From School to Superior Carriers

You just hang in there OK. God doesn't throw anything at you that you can't handle.....With Him. When you start thinking everyone has forgotten know that my family is praying for you.

 

12/29-1/2/09

My load up to N Chicago went well. No problem with weather. It was quite warm through the mountains on Monday. I got about an hour N of Indianapolis by 9:30 PM and took a long break since I was only 140 miles away and wasn't scheduled until noon. Headed out about 9:30 the next morning and arrived at the customer about an hour early.

They took me right in and I was thinking this was going to work out great. I dropped my empty hooked up to the loaded one and pulled it out of the building. I dropped it, hooked to the empty and had it positioned in front of the building to spot it when they told me they wanted to hose down the building before I could spot it. An hour later they let me spot it. Wound up taking 2 hours to do the drop and hook trailer switch but at least I was on my way by 1300 and ahead of the Chicago traffic, or so I thought. Turns out it was pot hole repair day. I ran across 3 spots where 3-4 lanes were reduced down to 1-2. It took me 3.5 hours to go 60 miles. Turns out that was a blessing because I was able to put down a 2 hour traffic delay adding some money to my check this week.

I got home Wednesday 12/31 by about 7:00 PM. Turns out there is no freight so I don't go back out until Tuesday 1/6. At least I get holiday pay for Jan 1 so this check won't be too bad.

It is nice to have so much home time with my son out of school. I even managed to score him a ticket to the Panther playoff game next week so the whole family can go.

 

No I like OTR. This company is real good about home time. My first year has been a good mix of dedicated and system runs. If I need to be home they let me. If I was having to stay out 2-3 weeks it would be different. My son is 14 so its not as big a deal for me to not be there. I can count on 1 hand the number of weekends I have been out on the road.

The only thing that would make me look elsewhere is if the miles don't pick up as we move into the spring. The system is really dead right now. I only worked 3 days this week and it looks like I won't getmuch next week either. They have me planned on about a 900 mile run out and back leaving Tuesday. I have been home 5 days and its only been 1 run a week for the last month.

The bright side of that is even with all the home time I have been grossing more than the $500 a week training pay I was making last year. That was averaging 50 hours a week in 5 days. If it picks up I should be able to make more this year than last. I grossed about 47K for 2008 with 6 weeks of training pay to start the year.

 

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