in the lane until I've got what I need instead of trying to force a bad position. the short clock made me forget what I learned before and I pushed a bad position and now was stuck. couldn't go back, couldn't go forward. only by the grace of someone somewhere the first 4 or 5 of opposing traffic in the direction I was going went when the light turned and the 2 in each lane 4th or 5th back had something between their ears and were paying attention and hung back in both lanes and held traffic and gave me the luxury of both opposing lanes to straighten it out, go way into their lanes and clear the pole and come out. last time that happened the 4 wheelers just kept piling in and it didn't work out so well lol

lesson learned. for the second time. and the last. a good measure of arrogant confidence is a good thing in this business but it must be tempered with a lot of patience, a little humility and knowing your limits as well lol the short clock I was on overloaded my humility and patience with too much confidence and arrogance and it almost bit me. I knew better than to try that turn without the full use of the entire left turn lane but tried it anyway because of the short clock and the pressure of traffic behind me. at least I do have very good spatial awareness and know how long my truck is and knew I exactly when i was screwed and when to stop before I bent or broke anything lol that one won't ever happen again.

and only after I got back to leesport and replayed the thing over in my head 100 times and took another look at the map did I see what SHOULD have been the route I SHOULD have taken in there as opposed to the hurry up route I figured and took. as it is, no harm, no foul, nothing broken or scratched or bruised except my ego lol. To slap my ego even more, figuring the correct route I should have taken in there, instead of running 3.5 miles off the big road through a school zone in school traffic and making 2 almost impossible turns, I could have only gone 3/4 mile and made 3 wide turns to get there lol DOH as homer would say

I put things like that out there because as a former trainer and knowing that so many newbies and wannabes read these forums, it makes for a teachable moment, even more so as the outcome was positive when it could have been ugly. the moral to the story and the lesson it took 2 times over 3+ years to learn is patience, grasshopper. patience. don't let pressure of any kind, self-imposed or from the traffic around you, make you push a bad position. if you find yourself in a situation like that, wait. wait as long as you have to until you've got the room to make the maneuver you need to make. and I always do, except for this time, even when I knew better. patience to properly trip plan instead of doing a quicky because you're overconfident in your abilities and running a short clock......and even more so when it's a place you've never been to before. the pressure in this case was not from the traffic around me as much as self-imposed because my clock was only short to get back to leesport and shut down so I could start the next day with a fresh clock. I had more than enough time to get out of there and make it to the trexler or the bandit and shut down there. but that would have meant starting my clock and then not knowing my load out of leesport so I had target fixation on leesport and getting there before I ran out of time.

rest of the week was wide open and uneventful.

planned out to Ocala for Monday 1800 drop. blew my sunday reset only getting in at 1100 this morning. doesn't take them more than a week or so to blow my reset/schedule once I get on one I like lol but i'll get it back where I want it after the holiday.

 

If you have been to Ocala, you know its a Swift drop yard, not to bad our trailers have been in the back west corner, last time I was there, good roads in an out-

I am going to bet, you are going to Brandon drop yard to pu a Pepsi back haul to Columbia SC, on Monday----

They have me shuttling a load from Pepsi to the Brandon yard early Monday morning, before I pick my load up from there to SC.

 

I haven't read much but I was curious, are you guys home on weekends? And do they hire TL out of Richmond now? At one point I know they only hired LTL guys outta there

 

Far as I know only LTL out of Richmond. The only loads we're running up there to drop running out of that yard are LTL loads.

 

that penn foam place sucks. I get off 78 onto lehigh st heading south, turn left onto 31st, turn left onto w emaus ave and then turn left onto 26th heading into penn foam. and when I leave I turn left onto w emaus ave turn left onto s 12th st than a left onto downeyflake rd take that and turn left onto Lehigh st. that way all you end up doing is lefts into and out of penn foam.

 

Yeah I know that now after the fact lol

i went one more exit up. Then came down the hill and had to make that turn at the intersection at the bottom into emaus. Bad going in, impossible going out.

The peoplenet showed no road there off of Lehigh. (Downyflake) I think I have a previous version of peoplenet/maps than what we trained on. It also doesn't show the 30 minute break clock. I have to really watch and keep track of it so I don't go over the 8. My rand showed the road but said not a good road. That's why I went in the way I did. Google earth after the fact showed which way I should have gone.

you can bet I go in there again it's off of Lehigh lol

 

YEP, just LtL from that Swift Yard in Richmond

But I was talking to Betty, she is one of the big truck boss's , if u do qualifie to work for Ashley they will let u move to a different location, to fill a need, I will post the latest openings tomorrow morning. But if you do apply, and are willing to move-u have to let them know when you fill out the application.


When I talk to Betty 2 weeks ago, she offered to let me transfer from Brandon Fl to Bangor Maine, when she found out I was from there. LOL

On the same note they will let you live up to 100 miles from the location in need, last I was told.

And yes we are home for the most part on Saturday and Sunday, it doe's depend on your location and how you run.

 

Sounds like u need a few updates, call into dispatch and ask to speak to Patrick, he is a 30 yr Ashley driver, and he is in charge of the Peoplenet, real good guy-he will see what's up with your system.

Also I tell everyone, not to rely on those maps, if the people in the planning dept, do not put in the address it will map you to center zip code only, and I have seen it map me to a center of a neighbor hood, I still use the Truckers Rand "7" and the auto "5" Garmin with free Auto traffic, then I just let Peoplenet display my numbers hours etc.

I will let Peoplenet display the map when I get closer, it does a nice job showing side streets, but I run all 3 on different settings and zooms.