Cypress Truck Lines journey begins

I figured that's what TrashTrucker meant.

Hey! I get to drive my POV to orientation and back home. No Greyhound bus rides!

 

Southeast regional. Guaranteed weekends home. There is so much construction going on in the panhandle that I could probably just run back and forth between the USG plant in Jacksonville and Pensacola hauling drywall, and even get a ten hour break at home a couple of times during the week.

Just kidding, but everybody, everywhere, needs drywall. That's probably how they can boldly guarantee weekends home on their website and in my conditional hire letter.

There are literally thousands of homes being built within a 10 mile radius of my home. Developers come in, scrape every living thing off the huge tracks of land*, build $350K homes jammed together like sardines, then have the audacity to name them Nature's Cove, etc. We call it Denatured Cove. I'll bet that the real estate agents will market the homes around the chain-link detention ponds as "water front."

Hwy-98 carries more traffic than I-10, and it's years and years away from being 6-laned. It's going to be good to get the heck out of Dodge during the week.

* Y'all see what I did there?

 

Sitting in a not-too-impressive Quality Inn in Jacksonville right now. First room smelled very strongly of pot, and I don’t want that getting on my follicles.

First day of orientation is tomorrow. I’m only worried about my stupid white coat hypertension, but when the nurse checked it during a recent doctors appointment, it was normal, so maybe that psychological BS is over.

 

I paid for the upgrade to single king size mattress with no roommate.

 

Day 1 was a little slow due to some key support people not being at work (the virus thing). Managed to cram one AS400 form, a 20 minute video, and a DOT physical and drug test into six hours.

I had a throbbing headache all day because I skipped my coffee so as not to elevate my blood pressure. It was normal. Maybe I’ve broken this psychological white-coat hypertension.

I had the same psychological thing with air sickness in the Marine Corps. I was a “backseater” and would usually fill up a barf bag with bile fluid on these high-G low level flights. I almost quit and became a grunt because I hated it so much. My flight surgeon gave me what was probably a placebo pill and gave me some pointers about where to look, where not to look, what to think about, what not to think about, etc.

Voila, no more air sickness.

But the day ended on a high note. We were evaluated in an honest-to-goodness loaded and tarped Cypress truck. I did fine, just got reminded about going too fast around corners because we’re top-heavy. Parking job was good. I think/hope I made a good impression.

While I sat there staring at the walls in the portable office trailer, I wondered if I had made a mistake now that I’m having to turn down referrals for kitchen remodels, but as soon as I cranked that diesel and began driving, the doubt went away.

I know the newness will wear off eventually, but I hope that little thrill continues. I just love the sounds it makes. Can’t wait to use the jake brake!

Cypress certainly made a good impression on me. Good people.

I had a good laugh with the evaluator while the other fellow drove. He has lived in Jax all his life, and I lived here too for several years. Anybody my age who grew up in Jacksonville remembers “The Greaseman” on WAPE a.m. radio...The Big Ape. He was an incredibly funny, creative, and offensive radio personality. He was hired by a station in Washington, D.C., but was fired a few years later with his infamous “shoot four more of them and we’d get the whole week off.” He said this on MLK Day.

How many times does one go to orientation only to find out that the recruiter overstated the pay? Well, this time, he understated it! So, after my first six months, I’ll get a 20% pay raise to .48 loaded/.48 empty.

Also, my evaluator told me that Cypress has really upgraded their fleet. Almost all automatics with 3000 watt inverters, and APUs. Noice!

Tomorrow we have to balance a 120lb tarp on our heads while duck-walking the perimeter of the terminal...no wait, that’s TMC. We just have to lift a tarp onto a 4’ tall table.