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

Change of plans last night. No Wyoming today. But I-70 across Colorado is a winner. Climbing Vail in the first picture.

 

Thank you sir. Same to you and your family. God bless.

 

Safe travels. Merry Christmas to you and the kids.

 

Dropped my trailer at the customer in Groveport this morning, then took the empty to the Gatorade place and dropped it. Then bobtailed around the corner and hooked my 3 stop Boars Head load going to St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Tampa for Thursday morning. Will be home about 2pm to start my hometime, Christmas and last week of vacation. Of course I’m getting home a day later then requested, but I’m good with that. I’ll give Abilene and my DM a little break. I’m quite sure they have their hands full getting everyone where they need to be for Christmas. I knew last week that I would be empty in the ideal place to go home. A day late is fine with me.

 

Now would be a good time to throw out some insight as to what I’m debating about as to a job switch. First off, I had a little over $6,000 dollars that I earned, but needed to be employed by certain dates to collect. The first one was our yearly mileage bonus. Needed to be employed on 11/30 in order to collect. Check. $1380. Next, my last weeks vacation pay. Check. $1630. Finally, my yearly company match of $3000 that I must be employed on December 31st in order to get. Seems as how I’ll have their truck by the house on 1/3/22 when I come back out, I’ve cleared that last hurdle.

So…….. I’m not going into detail just yet about the new job. I’m taking this last week of vacation to discuss it with my wife and make my final decision. There are still issues here at Abilene that is making my job here a headache.

Mrs Johnboy (Lesli) no “e” at the end of her name, had been recruited by a headhunter for a new company since last spring, she had an outstanding year in real estate, and as the year progressed, the offered sign on bonus that started out at $15K ended up at $50K. Just like in trucking with drivers, established successfull realtors get pooped on and taken advantage of. So when the last offer came in over Thanksgiving, we discussed it and she took the offer. The reason I mention that, is because it will allow me to not worry about making a change, if that’s the way I decide to go.

My loyalty is to Abilene. I’ve been here almost 9 years. I do care about how I’m treated, but the numbers I will post has allowed me to take a step back and think this through. I will say it again, operations suck here. My DM is doing the best job as a DM for me all year, and I’ve had 3 this year alone. I think he finally gets it that hometime is what drives me. Last week while finishing up my reset in Sparks, we discussed my hometime for Christmas and vacation, I had to emphasize to him that the load planner, “working” on it needs to be completed by Monday morning and that if it wasn’t, Columbus had 2 things I would need, a drop yard and an airport. So, here are my year end numbers.

With all my pay and bonus’s, that includes this load I’m on which will be the last one for 2021, I made $84,290 this year. That’s on 137,900 paid miles. That number also includes my 3 weeks paid vacation and my $3000 401K match last February. Even though I don’t have that company match in my hand, it’s still income that I earned. Now, here comes the part that blew my mind. I had 3 weeks vacation and 9 weeks off for hometime, for a total of 12 weeks off. My math tells me I made $9365 a month for 9 months of work. If you want to break it down to CPM, which really doesn’t matter to me, the weekly, monthly and year end totals is what matters, I made .61 per mile sightseeing across the US and Canada. Oh, and I made 11% on my six figure 401K.

So, with this put down on paper for all to see, my question I will put out there is this, the new job will pay a little more. There are some good points to the new company, but again, I’ve put in 9 years here, always said I would never leave this OTR company to go to another OTR company, and that I would retire here in another year or two. Should I make a change? One thing that has made a difference in my life the last 3 weeks since I left the house, I’m out of that disgusting, driver unfriendly Cascadia. My whole frame of mind has changed for the good. I realized the minute I left Richmond with this Volvo, that I was relaxed and comfortable. We don’t need to debate the trucks, I just know how I feel. My DM is getting comfortable in his job which has a trickle down effect. Even though operations sucks here, it doesn’t affect my miles or the areas I run. I’ll end this now, hoping to get some insight and help from my friends and fellow drivers. Be safe everyone, if you are trying to get home for the holidays, do it safely. God Bless you all, enjoy your Christmas and Happy New Year!