Well, in 2 weeks my year of solo driving at USA will be over, and with that, so will my employment with them. My year in review...
Trucks... Never had too many problems with the 2 trucks I had. First one was an old trainer truck with 380k miles on it. Ran it to 510k and ruined the drivetrain, they had me back in a different truck within 8 hours(since I was only 4 miles away from Spartansburg). The second truck broke down in Sealy, TX with an bad EGR valve, of course it happened on a Friday night with the Cummins place not opening until Monday am, I was stuck in a hotel for 5 nights total, only being payed for 2 nights breakdown pay.
Miles.... What can I say, if you like to run, then this is the company for you. I averaged really close to 3k weekly miles, with the exception of the breakdown in Sealy and hometime weeks. I would stay out 5 weeks at a time, then go home for 5 days. Got a good mix of short and long runs(love those Laredo runs).
Dispatch... Weekend and night dispatch sucked, probably true of most big companies. It helps to have your dispatchers direct line#, that way you don't get put into the holding que calling the main #. My dispatcher always treated me fairly, and if I requested a run to a certain area, i.e. California or whatnot, he was usually able to do it.
Tickets... 3 tickets within my first 3 months solo, speeding (68 in a 55 - downhill with 42k in the box), logbook not current (I hate Mississippi, he was standing outside in pouring rain right next to the scale waiting for me to pull up to check it), and an overweight in TN (yes I got lazy and didn't scale the 45k load. Been clean since then.
Logs... I'll just say I ran how i needed to do deliver a load on time. Never been late except for being broke down.
For the most part, I enjoyed my time at USA. Yes, the 500-1000 mile Friday pickups that can't deliver until Monday AM kinda suck when they don't let you drop em, sure it's hard to get through to dispatch sometimes on the weekends, but all in all, getting into USA to earn my wings wasn't all that bad. Hell, I would even stick around after my year if I wasn't going to play in the fun and sun in California for 3 months chasing gold. Who knows, I may even come back in September and try to get back on with them again, although I would really like to get into a company that does coast to coast runs. If anyone knows of a decent company that does so, don't be shy to message me and let me know.
My Year at USA
Discussion in 'USA Truck' started by Blues_Dad, Jun 15, 2008.
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