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

You jinxed us posting that pic of the construction crew digging up the road again!

That explains why ive been sitting here for the past 6 hours after sending my empty macro. While this disruption may not be Abilene's fault it still reiterates the point I made earlier about OTR and the lack of structure and schedule.

This job model of sitting around (unpaid) hoping someone finds something for you to do is getting old really quickly.!

 

Grab a price list please. Some of us with no loads have hours to kill and may need to pass the time more productively.

 

Eh, I dunno that Abilene promotes it so much as there's no way for them to know unless the trainee tells 'em, and most trainees aren't going to tell 'em.

My first trainer (not Shirley) had me driving team from Day 1 as well. It wasn't until I switched to Shirley as my trainer that I found out he wasn't supposed to do that. I mean I didn't think that was the way it was supposed to go, but:

• He's the trainer and I'm not. I'm brand new, ink not even dry on my CDL, never drove for anybody anywhere before, much less Abilene, and I'm gonna tell the trainer how to do his job?
• There's a strong "Be a man, suck it up, and cope" philosophy among truckers, and nobody wants to be the guy known as the wimpy whiner who complains just because things aren't going according to plan.
• I was kinda proud that he was confident enough in my newbie skills to take a nap while I drove.

All of which conspired to keep me from saying anything to Kimberly (who was the trainer manager at the time).

And if I don't say anything to her, and nobody else does either, then she's not gonna know.

 

After six hours, I stop hoping someone finds me something to do and start hoping they forget about me long enough to pay me layover.

 

LOL!
My DM actually told me that it wasn't the construction people this time. She said it had something to do with with the Qualcomm communication nation wide.
Party time! LOL!

 

Just don't forget shades if the latter is the case.

 

I did college for three years to become a pharmacy tech but unfortunately I am terrible at math (main reason I gave it up) and realized standing around at the back of a Walmart, Safeway, Walgreens, etc serving medicine all day wasn't for me. It's basically a higher paid retail position (and I hate retail). At 35.. I have no idea what else to do but I have my CDL and would like to give trucking a chance before I write it off. I want to explore the states because I would like to move out of the one I am in possibly and I love driving. My only other option in life is to just find a local non-driving job I guess like my brother but even he dislikes the office/sales setting and wants to find something else.

 

Then by all means give it a shot. You’ll only regret it if you don’t try.

 

That's right!

 

Well said JohnBoy!