From School to Superior Carriers

Left out Easter Sunday after church and a nice family meal. Even packed a few mini ham sandwiches on dinner rolls for the road. They really came in handy over the first 3 days as they kept me moving pretty good.

Sunday I hooked to a preloaded tank of snot headed to a water treatment plant in Cincinnati. Shut down a couple of hours from the plant and made my delivery on time with no problem and about an hour of demurage pay. Snot loads always take a little over 2 hours to unload because of the nature of the product. One nice thing about this company and tankers in general is that you are paid hourly after 2 hours loading or unloading. They had me drop my tank and bobtail to the terminal. My next load was from a paint company in Richmond Ky about 90 miles south. I hooked to an empty and was to spot it and grab a loaded one headed to Memphis Tenn delivering at 8:00 AM Wed. My appointment time was 9:00 Tuesday so I drove to within 5 miles of the plant and shut down for the night.

Tuesday morning I get to the plant 30 minutes early drop my empty and learn that my tank is still being loaded. About an hour later they finish loading and inform me that this resin product needs to ship at 150 degrees. It is currently 95 so they hook it to steam and it rose about 10 degrees an hour. You can do the math. I made around $100 laying in the sleeper waiting for this load. Only problem is that my plan was to shut down at our Memphis terminal and now I would not have enough hours on my 14 to make it all the way there. I did a split sleeper on my log so I could take 8 hours and hopefully make it close to my appointment time in Memphis.

After hammering it pretty good I managed to only be around 30 minutes late the next morning. It ended up not mattering as they had a pump break down unloading a truck ahead of me and I got another 5 hours of demurage pay. I dropped my empty at a tank wash and shut down early afternoon at the terminal.

My Thursday load appointment was for 4:00 AM and delivered in Spartanburg SC Friday at 11:00. This load went pretty much as scheduled, 45 min demurage loading and 1 hour on the unload. After dropping my empty at a truck wash I was dispatched on a load that delivered Saturday at 11:00 in Raeford NC. I was to drop the empty on the yard and be off until Tuesday or so. This unload provided me with another 3 hours of demurage pay as they had one guy to unload 3 tankers. They also had a problem because the tank couldn't hold all the product. I wound up taking over 7,000 lbs of heel back with me. I am going to push for loaded mileage pay because of it. That company will be charged out the ying yang for cleaning that tank. Over all a great week.

 

April 1-4

Got my check and yes they did pay me for loaded miles because of that heel. I didn't even have to ask for it. My weekly check has finally climbed to the point where I will make 48-52 K in a year. The good thing is that was on about 1600 miles since about 500 of my loaded miles on Easter Sunday were put on the prior weeks check. It was a long training process but for a newbie 4 months in its starting to look pretty good.

This week I ran 1700 miles and was only out 3 1/2 days. I left Tuesday 4/1 pulled an empty down to Plaquemine La, loaded and brought it back to Brown Summit NC. Its about an 860 mile run one way and is one of my terminals dedicated runs. I worked half a day local when I got back loading one tank and was off by 1:30 on Friday. Even though I ran almost as many miles my check probably won't be as good this week because of less accessory pay (loading, unloading and demurage). I will have a little though since the tank was refused initially at the plant and I had to get it washed out again before loading.

I leave out again Monday headed for East Chicago Indiana. They gave me a choice of two loads, this one and another headed to Long Island NY.

 

4/7-4/12

First trip into the Chicago area this week and it has gone well. I left Monday afternoon with a preloaded tank of waste water polymer. This was a special type of shipment they called "double blind". It had a lot of extra paperwork involved. I also had to meet a representative from the shipper at the consignee before unloading. My paperwork showed a delivery window of 6:00-15:00 on Wednesday. I shut down Monday just outside Huntington W Va and figured I had a pretty easy day coming up having gotten all the mountain driving behind me.

That proved to be true. I got to Gary In at about 3:30 and shut down at Idle Air at the TA. I had never used it before and my company pays for it so I signed up, bought an adapter for the truck and bought a night of internet service. I just happened to read this thread that night:

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...hat-are-safest-most-dangerous-truckstops.html

I thought the place was a bit of a dump but I didn't have any problems. It did fill up early even the idle air places. I thought it ironic that I just read that thread for the first time staying at one of the places everyone agrees is one of the worst truck stops.

Later that afternoon I got a call from a superior rep handling this blind shipment i was on. She told me a rep would meet me at 8:00 AM the next morning. I told her I had left early so I could get there by the start of my delivery window at 6:00 and hopefully get a load out that afternoon. She said the rep couldn't get there until 8:00 and that I couldn't unload until he had tested a sample. That ticked me off a little since I planned to avoid Chicago rush hour traffic by getting up early. I decided to still leave early and hang out at the customer until he got there.

I got up early, got a shower and headed out about 6:00 AM. I was pretty close and traffic was fine and I got there about 6:30 AM. I got scaled in and after the usual run around you tend to get at these plants was directed to my unloading station. I backed in pulled all my hoses and fittings out and laid them where they go without hooking anything up. Got all that ready by about 7:15. I was glad I had gotten there early thinking I had saved myself 45 minutes. My sales rep arrived 1.5 hours late carrying donuts for all the workers. I had called him at 8:15 and he told me he was stuck in traffic and to go ahead and pull a sample that he would be about 30 minutes late. Honestly I think I woke him up. Once he got there it took another 1.5 hours to get the sample approved. I then had to wait another 30 minutes for a plant worker to sign off that everything was hooked up to the right tanks. Once I turned it loose it took 4 hours to unload because they made me keep the tank pressure below 15 psi. I am sure glad I get paid demurage after 2 hours. I will get a 7.75 hours out of this one.re

Here is a picture of the unload process before I hooked up to the customer:

 

I got to the Markham Il terminal and was dispatched on a load to Jackson City Mo. It loaded in Chicago at 9:30 on Thursday and delivered at 1300 on Friday. I got to another Idle Air stop about 9:00 and shut down with plenty of time since I had a 1300 delivery time. Everything went great with this load except that the customer could have taken it much earlier. I learned to always ask.

It started to become obvious that I wouldn't get home this weekend when I checked out the closest terminal to Jackson City and saw it is Chicago. Sure enough I was dispatched back to Markham with the empty. They sent me a tank wash message for saturday and a load to pick up Sunday morning. I immediately called the dispatcher and asked if there was anything earlier since I had plenty of time to get the empty back on Friday. He said he would look at it. 5 minutes later I get a call from my home terminal dispatcher telling me I would be staying in Chicago and that they should not have sent me this far out without something headed towards home. Right now I am sitting in a company paid hotel room getting paid layover pay. They actually considered sending me home with the empty but 1000 miles was too much to eat. I will get a 34 hour reset in with a tight pickup on Sunday and should get a jump on next week. this is the first weekend since I have started with Superior Carriers that I have not been home. I actually expected this to happen more often than it has from all the stories you read on here.

 

You keep the attachment in the truck. Its a piece of plastic that fits in the passenger window. Cost $10 and the rep says some companies riemburse for it. I haven't been given any mpg requirements. I pretty much idle all the time except at loading and unloading when the customer doesn't allow it and when off duty, at a hotel or hooked up to idle air.

When you think about it with the cost of fuel its cheaper for the company to pay 1.85 per hour rather than the fuel. My idle air bill 2 nights ago was over $30 and this hotel costs $40 a night so the company does ok there as well since they don't pay me a $10 sleeper berth for those nights. Ideling the truck is the most expensive option for the company.

 

Sunday 4/13- Thursday 4/17

Feeling nice and refreshed I got to the shipper in South Chicago about 30 minutes early. This load was going to Nashville. My load appointment was 8:00 AM and it delivered at 7:00 the next morning. That gave me barely enough time to make it on time with a 2 hour load time. This load was screwed up from the get go. After 3 hours and only seeing the 5th wheel weight gauge rise about 5,000 lbs I went inside to see what was going on. They were pumping product out of 55 gallon drums. No one was in a good mood because it was a classic example of management screwing up and line staff guys suffering for it. They had drummed this product earlier in the week so it doubled the work. 8 hour later I was loaded and ready to go. The load was supposed to be 45k but they only had about 32K. This put me behind and I only had a few hours left on my 14. I drove as far as I could, sent a qualcom message saying this load would be about 5 hours late, and shut down for 10 hours.

The next morning I pushed it pretty hard and got to the customer about 45 minutes earlier than my ETA. The unloading person at this plant had the worst attitude of anyone I have met since I started. He made negative comments about his company constantly, was short with everyone and basically acted like he hated his life. They told me the product was too cold and that they would need to hook it up to steam so as not to tear up the pump. I did not tell them it had been sitting in 55 gallon drums in Chicago I also told them that the temp would only rise about 5 degrees an hour. They didn't believe me saying it needed to be 40 degrees warmer. I told them I was getting paid demurage after 2 hours and to take as much time as they needed then settled down in the sleeper expecting to be there a while. A couple of hours later they knocked on my window saying they were done. The temp had only risen 5 degrees but they pumped it anyway.

I then got a tank wash message for my home terminal. This company doesn't mess around getting drivers home. They have a terminal in Nashville but they paid me .34 per mile to pull an empty tank 400 miles to High Point. They gave me a load the next day loading in Augusta Ga at 10:00 that delivered back home at 7:00 Thursday. I have been off since Thursday about 9:00.

My next load is to Wisconsin leaving Sunday afternoon delivering Tuesday mid morning.

My checks have been averaging about $950 a week gross for the past 3 weeks on 1500-2000 miles per week. Not bad for a first year driver and I really haven't had to run all that hard. I was paid over $100 because they couldn't get me home or a load for 34 hours. I am happy so far.