Greetings Again

Hello All...I suppose I'm not technically new...I've been perusing this site for over a year and posted the odd question or 2 but never said much about myself.

So, I'm a 28 year old married mother of none. I've been a driver for about a year now...with Werner the whole time. I have to say, my experience with Werner has been far better than most. I had 2 excellent trainers (both female, per my request), got the Freightliner Century I requested (it wasn't a half-bad truck...I liked the CAT engine), then got swapped out a few months later into a brand new Freightliner Cascadia (a piece of crap, but since it has an APU and they finally got the windshield to stop leaking I suppose I can't complain too much...just wish it had more power...I have to downshift going up Monteagle when EMPTY!). I started out on 48 states with a jerk of a dispatcher who's never left the state of Nebraska and used to pester me on my ETA's about why I thought it would take "so long" to get 47,000lbs of paper rolls out of Newark, NJ rush hour and across the mountains of Pennsylvania, and who was particularly fond of sending me in circles around the Great Lakes into and out of Canada.

After calling driver placement and threatening to leave my truck on a frozen lake in Canada if they didn't get me off this jerk's board (Werner doesn't move too quickly on truck recoveries...at the rate they move spring thaw would've swallowed the truck...not that I would have *actually* done it of course ), they got me onto a dedicated account that was totally fabulous! I still got to see the country (dedicated account, not dedicated run), my dispatcher ruled, and I got home every other weekend like clockwork. Life has been good! I even started training (a whole other story, to be sure).

Alas, now Werner has lost my fabulous dedicated account and it looks like they're sending us all back to 48 states. Blech. Not that I mind running 48 states, but with Werner that usually means only being home about once per month and I can't get behind that. And I'll be getting a new dispatcher which worries me. Good dispatchers are hard to find and I greatly lament losing mine.

So now I'm looking into Eagle through Werner since I've heard good things and have grown lazy about logs due to the paperless logs. I'll get to still have the newer 9 speed trucks/transmissions to which I've grown accustomed, and I'll still get to train Werner students, I'll just be getting paid more for my trouble. Keeping my fingers crossed for that one.

Most other companies I've looked into seem to all have extra physicals in which they expect me to be able to lift 75lbs. over my head. This is exasperating for 2 reasons: First, I'm 5'3" and weigh all of 105lbs...I can lift and carry 75lbs, but not over my head. Second, all of these companies spend a great deal of effort bragging about how I'll never have to touch freight, then, in the next breath tell me I have to prove that I can lift heavy things to get a job with them. If it's no-touch frieght, then why do I have to prove my lifting ability? I can pull my tandem bars (no easy feat on many of these older Werner trailers), 5th wheel pin, and open and close my doors...isn't that plenty? I smell sexism at work...Schnieder, US Express (which has the audacity to boast that they're female-friendly...automatic trucks and cameras for your blind-sides don't make a company female-friendly...any gender can drive a stick shift or learn to back up without cameras...it's not rocket science), Marten, Crete...I'm looking at *you*!

So yeah, that's me! Hi! Nice to meet you all!