Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Sorry I haven't been on here much lately, between my hometime and the last 3 days of back on the road (more on that tomorrow maybe) I've been pretty busy.

In answer to your questions:

Since I started driving on my own for Schneider, my average paycheck is right at 500/week. I added up all my paychecks from ADP and divided them by the number of checks that I had received as a solo driver and the average was $493. Keep in mind that I'm dividing by all checks received, not just weeks where I was driving, so not getting paid while on home time is included in that average.

They pay has improved after getting off the starter DBL who had me spend nearly all my time in the Northeast. Not by a ton, but some. My "full time" DBL has me running good weeks and then terrible weeks... it all averages out in the end.

Its hard for me to say what I would do if I was in your position. I guess if I was in your position, and was happy with the job, and felt like I was making enough to meet my wants and needs... I'd probably still be doing that. But, I've never been the kind of person that could sit behind a desk, so take what I say there with a grain of salt.

My long term goal is to own my own truck. I feel that if I can be successful in doing that, I will open up the possibility of making a lot more than I currently am as a company driver. The added freedom of choosing where I want to go and when I want to be home is a huge plus. I can not and will not stay a company driver for my entire career, constantly being under the thumb of someone else. I do want to settle down and have a family some day, and I'd never want to be the kind of parent that was never around - obviously things may change in the future if/when I really want that to happen, but in the meantime, I really am enjoying the job and want to pursue some of my "long term" goals in this career.

Schneider absolutely does view drivers as a revenue stream - they (the planners) will take advantage of you given the chance, as I've experienced many times. The DBLs are usually a little more "in touch" with you as a person and if you happen to get a good one, they'll look out for you most of the time.

I haven't been contacted by any other companies yet, but when I originally graduated school and put in applications I didn't fill out that many... TMC and Conway were the other two besides Schneider that I applied to with real interest. TMC turned me down for some reason, I'm not sure why, and I never heard back from Conway. I also had offers from Werner, Roehl, and US Express but I was not interested in those companies, just filled out the applications while in CDL school. Before I make any company changes, I want to at least see where applying for the Choice program with Schneider will get me. I appreciate your offer of the reference, however.

The first song in the video is "The Road" by Aaron Lewis. Check out some of his other songs, another favorite of mine by him is "Grandaddys Gun".

Thanks for your post, let me know if there is anything else I can answer.

 

Well now that I am just sitting and waiting for a preassignment, I guess I can share how the past few days have been.

Bear with me here, small backstory to get the week going:

While I was on my hometime both of my ears completely clogged up. Apparently my ears make a lot of wax. It was so bad I honestly could not hear the AC unit running right next to me at night. One ear would unclog sometimes, but my right ear I could not hear a thing out of no matter what I did. I finally gave in and decided to go see the doctor.

I went to one of the walk in clinics and they tried to get them cleared up (literally they have a syringe, fill it with some solution, and blast it into your ear canal). Well, they didn't have all the right tools to clear anything up, so they told me I needed to go see one of the doctors the specializes in that kind of thing. I was supposed to leave out the following day, so I called my DBL and informed her of what was going on. She proceeds to get an attitude and mad that I did not get this taken care of earlier. Seriously, what the ****. Do you think I control the amount of wax that my ears produce? Do you want me to go get the Milwaukee, slap on the wood boring spade bit and go shove it into my ear canal? After her drilling me repeatedly about what is going on, she gets with the planners to see if someone else can take the load. She gets back to me saying that no one else can, and really isn't willing to work with me at all unless I told her that this was causing me some "pain". It wasn't, I wasn't going to lie about that, so I just basically threw up my hands and said "Ok, I'll go ahead and leave out, but if you can get me back for a restart next week I'll try to go to the doctor then".

By a really weird turn of events after I got off the phone with her, I ended up being able to have an ENT doctor meet me that night and do it for me. He used the same syringe but with a little attachment on the end that I guess makes it work better. I won't go into any details about what came out of my ears for fear of grossing anyone out, but my GOD, it was unreal. I simply cannot explain how much of a difference it made, I can actually HEAR now... it was bad before they clogged up, I just had no idea how bad it had gotten over time. By the time I got this done, the DBLs had all along gone home so there was no point in calling in. She still assumed I was leaving out in the morning anyway, or so I thought.

Ok, so now that we've set the stage for my first week out, here we go:

Apparently the DBL decided to leave the requiest in to pull the load if someone else became available, but didn't tell me. So, I assumed when I woke up in the morning the preassignment wasn't on the Qualcomm. I figured it was just because the Qualcomm just woke up and maybe hadn't received it yet, so I loaded up my stuff, pretripped, and then pulled out and parked in a little neighborhood that is still being built just down the road where I'd have a better connection.

30 minutes later still nothing. I call in and get ahold of my DBL, she explains that they did pull the load and I could go to the doctor now. WTF? So I told her I got it taken care of, she says "I left early because I was sick yesterday". I'm not sure if that was her way of apologizing for the way she acted or not, but its as close as it got so I guess I'll take it.

She couldn't get me that nice 900 mile run back, so I had to wait for the planners to find me something else. Of course, a crappy 400 mile run up to the Northeast.

I got to the pickup on the way out of NC. I had a window and a ready time of 00:01 that day, so it should have been ready. Get there, of course its not ready. I arrived at 1045. The load wasn't ready until 1400. Already off to a great start. Finally get the loaded trailer and head out. I made it as far as I could but still couldn't make up for lost time. I let them know I was going to be late, didn't hear anything back so made the best time I could and delivered it a few hours late. Customer was luckily fine with it, but was slow to unload me. Took 3 hours to get unloaded on what the SSD said would be a 60 minute unload.

Next preassignment. Was supposed to be a drop and hook. Qualcomm beeps and someone decided it would be a live load. Get to customer and nothing is ready anyway. Parking lot is absolute gridlock. Sat for FIVE HOURS before they finally called me to go dock my trailer up. Head out of there towards my drop. Still on the way there the next morning. They stacked another preassignment on me immediately after I left the customer before I could really figure out my NAT. Of course, can't make that delivery on time either because every where I go is making me late for the next run. Message support shift in the AM. Get this guy named Adam who is an absolute TOOL. He does nothing but send passive-aggressive messages on the Qualcomm whining about ETAs and having to do everything himself. He apparent ly decides he doesn't want to do his job any more and I never hear back. Weekend DBL covering my main DBLs shift sees I have my ETA pushed out way past the delivery time, calls customer, messages me back saying I'm good to go for the drop on the preassignment. I like this guy, that's how it's done.

Drop the current load. Accept the preassignment, pick it up, head out for the delivery. FINALLY headed west, ignore the Qualcomms stupid route and rack up tolls on I-90 blasting all the way across NY to the delivery in Blasdell, NY. Reach this little town early this afternoon. Get almost to the customer and see a 12' 10" bridge. Great. Luckily theres an area to pull off in, so I stop and try to call the customer. Nothing. I know that most bridges in NY are marked a foot lower than the actual height, but I'm taking that with a grain of salt. Don't see any other trucks other than dumptrucks coming by. Not gonna chance it. Call in to DBLs to ask if CS can get ahold of anyone. Place is closed, I'm just supposed to drop the trailer... no luck there. Eventually someone from across the street with several trucks in their yard sees me and drives across on his way out and tells me I'll fit.

So, go slowly under the bridge watching carefully with some skepticism, watch the top of the trailer in my mirrors carefully, but make it with no problems. Get to (what I think is) the customers lot, no mailbox, no signs, no nothing, no empty trailers, what the heck am I supposed to do. Still on hold waiting for the DBL to get back with me, finally he does, I tell him I fit under the bridge, we go back and fourth about what I should do because CS has no idea either, so we end up deciding on putting the bills in the pouch, marking down when I dropped it, the seal intact, and head off from there.

Sit around for an hour until they find me an empty trailer. Get that, head further west towards the pickup for my next assignment. A load with a delivery window, and heading to Illinois. THANK GOD. Get to this small town with properties on the right side of the road literally backing right up to the lake. Really nice drive in, I enjoyed it. Find the customer after going down the street and it not being there. How come half the time the customer that shows up on our workflow is named something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the ACTUAL customer? Of course, half these places never have their address listed on their signs so that doesn't help either.

Ok, just a drop and hook that was ready long before I arrived. No problems right? Get inside to the office, really nice cheery lady working the weekend shift by herself. She looks through the papers. IS IT READY? NOPE. She gets on the phone with the plant. When will it be ready? TOMORROW AT 8PM. OMG. I. JUST. CAN. NOT. WIN. Shes still as nice as can be, I just can't get mad at her, I know its not her fault.

Call in to DBLs. Tell them the situation. They pull the load off me and tell me that they're working on something else. Still no preassignment.

Just... yeah... I don't even know what to say.