Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

So, I'm at the Charlotte OC tonight. I could type up a whole page about stuff from today, but I'm tired so I'll keep it short (well, short for my posts).

All the weekend warriors were out today in their bus-sized RVs. Why they let people loose in these things is just unbelievable. Got stuck behind one coming through the NC mountains on I-40, every time you got to one of the tunnels he'd panic and slam on the brakes and get down to 30MPH with half of the RV taking up both lanes. I of course was behind him and was sitting there absolutely losing it as I had to drop 2 gears and lost ALL my momentum, only to watch him stomp his foot on the floor as his 550+ HP rockets off as soon as he's out of the tunnel. This happened twice, no matter how much I tried to slow down by a couple MPH to get some distance from him, he'd just slow down even more in the winding turns and I'd catch up every time. I've never wanted to absolutely throttle someone so bad in my life.

Got to my delivery in Rock Hill, SC at about 1430. It appeared no one was there. Walked around, rang bells, banged on doors, double checked my work assignment, etc. etc. Its obvious this place isn't open.

Called in to weekend DBLs, after 15 minutes get through. They call CS, CS says they break from 1200 to 1500 and to just wait around. DBL relays that info to me, tells me to call him back if nothing has changed by 1530.

1530 rolls around, still nothing. Call in, sit on hold for 10 minutes, phone decides to restart itself. OH FOR ***** SAKE. Call in, sit for 20 minutes this time, finally get someone. Tell him the situation and he calls CS. CS now says for me to sit around until the end of the delivery window (1700). He relays that to me. Why waste time getting mad, what's that gonna do. So I agree to sit but said I was going to call in at 1650 if there was still no one, because I didn't want to have to deal with support shift which gets the phones at 1700.

So, 1650 rolls around. Still no one here. Call in, wait 15 minutes, finally get through to one of the head DBL guys, whatever you want to call him. Explain the situation, his response "you have been sitting there since 230?!?! Are you *******ing kidding me? Who told you do this, hang on"

Probably after a lot of yelling at someone, he gets back to me and tells me to just come to Charlotte. So, turn around, head to Charlotte.

So, not wanting to leave this super crappy trailer for the next guy to deal with, I take it to the shop and tell them all that's wrong with it.

My work assignment still hasn't updated, so I call support shift and ask to have my assignment updated. She says it already was but maybe it didn't go through, and she'd do it again.

Hours later, after driving my pickup truck (sat for 2.5 months, had a dead battery, jump it off and it still fires on the first revolution, gotta love that old Cummins), messed around on my laptop, did my HOS training, took a shower, etc., the workflow is STILL not updated.

So, again, I can't complete my work assignment, or accept my preassignment. I'm headed to the Northeast, HOORAY.... no. Hopefully I'll get out quick, but hey if they never update my work assignment I don't even have to go in the first place, right????!?!!

Anyway, I'm off to bed.

 

After a rough start today was a pretty good day. Woke up and no one had updated my work assignment yet. Didn't want to deal with support shift, so went back to sleep until 0800 when I could get ahold of the OC. Called in from the parking lot right at 0800, got through, talked with a DBL, he says the work assignment was never even changed to a relay (come on, really?), and finally gets someone from customer service to do it. In the meantime, I go drive around and find my relay trailer. Grab the paperwork out of the pouch, and a note is left in there saying "driver, I did not pass a scale on the way to the OC so I did not scale it. I recommend you scale it to your tractor". WAT. You mean you had no better excuse than you didn't pass a scale? There's one 2 minutes from the Charlotte OC at the Pilot??? Anyway, hook up to it, pretrip, fuel, park, and go in for food. I decided to double check the seal. I checked it once during the pretrip, but for some reason I just thought I'd better check it again. Of course, the seal doesn't match the bills. Its off by one digit. So, driver that dropped this was just flat out too lazy to scale it and didn't even check the seal to what was written on the bills, and he "recommends that I scale it to my tractor". Yeah, thanks bud. We need more drivers like you here.

So, I was going to walk back and actually talk to the DBLs rather than sitting on the phone, but of course the doors were locked, so I had to call in. Got told the issue with the seal happens a lot, and just to write the correct number on the bills and call if there is an issue. There had better not be when I drop it tomorrow otherwise I will lose it on the first person I get ahold of on the phone.

After eating some biscuits that were so hard they basically crumbled when I tried to spread jelly on them (gotta love Charlottes cafe), I drove down to the Pilot and scaled it. No problems, full of fuel, finally ready to go.

I stayed on I-81 all the way from Charlotte today, made pretty good miles (450) despite all the traffic, construction, and slowdowns. I had only planned to make it to West Virginia tonight and stop at the welcome center, but I made better time than expected and decided to head for the Carlisle OC. Got there just as the rain started to pour and traffic backed up, good timing.

Now I'm way ahead of schedule for tomorrow since I got about 100 miles further than I planned. So, thats why its 10pm and I'm still up, lol. I'll sleep in bit tomorrow, then head off on my delivery. I still have about 8 hours of driving to go, so I'll do that tomorrow and stay overnight at the receiver since I know this place lets you park and even provides menus for drivers to order delivery food from - they're really nice, we need more shippers/receivers like that. I'd prefer to keep moving because I'll still have a few extra hours of driving, especially if I make good time, BUT what I'm hoping is that by ending and showing a full day from the start after my break, I might be able to get a good load OUT of the northeast. Don't want to get stuck doing circles up there. Showing myself as available with a few hours at the end of the day has NEVER, EVER worked out well for me up in that area.

I'll probably put in my hometime request tomorrow. I've been out for a little over 3 weeks now, and would like to get home after the 4th or 5th week. If my DBL would let me take a 6th day off, I'll probably stay out for 5 weeks. If I can only do 5 days, then I'll just ask to be brought home right after 4 weeks or whenever they can get me back. Doesn't really matter that much to me, Schneider has been running me really good lately (probably thanks to my DBL) and I'm really comfortable in my truck and haven't had to spend much time in the Northeast. Can't complain here.

Until next time...

 

Run regional and spend the week getting no miles as they try to get me away from and then back to home? NO WAY. I'm OTR not regional. I stay out as long as I want. If I want to be out for 5 weeks that is by my choice. I'm not married, I have no kids, don't own a house. I'm not what you would call a "people person". What am I gonna do when I go home, play video games, watch movies, and drive my old Deuce and a Half around? It doesn't take me long to get bored. I like to work, I like to stay busy. I run hard for a long time then go home and take a nice long break.

Schneider is one of the best from my experience when it comes to hometime. I've never gotten home more than 24 hours away from when I originally requested. They are flexible. Last time I was home I ordered a laptop, it got delayed in shipping and wasn't going to show up until the afternoon after the morning I was scheduled to leave. I called my DBL and asked about getting it shipped to the OC. You know what she told me? Just push out my NAT and leave home after it arrives. How cool is that? Some companies only give you 1 day home per every week out - 4 days in 1 month - don't like it, too bad.

I'm sorry Schneider didn't work out for your son. Trucking isn't for everyone, and unfortunately about the only way to find out is to get out there and try it. Honestly though, I doubt any company will satisfy your expectations.

Well, my 30 minute break is up. Some big mean truckers who probably throw their piss bottles at cars and drive 80MPH in construction zones are on the CB getting stopped to move a turtle that is trying to cross the road so he won't get squashed. But thats OK no one will focus on that, instead they will whine about how much we pollute.

Well, time to finish up my run for today. Keeping my fingers crossed my next preassignment will get me out of here!

 

Nope, 270 mile total home depot dc to store delivery for tomorrow. Looks like my week of good miles is up. Time to run circles in the NE.