Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

I know it does not help you now, but there is a place close to there that is called KO's Pizza I think and he makes his pizza by hand and makes his ingredients by hand. I walked there one time when I was at Lebanon dropping a relay and it was some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. It looks a little run down place, but the looks are deceiving. Try it next time you are there.

 

Diesel, your experiences mirror that of many new SNI drivers,in my opinion. It's true Fontana drivers seem to do well, certainly better than drivers on western 11 based out of the northwest. You need to be all 48 to get the longer loads. Also, usually The planner picks loads, not the dbl. The driver out of Fontana would be the exception, in my opinion.

 

Just another frustrating day... Left the Lebanon, TN OC this morning after calling in and asking for a relay or seeing if I could deliver this load early. It took a while and I had to call back to get a straight answer, but SNI decided to have me deliver early.

When I originally picked up this load out of Michigan, the delivery address on the bills did not match the address I had on the workflow. Before leaving I called in to the weekend DBLs to make sure everything was OK, that I had the right load and was going to the right location. After speaking with someone from CS, the DBL tells me "she (the CS rep) wasn't particularly interested in the issue" but to go ahead and go for the address on the workflow. Ok, good enough.

I got to Kennesaw, GA at about 1400, took my paperwork up to the office and told them I hope I was at the right spot. Of course, I was not. All because some idiot CS rep was too fricking lazy to do their job. Luckily, I had planned for this and arrived an hour early, and the clerk was nice and she gave me directions to the other facility about 15 miles away. Finally found this place dropped my load, picked up an empty, and got working on my next preassignment. And what a great preassignment, drive 23 miles, pick up loaded trailer, drive 150 miles, live unload. What a joke.

Headed into Atlanta to one of those warehouses in the middle of the residential area, always fun. Found the entrance, talked with the guard, went up to the office and saw a sign telling me that for the load type I was picking up, I needed to leave this gate, go back out around through the neighborhood and go in from another gate. I squeezed my way to this gate, couldn't find anyone, so went up to the dock and the lady there running the forklift says "oh your load is on the other side." Right where I had just come from.

She told me I could drop my empty on this side, so I did, went back around to where I originally started, and got my paperwork and found my trailer.

And as usual, the fun starts.

I noticed that the trailer was leaning a bit to the side, it looked odd because it appeared to be on a fairly level surface. Whatever, maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. Of course, its a 44000lb load and jacked up WAY to high for my 5th wheel to come even remotely close to contacting the underside of the trailer. I was hoping to get away with a couple quick turns in high gear. Wouldn't even budge, and I mean not an inch. Fought it into low, and the thing is still not wanting to budge. WTF. Finally, putting all of my effort into cranking with two hands I get it turning, with a horrible "CRACKing" noise at every turn. After going at it for around 3 minutes I'm close enough to hopefully be able to get the truck to help me lift it up a little bit.

I back under, I pick it up a tiny bit but its not enough to release any pressure off the gear. So, back to cranking it for another 3 minutes. Finally I hear the hiss of the air suspension as it starts to fill the bags a bit, so I stop and look down, and of course right side landing gear leg is not moving. You have go to be kidding me. Covered in sweat and pissed as hell I go back in and tell the lady in the office that my landing gear on my trailer is screwed, and ask if she wants me to call for repairs or if they want to move the load to another trailer. I can tell she is frustrated, she says "Schneider has really been pissing me off lately", I laugh and say "me too".

She decided to move the load to another trailer for me so I wouldn't be late, I leave my tractor hooked up while they unload the broken trailer so if the gear failed it wouldn't send their forklift crashing to the ground. After they moved the load over, hooked up to the other trailer, and the landing gear are jamming just as bad on this one. It took me 10 minutes of both-hands-on-the-handle-rowing-in-low-gear to get them cranked up enough, thankfully at least both of the legs raised. I have never been so close to calling Schneider and telling them to go **** themselves as I was today.

After plowing out of that area, scaled it, and headed for Alabama. I'm still about 100 miles out from my delivery and will finish it up tomorrow. Only 350 miles today. Just counting the days until I can be done with this crap, if its not one thing its another, can't win for losing, get one good load and then 5 crappy ones that cancel out everything I got from the good run.

 

Man i hope my luck isnt as bas as yours when i leave out this weekend

 

That's just how it goes sometimes unfortunately. I think its payback for my really good week when I got that 3k miles, this must be my punishment LOL.

I hope your first week out goes well! Keep us updated on how things go. My best advice I can give you is remember that no matter how crappy things get at a shipper and receiver, remember that you WILL get back out on the road, and if you enjoy the driving (if you're in this industry I sure as hell hope you do) you'll kinda forget about how frustrated you were earlier. I've said that time and time again, and I really do mean it. Even after being so pissed off earlier, as soon as I got back on the expressway, the sun dipped down below the trees a bit and it cooled off enough to roll my windows down, put on some of my favorite music, switched on the cruise, flipped up my arm rests and just sat back and relaxed.

The driving part is the one thing that keeps me sane with all this crap that can go on some times... I absolutely love it. When I need to calm down I just force myself to slow down a bit, I really focus on the driving part, I'm always loaded heavy, 90% of the time I start in first gear, just smoothly running through them with the light rock of the cab as the turd next to me nearly pretzels his frame pounding through gears only to get stuck at the same exactly stoplight... I hit the nearly silent jake on this Cascadia about 3 truck lengths away from the light, then just roll past him again, never having stopped moving as he starts slamming gears again.

What I'm getting at is - ENJOY IT! It's gonna be crappy sometimes, yes you are gonna have weeks like I have had, but make the best of it and it won't be all that bad. The highlight of the day today for me was getting some lasagna, chicken bites and fries from the Petro I scaled at - I hadn't had anything to eat except some snacks since yesterday afternoon, I was STARVING and man that was some of the best food I've had, even though it was probably absolute crap.

If you have any questions or just need to vent, feel free to send me a PM here - I get emails on my phone and check them whenever I stop. I know I'm still a newbie too, but I may be able to offer some advice. In almost exactly two weeks it will be the 6-month mark from when I left the Charlotte OC for the first time on my own. What a crazy ride it has been!

 

Well, if you want to look at the bright side there you should be getting a 5 CPM raise the 1st of next month.

 

My raise at 6 months was 3 cpm, here's hoping you get 5 cpm diesel, you deserve it!

Sept 1st will be my one year mark, another 3 cpm raise, or so i have been told.

 

623 miles today, Denver west through Utah and into Eastern Nevada. 579 miles left tomorrow on a 1400 mile trip.

 

I'm jealous. 99 miles total for today so far and I started my day at 0600, its 1500 now lol.

 

My one year anniversary was July 2nd and I haven't seen a raise yet.