Where is everyone #5

Either that or they are three hours late for the appointment because they don’t like to drive at night

We got a few of those here at SPD...

 

Guess a fella's gotta work some time...

 

When's the last time you had a rabies shot ?

 

Yea I’ve heard that too.....

 

Stopping by to say hi. Well my time at Ryder only lasted a year. With their pay and how many hours I had to put in it only averaged out to about $16 per hour and putting in about 60 hours a week. A buddy of mine found another local job out here in NW Oklahoma paying a lot more and was supposed to be 50 hours a week. Well it's more like 55 in reality but making good money and home every night with good paid time off. Now I'm pulling a frameless end dump. I get loaded at a rail transfer yard and take it 30 miles down the road to a special landfill. Back and forth 3 to 4 times a day. Suprisingly it hasn't gotten old yet.

With the wife working now we were able to clean up my credit this year and bought our first house. Both kids are in school now and all in all things are still looking bright.

 

Eagle Pass, TX. Got a room and some grub. Seasoned to perfection

 

Good to see you around and hear things are going good.....don't be a stranger.

 

Turned in my PPE and fuel cards, and cleaned out my truck this morning (yesterday's s*** show did me in, more on that in a minute). Got a much more professional send-off this time around. Had five separate people wish me luck, compliment me on my work and three of them, being managers as well, told me I'd be welcome back any time.

It's amazing what happens when you act professionally even in the face of frustrations and do work for a company that while might be mis-managed at times, still treats it's drivers with respect.

But on to the s*** show.

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Started at 4:30 yesterday morning, picked up a lot of hot for the city crew. Got to the site, they didn't have room for it, so I waited (almost three hours). Then, went to switch out trailers for a load of emulsion. Finally something more than just standing around! Woo!

Loaded up and headed out to East Braintree. Arrived on site, got hooked up and started trying to pump off. Pump wouldn't push product. Pump was just serviced a week ago and confirmed to be working. Start the process of troubleshooting. Call dispatch, they direct me to trainers. Trainers are confused. Go through the checklist three times with three separate people.

Management starts getting involved, they don't want me leaving the site without delivering, so they send another driver to use his pump. Start it up, pump doesn't work (he doesn't use it and it hasn't run in months). Great.

Now they divert a fuel driver to the site to use his pump (confirmed to be working because he's used it). Get everything hooked up, start pumping. Runs good for 5 minutes, then stops. Well f***.

Customer finally gets called by management. Meanwhile, this is around 5 pm when we've tried three separate trucks and about 4 hours of problem solving to no avail. They swear up and down it has to be our pumps, their internal valve was left open earlier that day when they just pulled the last load out.

And hour later after digging out the tank trailer and tilting it so they could check, upon inspecting the internal valve, it's closed (and the handle is stripped, but they left it open!). Great job guys, way to go. Now it's 7:30pm and I'm just starting to pump it off (I got there at 1:30). Leave the site at 8:30 and drive the 1.75 hours back to the yard. Glad I had my colouring book and magic crayon!

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In the end, customer is getting a bill for something like 14 hours of truck time, so there's that. And I get a couple days off before heading off to BC to pick up a truck. Meeting the boss lady tomorrow afternoon and getting the details for moving forward. Here's hoping it all works out!

 

Forgot the pictures!



I really dislike asphalt. Messy messy stuff.



Was up and moving before sunrise, and was still up and still moving after sunset. And hot dam am I sore today.