Day 1 at Prime

Made it out of the hills. Can turn the volume back up on the CB!

 

Sitting in Dodge City, KA waiting for Cargill to load our meat. Day 12 on the road with about 50 hrs behind the wheel and 2300 miles in the books. My instructor is great. We have very similar personalities and get along very well. His teaching method and my learning curve seems to mesh, unlike some of the gears last week. He and I both feel I have made great progress since day one. We have only found time (and room) for about four hours of backing practice and I need a lot more. I understand the fundamentals, but still make stupid mistakes (right is wrong!) and have trouble timing the cut backs, but I'm confident I'll pick it up with more practice. Our runs have all been between the midwest and into the southeast. Our last stop on this run is in Georgia. Still experienceing a bit of information overload. There is so much to be aware of just moving the truck down the road, planning the best route, deciding where and when to stop for fuel and grub, keeping it all within HOS... not to mention dealing with shippers, receivers, live load calls, Qualcomm, weight issues, etc. It's a great feeling when it all starts to come together, but then it tends to all fall apart again. It's tough out here, but I'm loving it so far.
Two good friends I made at Springfield have already been overwhelmed and took their leave from Prime. One almost caused an accident at a weigh station and got a couple of tickets (his log book was not current) and decided this was not for him. The other simply thought he was going on this great adventure and was going to bank a bundle just driving across the country. He's trying real hard to get his Wal-Mart job back!
To repeat (ad infintum) this is not a job for most people. It is a total lifestyle change, and not necessarily for the better. I've been incredibly lucky getting a great instructor; others have not fared as well. I've found already, trucking is 95% boredom 4% tedium and 1% sheer terror! Good luck to all of you attempting to make this your career, but listen hard to all the warnings posted on this forum.
I'll be testing out on or about the 17th of August. I'll try to keep up the posts as often as possible.

Keep the faith and be safe!

 

Hills, hills, and more hills. Maryland was a trip with 44,000 pounds in the wagon! Shifting has become second nature while we still have not found time for backing practice. Instructor says this was his best week in almost two years. Did not have to wait for a single load. All paid well and were drop & hooks. Got a picture of Frito-Lay turning our trailer into a dump truck unloading bulk potatoes. Pretty wild. Got a taste of NY and NJ. Crazy traffic on the cross Bronx, GWB, and Tappan Zee. Cut it real close and just missed bringing a road sign along for a delivery in Delaware. Running hard and hating this haz-mat load. NJ to IA in the passenger seat... and I only need seven hours for my 100. No worries, not testing till I get some backing in.

Keep the faith and stay safe!

 

Well we dropped our Haz-Mat load and get a run into Kraft in Springfield which completes my 100 hours (not miles U2). Caves were pretty cool and we got a quick load out to CA the next morning. Picked up a brand new trailer with the super-single tires and went to get loaded. Suppose to drop the trailer and go shuttle four trailers from Utility back to the yard. "It should only take an hour" The shipper refused to let us drop the trailer so we were told to go do the shuttle, then get loaded. When we returned at 3 PM found out no more loading till Mon morn. OK, FM gets us another load into to CA but with 220 miles deadhead. OK. Get loaded and drive 70 miles to nearest scale where we discover shipper gave us the wrong load. Incorrect address was pointed out during live load call but we were told to proceed at that time. Ok. Trip gets transferred to us and we're now headed to Modesto instead of Rancho Cucamonga. All Good. Two hours later, night dispatch calls and wants to know where our load is. Which one? We have gone through three today. Modesto. It's in Kansas, behind the truck. Where's the load for R.C. Don't know. You didn't pick it up? No they misloaded us with this Modesto load. What trailer is the R.C. load in? Don't know if it is in a trailer, was it reassigned? What trailer do you have...?

Just wanted to document that Prime has the same problems every other trucking company encounters almost every day. My first experience with this reinforced my perceptions of Prime: Everything was handled calmly, dealt with promptly, and we're getting ready for some sleep anticipating the second leg of our run to Modesto.

The positive. Missing that load Friday gave us five hours on the pad at the end of which I was nailing straight line, offsets, and the alley dock. Still need to work on the parallel. But I'm fully confident I'll pass come exam time.

Keep the faith and stay safe!

 

Figured we shoulda called our FM after the live load call. Probably would have saved us the retelling of the story twice, and the time night watch spent figuring out what had happened. Had to backtrack 40 miles last week because the seal #s didn't match the BOL. Hopefully, I've learned that lesson!