Beginning a journey at Danny Herman Trucking

10 day update, delivered in Los Angeles early this morning after picking up in Laredo. Now headed 2600 miles to Carlisle, PA. I reckon they do a little northeast after all, but at least it’s not the I95 corridor. 6700 miles in 4 loads, 2 weeks once this one is delivered. I don’t expect it to always be like this, but happy so far. Shop did well on the scheduled service and didn’t have any disagreement when I asked for new brake shoes since 3 out of the 4 drives were almost to the wear indicator. Happy overall so far, even with the lower CPM, but we’ll see if it continues. 10 days with a company is a little early to make a judgment call one way or the other

 

Well, truck has been at the KW dealership in Carlisle, PA since Thursday for an SCR fault/derate. Replaced a DEF quality sensor and that didn’t fix the problem, so now they’re attempting to track down a wiring issue. Truck probably won’t be fixed today, so I’ll be here til at least Monday.

Breakdown pay, per employee handbook, is 500 miles a day pay, which also goes towards mileage bonus. I guess we’ll see how well that holds true whenever I get out of here. They did cover my hotel for the last couple days and approved it again for this weekend. Breakdown pay rate seems good compared to most companies, but the real test is how much of a fit they throw about paying it, but they’ve been helpful so I don’t think it will be any issue.

As long as the breakdown pay does actually get honored with no issues, then it’s more than fair for sitting around for 250/day + hotel for doing absolutely nothing. If they don’t honor their breakdown pay, then I can just as easily turn in keys. One of the benefits of trucking, I reckon. I got one of the oldest truck in the fleet, so I don’t think a replacement truck could be a downgrade if it comes to that lol.

 

Well, got paid out 5 days of breakdown pay on top of the load that I ran, so ended up being a good week for pay after all. Requested to be home the 23rd, but currently on a relay load to their Lebanon, TN (my home terminal) that will be there the 21st that has a final destination in Northern IL. Not sure if that means I’ll be home a couple days early or if they’ll just have me running a short and out back from there for a couple of days. Might be me getting fired for managing to accrue 5 days of breakdown pay in the first two and a half weeks working here dispatcher is as unsocial as they get, so I’ll just find out when I get there instead of playing 20 questions over the Qualcomm.

 

Well final update and then I’ll start moving to updating every month or two, so this doesn’t turn into a blog. Got home a day early. Spent half the day today moving some empties and delivering some local loads. Ended up averaging about 30/hr with their ‘shuttle pay’. About 150 dollars extra to take home for Christmas and home a day early before some winter storms, so all is well.

All in all, for my first 3.5 weeks here, I’m pretty happy. Am I breaking records as far as pay goes? Probably not. Hometime? Probably not. But so far, everything laid out in the handbook, by recruiting, and orientation has been true. The real test is whether it continues for 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, etc.. As of a month, which doesn’t mean much, 8/10 company and would recommend to those looking to stretch their legs on some long runs. Will update every month or two going forward. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and happy holidays

 

(For those who don’t want to read the novel, the summary is: poor planning and breakdowns have started to get irritating. Not going to jump ship all of a sudden, but am going to have to stand up for myself at some point. If things always go wrong, it’s not really bad luck at some point. Just hoping things will smooth out now that holidays are over)

Well, I got humbled pretty quick for taking up for a company. First load from home: DM sent me for a pickup 150 miles away. Shipper closed. Basically meaning paid 75 dollars for a day and away from home when I didn’t need to be. Picked up and delivered a few hundred miles away at a terminal and then picked up another trailer going to Laredo. Make it to Laredo, dropped a couple empties through town, and picked up a preloaded trailer going to Ohio. Pretty decent runs, so no complaints, except for the fact that the trailer I picked up literally had no hub cap gasket on one wheel, so I got the joy of flinging grease everywhere on the way to get it fixed. Embarrassing for the drivers and company that the trailer was probably ran like that for multiple hundred, if not thousands of miles. Easy fix and back on the road, so oh well. Proceeded to run 710 miles legally in a 68mph truck in an 11 hour shift with only a mandatory 30, and I also ran 719 miles last month in 11 hours so I don’t think me not running hard is to blame. Got to Chillicothe and live unloaded what was supposedly a drop and hook. Sent a ‘shuttle run’ local delivery only to find out the consignee was once again.... closed. Now I’m sitting with 8 hours on my clock and will have to be up another pre trip in the morning as well as drive time to deliver this. That’ll leave me with 7 hours recapping only 4 Wednesday, so essentially, I’m losing a full day’s pay for either a 34 or recaps.

So far with the blown airbag, punctured tire, wiring harness/emissions repair, trailer hub, issues with shippers/receivers hours, etc., I think I’m sitting at around 50/50 for normal days vs issues. I know trucking has bad luck and good luck, but if they intend on keeping me around, I hope they’re able to clean up preventable issues. Unexpected mechanical issues are no problem, but DHT shops forgetting simple things like gaskets on a hub cap is embarrassing. Having 3 days to plan me a load, but sending me to play yard dog to closed warehouses is easily avoidable. Managed to exercise some patience and explained that me taking pay losses for poor planning and poor work by the shop will not keep me happy in a calm way to the DM, so we’ll see how things go

I’m not going to flip and say it’s a bad place to work, but it’s getting harder to take up for them too. I think the worst part is that it looks like I’m the one that doesn’t know what I’m doing. I can knock off 700 mile days regularly if I’m actually getting the opportunity. Can’t really prove that to a company when every other day is old equipment breaking and I’m telling dispatch I won’t make delivery or I’m burning 2 hours of drive time putt-putting through town on shuttle runs.

Just going to hope it’s some bad luck and holiday hiccups and things will start going smoother the rest of the month.