Bulkmatic, as it happens...

Friday showed up at 9 as instructed and they kind of sent me off on my own with some odds and ends. Shuttled a couple tractors then a few trailers (first time in an automatic, felt like an ### but had to go in and ask hey, is there anything I need to do other then push the selector button and go) then hit up a safety meeting at the end of the day and was out by 6:45.

Was told take weekend off and contact trainer for starting time Monday. Talked to him on phone yesterday for only about 2 minutes but he sounded like a decent guy, hopefully we will get along. 6am tomorrow starts the learning curve all over again

Still have a ton of reading thru crap I need to do, gotta get back at it.

More things clarified:

>Pay week runs Sunday to Saturday. Get paid every week but pay runs 2 weeks behind, not 1.

$6,000 sign on bonus pays out as follows:
Week 1: $1,000
Weeks 2-4: Nothing
Weeks 5-8: $250
Weeks 9-16: $200
Weeks 17-24: $150
Weeks 25-36: $100

Here's one for you @Steelersjunkie

 

In my own way I'm right there with ya man.

Day one out with trainer in the books.... Long day, 13 hours from start to finish. 3 Calcium Chloride loads, all to same customer. Had a trailer my trainer loaded Saturday before heading home to start with. Ran it up to customer, unloaded, deadheaded back, reloaded from Rail car and repeat until all 3 delivered.

My head is spinning for the moment but took a ####load of notes that I now need to go thru and make sense of and put into long term order.

So far trainer is cool as hell with explaining procedures and what's going on and why. The loading/unloading part actually started making sense by the end of the day but the paperwork/check in procedure both at customer and back at yard has me totally confused.

Overall this is not the dirtiest job I've ever had but it's up there. It also seems pretty interesting and I think provided I don't wash out during training it can be my thing. Just plain cool ####, get to drive truck and also mess with hoses and valves and crap, listen to how things sound and act to figure what's going on. Initially I like it.

My trainer was kind of irked at end, he wanted us to stay on what we were doing for a few days before tossing something new into the mix, but turns out tomorrow we do Dextrose.

 

First week of training over. I survived, but just barely at times. It's been a blur and my brain has mostly turned to grey matter mush.

@Roberts450 said these trailers were temperamental and man oh man was he on the mark. In terms of the mechanics of the job (open valve A, close valve B and so on) I am fairly confident I can learn the job, but in terms of actually being able to become proficient in it I'm not so sure at the moment. This is, in my estimation, at least 50% art-form as opposed to muscle memory or something of that nature. I generally do not do well with art-form

Behind the wheel part of yesterday and today for first time since March 28th and it helped bring me back to semi-sane. I REALLY miss being in the seat.

Monday to Wednesday were really long days, like almost or totally burning out your 14 days. Yesterday ran a pre-loaded trailer up to Green Bay and back which took most of the day so got a break to try and catch up on notes and questions (Man, have I had a lot of those), I've got pages of them so far. Today was 2 loads but also fairly relaxed as opposed to the behind the 8 ball pace of the start of the week.

Getting a decent understanding of unloading basics, and finally making some sense of how the pressure in trailer vs bottom air line vs engine RPM/blower speed and whatnot bounce off and affect each other.

Next week is transloading Calcium all week, I transloaded once this week but honestly couldn't tell you what we did so it will be good to be able to do it everyday straight.

No complaints yet about trainer or company. Everything on that end is fine, you need something, they get it for you, ask a question and you get an answer, but there is way more to this then there was to my OTR gig it isn't even funny.

@Steelersjunkie One to get ya thru the weekend.

 

Also, forgot to mention, first $1,000 of sign on bonus showed up a week early. Wasn't suppose to be paid until next Friday but got it today.