Good Night From II

Mine was always on the low side of normal when I was younger, too.

I guess the extra pressure in the eye blood vessels can help make vision blurry.
My eyes were better than 20/20 for most of my life, up until the past 6 years or so. Then they got just bad enough to make me get glasses, mainly for reading and night vision.
My night vision is much better now, but I still need the glasses for reading anything small.

I turn 59 in a few days, so I am getting up there.

 

I'm at the J in Gulfport, MS.

I had a nice easy day. A straight day of driving, doing 600 miles in just under 11.5 hours.
200 miles to go, starting at 0400 tomorrow for a 0800 delivery.

 

At a Loves in Encinal TX about 20 miles north of Laredo. Thought I'd make the terminal today to get my trailer inspected before dropping at the brokers in the morning but lost my extra time crawling due to an accident on I-10. I have 9 mins left on my 70.

Mac30 has been nada for the last 4 hours that I've been checking. Pretty good day overall though.

 

Following up on platinum status, my first trainee got there 3 months after going solo and then mentoring and teaming with his wife. On time percentage needs to be 99.5% or better, no preventable accidents, and a minimum miles per month. You can find exactly what the requirements are but going to the Swift driver portal online or to a kiosk and looking it up. It's split out by which fleet you are on.

Yesterday the JV DM's broadcast Qualcomm messages noting in order to have home time for Christmas we MUST stay 11 western. They then t-called our Laredo load in Phoenix, then immediately t-called it in El Paso.

Last night my trainee only got to Eloy, AZ from LA. He failed to wake up 45 minutes before our 10 was up to get ready to start a pretrip right when the 10 was up, so I logged active, did the pretrip, and drove into New Mexico to take a 30 and asked if he was ready to drive.

"Oh yes!"

Then he took 40 minutes to get back to the truck. I didn't want to waste an entire hour with him fiddly farting around, so I continued to drive while he got himself sorted out. I reopted our fuel and stopped at the Love's at the Texas border and called my DM to see what to do regarding all the eastbound load offers I'd received while I drove. We made the decision I should drive it out to El Paso so my trainee would have fresh clock if anything came up. I decided to go on the scenic bypass with the 8% grades with the beer load to demonstrate the finer points of shifting and jake strategy.

He never once mentioned he wanted to drive or got up during the initial 5 hour run. His problem not waking up is he doesn't get to the bunk on a 10 for 3-4 hours, then sleeps right on through his alarm.

 

El Paso has a LOT of loads...

... ALL of them heading east...

 

No real benefit per se, more like opportunity. If you're the only one in an area with the endorsement than you get the load. I was deadheaded across an entire state to P/U a hazmat once simply because no one else was around. That being said, I'd say hazmat is only about 1/10th of the loads I do. You get an extra $35 for the load but many feel the cost of the endorsement plus the extra tasks and rules involved aren't worth it.

Load assignments are generally done by planners in different areas of the country. Your DM, the vast majority of the time, would not be assigning your loads so I don't think calling them will do much good as far as a hazmat. It's just location and timing.

Your husband needs to have a chat with his DM so both can clarify what each's expectations are. You should not be sitting, especially this time of year. If within several hours of your final you don't have another load I'd be calling your DM telling him. Not all DMs are great and if you continue to have issues there are steps you can take to change DMs or your home terminal. As you get used to the Swift way of doing things manageing your time well will keep you from having to do 34-resets on the road and endure more sitting. The longer you're with Swift the more you'll learn to save time and effort and make money. My first few solo months were rough but I'm very comfortable now.

 

Darn Lepton!! I have a feeling from all you've described that this person will not make it long term and that quite possibly all your efforts will be for nothing and with no return on your "investment".

I am so not impressed with this trainee and his complete lack of commitment. He acts like he's on some kind of scenic cruise on wheels.

 

We were very happy with Swift when he was working on dedicated Walmart for 4 years. His DM was awesome and the terminal manager was really great. He ended up being a personal friend. I don't think he has had a 34 reset....used to on dedicated, but he is on the 8 day thing (if I have the terminology correct). I think part of the issue is technology and working for a huge corp. We were bull haulers and owned our own trucks, so there is a little bit of a learning curve. DOT has changed significantly as well....even the last year. I have learned more on this forum on ways to do things that he did during the orientation. People have been kind enough to share their wisdom. Thanks!

 

i agree houstank. but lipton trainee will be short term. the way he is showing his ability to drive, he'll have toooo many service failures. lipton needs to give this guy a reality check. a big kick in the rear wont hurt either lol

 

Well, so far we've discussed and ruled out any possibility of running JIT loads. Can't do high value loads either, because that would require him to run 200 miles continuously. Forget about really long multi-day loads that might require him to put in more than 8 hours of driving in a 12 hour shift.

Let's see, that leaves us with... dregs.