Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Three hours later. That’s some break.

 

I know how you feel. Where I work we get paid CPM when driving and it switches to hourly pay when delivering or picking up. Its a no touch operation so the shippers and receivers are supposed to do all the loading and unloading. Occasionally I get a receiver that just drags their feet while unloading and I can't help jumping in and helping get the job done quicker. My manager has even told me that if I help them unload faster then I am losing out on the hourly rate, but I just cant stand sitting around watching time drag. I would rather lose out on a few dollars, get it done quicker and go home.

I guess I still have the OTR/CPM, (more you hustle, more you get paid) bug.

 

Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

 

EXACTLY!!!!! I don’t live/love to work. I work because the bills demand it. And, if I make enough for them to be paid and have plenty left over (by my standards-I know everyone’s standards are different) by only working X amount of hours, then I work those hours and am ready to go home. Screw being gone 13-15 hours a day. If I’m going to be gone that much, then I shouldn’t have been taken out of the OTR game (again, not MY choice).

 

Can any of you tell me how the mattress are in the trucks for teams?
Are they pretty comfy or do you recommend memory foam toppers?

Is there a GPS supplied in the truck for navigation or do we need to supply our own?

 

You’ll probably want to get your own. Volvos don’t have mattresses in them (or at least up to the 2016 models). I personally don’t sleep on a mattress that isn’t mine. Just a preference. People are nasty.

As for gps, there is one built in, but not always reliable. I believe most folks end up getting their own.

 

I got to tell ya, best thing about living this close to the terminal especially when my reload goes right back by my parents house, is Mom meeting me and giving me left overs from tonight's dinner. Homemade lasagna.. mmmmmmm I love you Mom. Tell Dad I said thanks. Sincerely, one happy kid looking forward to my 10hr break.

 

The Qualcomm unit we use to send messages back and forth to dispatch and get load assignments and monitor our hours of service and so forth has a GPS built in. It's kinda lame. Mine is way out of date. There are highways it doesn't know about, so it may route you down a much longer and/or more obnoxious route because it doesn't know about the freeway they finished four years ago. Typing in an address is also a pain.

My life changed immeasurably for the better when I got a modern, up-to-date trucker GPS and got to relegate the Qualcomm to strictly secretarial duties.

 

I see Nick’s BBQ has grown a bit in the last couple years... yummy!!!

 

And that is the exact reason OTR will never, should never go hourly... the cost of babysitting adults on the job would be too high... no incentive to actually “move frieght”... some people work twice as hard to not do anything.