New to tanker driving; starting soon...

The wife tells me I already got the letter from the TSA saying they'll tell the DMV they can send me my license with the endorsement on it. That was fast. Probably faster than the DMV will be if I had to guess...

I guess I already feel better about winter than three months ago. All the more so now that I'm switching jobs; I wasn't looking forward to the possibility of mountains with the weather that makes chains necessary (I've used them a couple times in the past, but you know, still getting used to the sloshing). But now I'll be running around mostly the red river valley. Not much in the way of hills or curvy roads there... (manager guy said their trucks don't carry chains).

 

Finished two days of ride alongs and a day of office time this week. Saw the truck I'll be driving, I guess I'll be in a daycab (not so bad), a couple year old t-880 (twin stacks and a cow catcher, so it doesn't look too bad).

Went through the process of loading three times at two different terminals; pumped off two of those loads and gravity dropped the last one. I'm glad I spent a little time with the food grade, it's less overwhelming. The loading terminals seem unnecessarily confusing at the point of punching the info in; every product seems to have a random letter or two or three to describe it rather than just say what it is. Overall, I about feel like I can figure most of it out. The variety of gas stations, farmers, gravel pits, and other random rural industrial offloads will keep it interesting.

Now I get a three day weekend and will be driving my own truck on Tuesday after hitching a ride to where it is. Looking forward to that; guy I rode with has an older w900 daycab, I did not fit in the passenger seat very well (the office was also struggling to find me safety stuff to wear that fits me; "here, try on this lab coat; it's supposed to go to your knees" ...."hey, this is a good work shirt fit!").

It's been a little better training experience than from the last job so far, little more thorough. I am kind of hoping I'll go through unloading another once or twice with someone who knows what they're doing there, but there are friendly drivers I can call who've been with this place about forever. I know I'll have someone else around for a lot more loadings, before I get my own credential cards to all the different sites in the area.

I don't think the DMV was going to send my license until I called and asked them where it was, which I did this week. The lady at the TSA office said sometimes they're like that, looks like she was right. Seems I'm good to roll with my paper license and the letter from the TSA though, until the real one gets here.

Right now, the clock reads beer thirty...