Anyone have current info on FFE?

February 21st 2011






Hello Group:


FFE has me working steadily and not incredibly hard, except for the nature of the FFE Trainee Driving Academy on the Third week that involves becoming acclimated to night driving and also driving as a full Codriver with the Trainer.

I am getting along fine with my Trainer, Curtis Qualls right now, he is one of the best in the company, if not the best. Curtis likes to get his home time and his family owns a very beautifull luxurious home in a gated community in San Diego County California, and fortunately for me, I was invited to live as a guest in his home in this particular tropical oasis.

Check out my Facebook photos for what this place is like. It is the Best possible situation, I think that any raw trainee can ever get to experience.

I have been really busy like I said before and there has never been an idle day at the FFE except for when we have had to do a little bit of extra communications with the dispatchers or "driver managers" in order to get the right Trip numbers for the Shippers, and this problem has cost a little bit of time but It has only happened once within the past 3 weeks since I have been out on the road.

We left on our run out of the Lancaster Texas Home base terminal last week and we went directly to an Interchange in Dexter (Ann Arbor) Michigan at the TA where we dropped a load of Freight that was headed for Ontario Canada and hooked up to a load of Freight, that we brought back to a place outside of Chicago ILL called "bridgeview". We brought the Trailer into the LTL yard and were a little bit late picking up the other Trailer, in a nearby drop yard, because nobody said anything about there being (2) different FFE yards in the Bridgeview area.

We picked up our load and proceeded to run out to Boston MA with a load of "swinging meat" that required a lot more care in running across the alleghney Mountains and in the Mountains of Central and Eastern Pennsylvania. Route 80 was full of serpentine and hilly roads and for someone doing it for the first time at night, I would say that It was a challenge, but we had a "Can Do" attitude about It.

We got to Boston MA with the load at about 11:00 O'clock in the Morning but the Lamb and Veal processing place was not crowded, so they were able to start unloading us right away, unfortunately they had to take a whole 24 hours in order to unload the large number of Lamb carcasses and to do their job of processing them, and they told us that they would have to do the job slowly because they lacked the freezer space for doing their job within one day.

My Trainer wanted to keep his commitment towards getting showers and Good TA meals so we Bobtailed all the way up to New Hampshire from Boston MA, some 45 Miles away. We also stopped off at a Walmart in Portsmouth NH to get some replacement supplies and some fresh food for the Tractor.

I hooked and unhooked the loads to and from this location and I drove the Bobtail to Scranton PA after we dropped the Trailer at a rail yard just outside of Harrisburg PA. We did a lot of this work after the late evening, and the reason for this, other than the problem of being given a whole day to wait for the unloads is that every trainee has to be given the chance in order to drive at night in all kinds of weather conditions and we were driving team even before the second week of the driving Academy was over. We were pulling in some Good mileage and we still are.

The refrigerated Trailer really needed to be cleaned out bad after carrying all of the Lamb carcasses so my trainer pulled in to the Blue Beacon Truck wash near Hartford CT and had them do everything, and It was really gross, with big hunks of meat being washed out onto the Truck wash floor, but we had our advance request through Comdata honored and It was no particular problem to us, other than to wait in a long line of Trucks at the Truck wash Itself.

I found myself arriving in Scranton PA early in the week at about 1:30 in the Morning, but my trainer wanted to make a serious effort to try to find an empty Trailer anyway, at the Arromark refrigeration center up on route 924.

We did try but we were turned away at the gate, where we got luckier at about 8 AM the next Morning. One of the problems in not being able to get a Trailer earlier was the fact that somebody had driven a tractor through the security Gates a few hours before we had arrived there and disappeared after the hit and run and It had been a Green Tractor like ours, so they were holding everybody and anybody out of the facility for close to 24 hours.

We drove away from Hazelton PA after about half of our daily hours of service were spent but fortunately again, we only had to go down route 309 to Allentown PA, in order to pick up another, (Good) load to California, from our unknown shipper there. We went to 3 different locations around Tilghman Ave. Americool, Millard and another place before dispatch finally gave us the right Trip numbers, phone numbers and Trip routing to our next destination.

We went out about another 45 Miles to the nearest Trailer wash facility at Exit 29 in the Allentown area and we had to get back to the Shipper, after they had done their paperwork over again and properly and rescheduled our load at about 6 PM. We were driving in circles and waiting in different places all day but we did'nt go away and we got the load that my trainer wanted, a Southern California one, and we started out towards California right away running hard and in a team.

My Trainer wanted to get back to his home in San Diego County ASAP, and he started pushing me hard to go back to work, driving throughout the night for a few nights, but he was very sympathetic and understanding and agreeable to let me just "try" the night shifts and to go as far as I possibly could and then allow me to take a couple of two hour or four hour sleeping breaks per night shift before I had the opportunity in order to finish my 11/14 hours of service.

I had the Truck completely to myself, my Trainer, Curtis just went into the sleeper berth and Trusted me completely to run as hard as possible and to be in Safe control of the Truck and even to pick out Safe Harbors or rest area and Visitors centers or Truckstops in order to pull over for my sleep breaks etc. throughout the night.

Curtis did almost throw me out of the truck a few times because of my habit of pushing in the clutch a little bit more than I should do, and losing some gears or jaming some gears and doing it pretty consistently about half of the day, but he came to realize that I can do It relatively smoothly when I really set my mind to It, and that I am just a beginner in some things like that and backing up (into some 45 deg. parking spots) and then not setting the jake brakes on when I am going to be down shifting and upshifting and on and on, until I learned how to do It all like second nature.

We drove through some terrible Ice and snow conditions around Flagstaff AZ, where we had Ice an inch and a half thick coating the front and the sides of our flat mirrors and incredibly Icy road conditions mixed with packed snow, yesterday afternoon. We have seen Trucks off the road and a lot of Trucks stuck on the Ice trying to ascend the Arizona divide around Seigelman AZ. My Trainer Curtis is a Truck racing fan, and a very Faithfull Christian servent however and he just stuck to his job and passed everybody on the road during the Blizzard, just like Jesus walking on the water.

I got back to Curtis's Family's Southern California home in Escondido and It was incredibly beautifull and the neighborhood was luxurious beyond any comparison and his wife and he were very considerate of me and we all went out in their family Truck to a Carl's jr. at about 1 O'clock in the Morning and got some Raw Food and then we all had to sleep in late in the Morning. I got to walk about 4 Miles from his house into the newer part of Escondido to get lunch for myself at a Taco store and a place called Senor Mango juice bar and I was very happy with all of those things.

Curtis and I went out afterwards to the Verizon store to check out whether my Credit rating was Good enough to get a Droid X cell phone with the unlimited minutes voice, text and Internet service plan and how much a Droid X phone costs today compared with about 6 Months ago, when my Trainer got one for our Truck and sure enough I qualify without a deposit and the Verizon Droid X's go for only about $150.00. They are Good for GPS and for finding Truckstops and Truck washes as well as specific places and information about places and services. The unlimited minutes are Good for asking for information from dispatch about loads or for asking questions about specific operations as It relates to Your route and necessary fuel stops. It has been busy and friendly and businesslike out here so far. I am just so glad that my Trainer and my company on a whole pride themselves with not asking You to go over Your physical limits or Hours of service in order to do the all too available work.

 

I am so happy for you that it is working out this well. Sounds like you found the right company for you. Congratulations.

 

Joesph,

I am starting with FFE this coming Monday the 7th of March. I do have 2 years experience driving OTR and local. I just had a couple of questions and please dont take this the wrong way. Why would you fast on salted items for 5 days before you took physical? That really brings your BP up. Also what school did youy go to? I have been reading and saw your post of your first trainer, sorry you had to experience that. But I notice one thing that you did not eat breakfest purposely on one day. That will bring your stamina down alot. Try to eat very small good healthy meals during the day and stay away from the salt. I hope your time at FFE is great and knowledgeable.

 

I thought fasting was defined as not partaking or refraining from for a period of time. My doctor told me to stay away from salt to reduce my blood pressure. While I agree with the diet you suggested I am wondering if you know the definition of "fast or fasting." I have had high blood pressure since I was 25 and my meds and a salt free diet allow me to drive according to the DOT rules and regs. I hope this helps you in understanding why fasting for 5 days was helpful. Unfortunately, he probably forgot to drink a lot of water to flush the salt, and forgot it takes several weeks of doing that to get the desired results. BOTTOMLINE: Stay away from truckstop food. There is a walmart just about everywhere that truckers can park and shop. It is best to prepare your own meals. I for one hate eating fast food. If you have to eat out try subway, eat salads, and stop drinking sodas. Doing just one of these things I just suggested will make a big difference in about 30 days. (Results may vary!)

 

I was just quoting him. I know what fasting is he said he just ate salted oats or something like that. Fasting for 5 days is hard enough as is. But skipping a meal on purpose is not good for the body either.

 

I totally agree with you!

 

I appreciate all the info you've been giving here. I'm heading to FFE next week and it's really nice to hear such a positive review. I'll be sure to ask for Curtis once I pass the refresher course.

 

Hello Group:


My experiences at FFE are still Good. We really worked hard in the past two weeks, ramping up the Schedule so that we were practically working around the clock.

We drove in all kinds of Weather and Night and Day from Coast to Coast and around the Midwest a few times. We are now driving as the FFE program requires as a Team.

We were interchange or "repower" specialists for a few days to a week out in the midwest, just picking up other peoples loads so that they could be delivered on time or "rescuing loads" across the States of Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas.

The goal of doing this kind of work on about the 3rd Week of Training is to be ready to work under all kinds of weather conditions, at short notice, night and day and in split shifts. We also got into doing some round the clock team driving.

Driving at night has to be done with a lot of toleration to taking naps as necessary and I have found that It was a lot more difficult to make higher average speeds at night, especially on roads that You are not familiar with, and that I could not push myself past about Sunrise, for awhile and then I started growing my mileage in spurts between 450 Miles per shift on a regular basis to about 600 Miles per shift on a normal basis and It could be anytime at all.

Curtis and I both needed to take some breaks individually to sleep after working all night long but we were getting the jobs done, becoming the fastest Team on one of the FFE dispatcher's boards.

They rewarded us nicely after all of the circling that we were doing and gave us two loads from California to Mass. and a few loads to Utah from Missouri and California. We are now Scheduled to do our last loads together from the Hershey Distribution Center in Ogden Utah to Yakima Washington and another one back to the Home Terminal in Dallas Texas.

It has been a long and tough learning experience within the past two weeks, but It has paid off, financially and then in the basic sense of being completely comfortable behind the wheel of a Big Truck. I can really say right now that they are no problem at all, as long as You can back up out of some tight spots.

We had a load from St. Albans Vermont to Ogden Utah, where we deadheaded up from Methune Massachusetts through a particularly bad snowstorm that had recently occurred but I did not particularly notice the accumulation of melting snow and packed snow on the roadway as a limiting factor, in as far as limiting our speed in making the trip or increasing my anxiety about the trip in general. It was Good to know that I was finally in a position, after so many hours behind the wheel and on all kinds of roads that I was'nt uptight about it at all.

I really enjoyed the trip through such nice countryside and driving the rig.

I guess that You could say that I am getting so used to driving the FFE 53 ft. Trailers and Trucks that It's not something that I feel insecure about at all anymore after sweating with them for at least two weeks and giving them a "white knuckle hold" and cutting down the speed on curves etc. and driving one of them is like driving my E-150 or a Motorcycle as a "Second Nature". It's just nice to be out here in some beautifull natural habitat and eating well and enjoying an alternative lifestyle. I kind of feel like a country star just taking the show from town to town.

I have to go back down to Lancaster Texas to Upgrade or "flunk out" next week so that they can give me the opportunity to get my own Truck or just explain to me that I am still in the 60 percenter range.

I am not too sure about whether I can make it to that point yet, because I am still a little bit sticky with the gear floating proceedure once in awhile (up and down) and I have'nt backed up in a lot of 45 deg. parking places yet, but they did give me an extra 2 weeks in order to clean up my act and to learn these finishing points in their Driving Academy.

 

March 19th 2011





Hello Group:

FFE DRIVING ACADEMY UPGRADE


by Joseph
on Saturday, March 19, 2011 at 11:39pm

Well, I did'nt make it through the Upgrade or the "finishing" part of the FFE Orientation and Driving Academy program here in Lancaster Texas Today and I really can't guess exactly why. I was with them for 8 Weeks of Good Training OTR, or over the road and of course I had no accidents with their training truck and I did'nt recieve any Motor Vehicle citations or any citations etc. whatsoever.

Everything was pretty much fun and cool and increasingly relaxing but It is a steep learning curve for some people, yet I did manage to get 13,000 Good miles with Curtis, my Trainer, my friend and partner in FFE with them. I was sorry to see his Truck and him move on without me. I think that Curtis needs to have a Good worker on his Truck and You know some people could use the Labor that I gave him and the company.

I was driving for six hundred miles per day for weeks with Tractor 10009 and doing all of the drop and hooks and sliding the tandems, working with the paperwork at the sites and gofor'ing everything for that particular unit, and It was a lot of fun.

I am sure that nothing that I did with Curtis or for the company was the real reason for why I did'nt pass for whatever qualifications that they had in their program to "test out" and I will tell You why:

I was scheduled for a backing up class from Friday to Sunday at the FFE Yard in Lancaster Texas when the Test examiner, the same lady that told me that I had to forget about the backing up lessons and to meet her at 11:30 AM for the road test in the yard. I did'nt like that plan as well as doing some extra backing lessons so I just decided to go over to the Training Academy Office there in the Yard. I went over to J.D. Jackson and Trecia Willingham and asked them about why there had been a change and they told me that It was out of their hands and that "Operations" had suggested to them that It had to be "right away because I had already been there for 8 weeks and they did'nt want me to stay and do anymore training and that they just wanted to have me take the test and to get into my truck and to get out of there" but just by saying that they seemed to be acting suspiciously, compared to their usual friendly and accomodating manner. After that they started looking at the ground and walking away from me, so I had some Idea that something sleazy must be up so I just ignored them and walked to my Hotel and waited for the next day.

I came back Today and I saw J.D. Jackson in the Training Office and said hello and signed in and walked back to the Drivers lounge to wait for Deb, the Training lady. On my way out the door someone asked J.D if I was one of those "wannabe trainers" and J.D. smiled and said no, That's Uncle Joe, he's a really Good guy!

Well, I took my Road test with 3 other people and I did'nt seem to have any problems, certainly nothing that the Examiner lady told me about during the test, but she always tells people about the mirrors on the Tractor and she has failed some people for not paying them close attention.

Deb, the examiner lady assigned driving positions for the test and put me at the end of the line. I did'nt care about this, so I just watched the other 3 people in the Truck, a Freighliner Century take their tests. The Truck was easy to steer, with almost no play in the steering and the gear shift was not tight at all in the gear spaces on the H, even though some people and the examiner lady herself told us that It would be a "tight" shifter.

When I know this about some people being concerned about mirrors I will start a running commentary with the Trainer by noting the mirrors as follows:

1. I am checking the spot mirrors in the front of the Truck and we should have
no problems with anybody going around the side of the Truck if we look at
these and the spot mirrors and the flat mirrors on each side of the Truck.

2. We are starting to roll and It's all Good around the sides of the Truck, do we
have to make a U turn in order to get out of here?

3. We are approaching the Freeway entrance, are we going to make a left or
a Right or get on the Freeway at this point?

4. Here we go, downshifting: 9,8,7,6,5 and we will ride 5th gear to the light.

5. Well, It is crowded getting on here so I am going to slow down and wait for
all of these mergers to get past the ramp.

I had no problems whatsoever during the road test, except once where I had to work at shifting up to 7th gear because I was going too slow for It at the time, and once while I was leaving Danieldale Rd. at the FFE corner by SWIFT where I mentioned ahead of time that we are not going to be hitting the curb with our trailer wheels, but at the last possible minute we did a little bit, but the examiner lady told me "well just a little" so we rolled on out to the I-35 frontage road and turned Right and believe me everything was smooth. After my Road test, the examiner lady had nothing to say to me of any negative nature and we moved on to the backing test.

You know what I think about these "high turnover" Training Academys, well they will use Student Drivers as an "important part of their fleet" in order to help them hook up their trucks, act as porters around their trucks and Codrive their Trucks for Thousands of Miles in 4,6 and 8 week programs, collect their Department of Labor bonuses and Tax credits and then just lay off the students just so that they can keep the more experienced ones. I Loved the Trucking that I did, all 13,000 Miles of It in 8 weeks and I feel that I am now ready to move on for some more practice. I had noTrucking experience before coming to the FFE, so maybe that's part of the reason for why I had to leave the company at the end of their usual program. I'll be the first one to admit that I was a slow learner at doing all of this and that their school should have probably lasted for another 8 weeks anyway.

It could have also been that some sleazeball authority someplace got keyed up about doing something about me personally in my new career and made enough phone calls to try to stop me just for his cheap thrills.

So, the way It worked out at the end of the testing day, was Deb, the examiner lady called me into her office and started shouting at me: "I need You to leave this property at the end of 10 minutes" and I need You to pack up and get out of here right away! Well, I was already packed up, with 2 long tent duffle bags by the door of the driver's lounge, but she 'kept shouting, "I want You to get out of here at the end of 10 minutes!" and she kept screaming so loud that a security officer came over to her and faced off with me and told me to take my duffle bags out to the guard shack at the entrance to the Yard and leave them there and to stay there and wait for my Taxi. I said nothing at all and just picked up my bags and carried them out of the driver's lounge and across the parking lot on Stonewall Dr. and placed them under a Tree where I stood next to them until a cab came and gave me a ride back to the Grande Hotel.

Since Curtis and I returned to the FFE home base this weekend I had noticed a Lancaster Texas Police car constantly parked out in front of the FFE headquarters, in fact in the same spot where I moved my Dufflebags to, nearby this Oasis Type of a Tree, on Stonewall Dr., so I just stood there myself next to the Police car, out on Stonewall Dr. in front of the gates and the guard shack in front of the FFE and helped to watch the FFE entranceway with him. I had to as a courtesy, first go over to the Police car, under the Tree where we were both standing and to tell the Officer that I was waiting for a Taxi cab and we both smiled at each other and called each other Brother and stared across the Street at the FFE.

 

Sorry to hear about your outcome. Wish you best of luck on your search for employment.