Bulkmatic, as it happens...

So I'm sitting at the Peterbilt dealership in Pikeville Thursday while the mother ship was figuring out the best way to get me back home, and the driver's area is right outside the office of one of the salesmen.

I can overhear his calls and one of them is with someone who wants to purchase a tractor. I hear the salesman's side only, but he says the sale was approved, $85,000 purchase price with his current Peterbilt and his Mac trailer as collateral, zero down @13.9% interest.

I've only ever been a company driver, so I don't jack about the financing ins and outs of things, but holy ####, 13.9% interest?? Is it so high because he is zero down or am I just so far removed that I don't know what an average interest rate is? To me, that sounds like highway robbery.

 

Hope things go well for ya at the interview.

I wouldn't worry to much about the pneumatic part, if I can learn it, anybody can. I have no clue what they normally haul in that area, the best thing I can say is if you decide to go that way take lots of notes during training. There's always a learning curve once you strike out on your own, especially the first 3-4 months but the notes i took came in very handy may times in the beginning. I still carry the notebook with me just in case.

If you have questions feel free to ask, I'll answer what I can.

 

Back at place where the temp truck I was had the electrical fire under the hood last week.

Low and behold they don't have enough room in the silo to unload at the moment, need to wait an hour and a half and see where everything is at.

I think they are just scared I will try and burn the joint down again.

 

Can someone tell me what causes this wear pattern? I see this fairly regularly but haven't been able to figure out the cause.

 

Welcome aboard. It's all down hill from here

 

Here's one that has me minorly POed. Delivered a load last week, as it turns out part of their facility was down, but the person in charge of bulk unloading didn't know, so I was okayed to unload, hooked up, started, and 20 minutes later had to stop because there was no room in the silo. Long story short, I ended up dragging the rest of the load back to the shipper. No big deal, if I am told it's okay to unload I get paid to unload no matter if they take it all or not.

Looking over my weekly settlement yesterday and I notice there is no unloading pay for that load. Mileage, detention, pick up is all there but no unloading. No big deal, I make a call to tell them and get it straightened out, get the call back...

As it turns out I did not get paid for unloading because according to the handy dandy system that is used, the unload was not completed, thus delivery was not made. When load has been redelivered then the system will pay me the unloading pay at the same time it pays whoever the other driver is that has/will redeliver it. Unless of course they just decide to top the trailer back off, assign it to a new BOL and send it on it's merry way to someplace else (or even the same place), then it will just disappear forever. So now I have to watch to see if I get paid for this or not then call again.

I guess maybe this is a first world problem to have. I have in the past had to call to say I was overpaid for things, but this is the first time I ever called to say I was shorted. Who the heck designs these programs that only consider something delivered if the entire trailer is unloaded?

I showed up, I was told to unload, I tried to unload, it wouldn't fit, I was told to bring the rest back, I brought the rest back, seems pretty simple.