KLLM Driving Academy (Lancaster, TX)

You are lucky you did not get fired and possibly billed for a replacement unit. Property damage etc.

There is always a telephone, use your cell and call in to your ST dispatcher, get it sorted. Don't sit there mad. You could have gotten out of that tractor into another in 30 minutes with a working QC. No need to wait several days losing everyone money.

 

I heard it's better. I wanted to go FFE, but they only had a few openings at the time. A few of my friends got to do it. They were doing line haul, making more money than me running OTR.

 

If you really want to get into FFE ST, do it as a trainer. It takes about 7 Officers to sign you off and approve you in essentially all departments. Once you have that and are a trainer, it becomes a salary that pretty much makes all your current and previous OTR stresses go away. You get recruits. Some can drive and some cannot. All need polishing according to the bible you will be handed for them with coursework and so on. After two months your recruit will be tested extensively for approval to hire into his own assigned truck.

It does not matter if you made 20 miles or 20,000 miles each week on salary anymore. It's all about the recruit.

 

I made sure I used the van after that. But that was a year ago during training.

 

I think actually that's pretty awesome. Walking to one. It's epic.

Are they still working on that freaking 35 in construction there?

 

I was in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. About 20 miles from the nearest interstate. I don't think I even had phone service where I was at. Nothing but small and narrow, shoulderless highway.

 

I hear you. I'll modify my statement to say that if you see something going sideways with your dispatcher on a load, call it in. Im pretty sure your DM is your advocate and will fight for you on your behalf.

I'll tell you something about ST dispatch back in the day. I had words with memphis Dispatch one day going over a particularly prickly load that they wanted to put me on and memphis dispatcher was essentially drained of all information and it was not resolved enough to our satisfaction. I called Lancaster from Memphis, hear ST, tell them I need this information and click... I hear the memphis dispatcher answer the phone to me from the same room I was in... we lost it laughing. You had to be there. It is what it is.

 

LOL that is funny. And thanks for the advice.

 

Company side??

 

Yes, company side. I made almost $1,200 one week. But usually I made about $600 to $800 a week. My friend on FFE side has made up to $1,600 in a week.