Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

That other 50% can be annoying though, sometimes.

For example, today:

Wanted to start day driving at 0600, but had to knock on 4 tard-parked trucks to get 4 drivers to move so that I could get my legally parked truck out without trading paint.

Started rolling at 0700.

No preplan. Called company at 0900.

One possible load. Live unload. Impossible for me to legally make delivery time.

Load found for me at 1000. Downtown Chicago pickup. Been there before. Not happy, and I know what I am in for. Accept load anyway.

Arrived and dropped at receiver at 1100.

First empty I was offered. Reefer totally dead. No display. No LED. Totally bricked. Called Crete to see if *maybe* it was just the on switch. They can remote start trailers. Nobody answered for 20 minutes.

Screw waiting longer. Sent a trailer damage report and got a new empty. Advised customer that the first trailer is out of order, Crete is aware, and it will either be moved or repaired onsite.

Called account mgr and also advised them of the failed unit #.

Left site at 1230

Dragged empty to washout. 30 minute wait for 5 minute wash. Left wash at 1330.

Fought Rand McNally for 30 minutes trying to get it to give me a route. The map around the Chicago Mars is a minefield of residential areas, and nearly every road you might THINK about driving down in a truck is marked illegal. The one legal, sane route requires two buttonhook right turns. I have been there before.

Finally, I realized that even though I had been able to force my old Rand 720 to give me a legal route, the Rand 740 map was simply too full of bad data and tard to be of any use to me and did it the old fashioned way with pen and paper.

Started towards Chicago from Monee at 1400.

Drove into downtown Chicago. Arrived at shipper in pretty decent time. 55 or so miles, 90 minutes. 1530.

Dropped empty. Found loaded trailer before getting paperwork, so I could start pre trip on reefer. Reefer was not turned on. *AARGH*

Left unit off. Checked fuel. Plenty of fuel. Did NOT turn on reefer. Went to shipper, advised them Reefer was not turned on. Asked them if the load would need to be inspected. They advised no. Ambient was not high enough to be a concern since trailer was loaded. This took them 20 minutes to decide. Wrote notes on original BOLs.

Connected to loaded trailer at 1630.

Yes. I still had 4.5 hours on my clock.

Managed to drive about 50 miles in rush hour traffic to get to the Petro at I55, ex240, at a bit after 1900. I shut down with 2 hours on my clock. I only have 10 left on my 70 so I will finish at the same time tomorrow no matter what.

Total miles today was about 350.

Not a good day. However, the load is taking me 1000+ miles into Texas, and our outgoing Texas loads also tend to be 1000+ miles, so it's not all bad. Just mostly annoying.

 

Nope. I was surprised by that too. A lot of our shippers have scales though.

 

Well, I received my first settlement this past Friday. Being my first settlement, it was an oddball.

No truck payment. (They start next month) No maintenance fund deduction. (They start when payments start)

The week was a short week. Around 2200 miles. Settlement was @1500.00

I bought @ 700 dollars in fuel and received @ 600 in fuel surcharge.

**

Just submitted this week's work. A bit shy of 2900 miles. I ended up taking TWO 34's this past week due to a very long delay coming out of the Texas drop. Sure, it was a 1000 mile load, but waiting for it lost me 700+ miles of potential income, AND added to my fuel costs with no offsetting income. Taking a 34, driving 500 miles, then taking another 34 is painful.

I poked the asset manager this morning and calmly explained that I can't afford to sit like that. Especially when truck payments and maintenance escrow start being deducted.

Sitting is rare on this account in general, but at this particular location, I have taken two loads, and on both occasions I lost more than a full day of driving. The account I am on is all company drivers except me, I believe. The manager seemed to understand where I was coming from. Hopefully I wont be getting more Texas loads unless I can keep moving.

We shall see.

 

No. The settlement was @ 1500.00. Fuel net cost to me after FSC was @ 100.00.

It was a short week, but I wasn't paying for the truck either.

Nor does that include my setting aside money for taxes.

 

Ok. Update. I was mistaken about the deductions for the maintenance account. They have started already. The settlement of the first week included a maintenance deduction of about 330.00. So money to me was around 1850.00 or so, but a chunk of it was held for maintenance.

This past Friday, net pay to me directly was @ 2000.00 and about 400.00 to the maintenance account. I am not sure how the numbers broke down, as I am having to reach around my elbow to scratch my ### here to get settlement information from Crete. I suspect fuel was ugly, with two 34's in one week.

They are supposed to be fixing my company account so I can start seeing my settlements online. They have a pathological fear of sending the info by email. I managed to get them to manually send my first settlement by email, but they are pushing back pretty hard on making a habit of manual email sending. Someone has apparently been spreading apocalyptic fantasies about the world being destroyed if a single driver gets hacked, and their non-negotiable settlement statement falls into the hands of evildoers.

I could allow myself to get angry over such idiocy. Automated email settlement documentation is far superior in every way for nearly all drivers. It also saves the company postage, paper and envelopes, and labor hours. Drivers should get a choice. Paper, or electronic. Just like almost ALL banks and utilities offer.

I can work on that though, over time. Poke. Poke. Poke. As I work my way through people at the company.

Just submitted this week's settlements. It was a good week. @ 3700 actual miles. @ 3600 paid miles.

Fuel might be a bit worse than I had hoped though. Had a couple very heavy loads into and out of PA. And my Espar heater ran a lot in the cold.