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

I got my truck back last night at 10:45, had my cookies and milk and was in bed at 11:05. I got a complete service, new windshield wipers and had a fault code taken care of. I woke up at 7am this morning, got a shower at the yard then went back out to my truck to make a cup of coffee and have some breakfast. I didn't want to talk to dispatch until Jonathan came in. At 9am I went to the window and was offered 2 different loads. One was being loaded in Philly this morning and wouldn't be back to the yard until this afternoon. It delivered at 2am Monday morning 6 miles from the house, I declined that one. I want quality time home this go around, not leaving my house at 1am Monday morning to go and unload, then reloading Monday up in Georgia somewhere. The other was an HP load, only 2 coolers, going to Naples Florida that delivers on Wednesday. What they did was add more freight onto the load and made it an LTL load. I ran down to HP and hooked onto the trailer then brought it back to our dock. I was at our dock a total of 45 minutes while they put on 6 more drops to fill out the trailer. I left the yard at 10:30 and made a drop in Rocky Mount NC, Tar Heel NC, and Florence SC. Tomorrow I have a drop in Savannah Ga at 6am, Jacksonville Fl at 9am then West Palm Beach at 3pm. Then home until 5am Wednesday when I get the last drop off in Naples. Right now I'm at the Flying J in St George SC an hour and a half to my next drop. I'll be up and rolling at 4:15 in the morning to continue on down I-95 pedaling my freight.

 

Got my ### out of bed at 4:30 this morning an had both my drops off by 9am. I'm sitting in a rest area south of Jacksonville taking my mandated half hour break, because God only knows I need this being only 3 hours from the house. One more drop to get off in WPB. I'll be done at 1:30 and in my pool at 2:30. This was a good deal, 6 drops done and 860 miles in 24 hours.

 

I'm home, it took me longer to get backed in at my last drop here in WPB than it did to park the truck and drive to the house. I have some earth shattering news that I will get out for everyone's opinion a little later, right now it's time to put a dent in this honey do list.

 

OK, here it is. I was at the yard Wednesday afternoon taking care of the usual steering wheel holder issues, going over payroll, getting supplies for the truck, getting said truck washed, eating and telling assorted truck driver stories with fellow steering wheel holders. All of a sudden I hear the PA system yelling out my name. "John F......." can you please come down to recruiting and see Sally. It's amazing how you can hear your name announced while laughing and telling war stories with a group of people. So, off I go down to recruiting. On my walk down I figured if I was going to get canned from the company for finding out I'm an illegal immigrant it would come from safety. So I was pretty confident that wasn't the issue.

When I got to Sally's office she was sitting there with one of the owners, I walked in and quickly was thankful I had showered and shaved earlier. I make it a point and have done this for 30 years, whenever I am going to be in the yard during normal business hours, I make it a point to take care of my personal cleanliness via a shower.

Here is the reason I was called in, the company would like me to train. We talked for over an hour, I heard everything from recruiting about how the training will work, I was offered the full spectrum of available students. I'm leaning towards doing refreshers, 2-4 weeks at a time. When finished, I would be able to take a week or two off then do it again. The company know's I'm not doing it for the extra money, for those of you that know about me from my previous Calex blog, money is not my motivation or drive, that's taken care of, my wife, home and dogs is what drives me. I told Sally that because of that reason alone, I would be able to train someone for the right reasons, not because of financial gain on my part. I live by a very strong conviction and belief, you can't keep what you have unless you give it away. After 33 years of doing this, safely, I'm quite positive I have something to give a new driver. But, only if they want it. if not then I'll just move on to another newbie. I don't think I want to get involved with a new fresh wannabe with the winter just around the corner, for the type of driving we do, the areas we go to, I can't imagine training a new driver how to handle a truck and trailer in the snow and Ice on the WVa Tpk at 2 in the morning, or explain to him what to look for going over Elk Mtn in January on a nice windy night while the both of us are trying to figure out just where the hell the road went to at 2 am while trying to get to SLC for a delivery appt. That's it, the company needs trainers, we went over quite a few things about what I will need to do as a trainer and what I will be able to do as the captain of the ship. I just remember trying this one time back in the early 90's, it was a total cluster, so much so that the new student I had lasted 900 miles on a west coast load, then spent the next 10 days as a passenger until I got back to the terminal and kicked him out as the truck was still moving through the gate.