BD69: The Owner Operator Chronicles

So, how did we get here? Well, for the most part, I've pretty well covered that in two previous threads. Look them up if you want to with this warning beforehand. One is a little lengthy. There other would make Tolstoy shake his head in disbelief...that sucker went well past 400 pages and is still growing. So, they may take a little time to work through.

Anyhow, from the day I started CDL school, I was interested in owning my own truck. After the obligatory first job with a mega, I figured out a few things. One, I didn't fit in with a cooperate culture, such as it was. Two, I didn't know jack squat about the business of trucking. Three, I could drive...when given a truck that would run more than a week at a time.

So I found me a small flatbed company and went to work there. This ended up being the best thing that could have happened to me at that point. No more step by step routing. No more fuel solutions and daily, direct interactions with shippers, receivers and brokers. For about 7 months I ran like the devil himself was after me and built up a core network of shippers and brokers that knew me and knew I'd get it there safely and on time. Then I ruptured my Achilles tendon. Not fun, but it opened up an opportunity to come inside to dispatch and load plan. Invaluable. An education on the business side of trucking not many drivers get. During the time it took me to heal up, the owner tried turning me into an Operations Manager, but I had other ideas and ambitions, so as he gradually began shifting the freight focus into the Northeast, I began to plan my exit...

And what a bloody mess I made of that. I suppose every career has a misstep here or there but I blindly walked off a cliff. I had been talking with a person, a member of this forum, about what I wanted and where I wanted my career to go and over the course of a couple of months, I got sucked into a horrible situation. It ended up being a painful and humiliating lesson.

@bzinger had been running a thread I had been lurking in and had seemed to find a really outstanding company with only one drawback...they were a reefer outfit and I was very much content working open deck. But the more I read the more I liked what I saw, so I started looking into the company, Morehouse, through other avenues. Long story short, I ended up there as a company guy.

Periodically, they put trucks up for sale and I let one of the owners know that when trucks came available, I'd like to talk business. Well, none were at the time but he still talked with me for nearly an hour about how they worked it out and I simply had a hard time believing the terms he was discussing. Until I spoke with some other guys buying trucks.

Fast forward two weeks and the guy who coordinates the sale of trucks grabs me and says there may actually be a truck available, was I interested? Well, he'll yeah I was. Took a couple months to make it happen, but last Thursday I plunked down my down payment, did a boatload of paperwork and took over my truck. A 2012 Kenworth T660 with about 100k on a fresh inflame.

So, I thought I'd start a thread so anyone thinking of doing the same thing might get some idea about what lay in front of them. I'll post the good, the bad and the ugly...it's always kind of funny reading about someone's goofs, and I'm known to make some doozies from time to time.

So it begins...

 

Scooter, you're to much...and you have the best meme generator ever.

 

$39,000.

 

To bring everything current, I have run two loads so far. Ran the first one on Midwest winter blend for 6.42 mpg. Second. 4k heavier on Southern diesel for 6.95 but dealt with some wind on the second day that I think clipped me a bit. The load I have on now is very heavy, by van standards and will involve some mountain work. Ought to be interesting.