Heyl Journey with xlsdraw

So it begins. Took nearly 3 years to overcome Heyl's internal gap of employment standard, due to me having no employment in 2010. After 11 month stints each at Conway Truckload, Knight Transportation, and Crete Carrier Corp, I finally qualified for the company I set my sights on from the beginning. Heyl Truck Lines.

Got the preliminary app and over the phone stuff done a couple weeks ago and gave notice to Crete which allowed me to work out the notice. Thanks Crete, I really do appreciate that. Today 02/04/14, I went in to Heyl's Zephyrhills, Fl office and did the interview and road test. Then I headed to a local lab and did the drug screen. And finally, I stopped at a clinic Heyl designated and knocked out the DOT physical and acquired my new 1 yr medical card.


Orientation is 2 days and is scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

My target was set on Heyl due to their Long Length of Haul average and their steady freight in and out of both Florida and the Northwest. The two places I own houses. Central Florida and SW Montana. Also alluring was the opportunity to step down from the 4000 truck companies to a 400 truck company.

I will be updating this thread frequently as this journey moves forward.

 

Called today to check see if I could get Saturday off following Thursday and Friday orientation. Nope. They are 7 trucks short for Saturday and already sent my info to the planners. Looks like I'm gonna hit the ground running.

 

1st day of orientation is done. Overwhelming as always. Seems the only thing the same from one company to the next is driving the truck. So I'll stumble along for a few weeks as usual. Anyway, I am going into a 2009 Freightliner without any kind of apu system or inverter. 450k on it. l reckon I'll be idling a bunch winter and summer. Still has the old mattress in it. Had 'em clean out the storage box. It was full of oil from leaking oil jugs. Everything in it was coated with oil including the triangles. Overall pretty disappointed with their truck prep or lack there of. The truck has body damage in 4 places down the driver's side. Nothing that should effect safe operation. A couple cabinets inside the truck I can't get the doors open on. Fifth wheel needs greased. Didn't get a chance to take it out on the street yet. Gonna go in early tomorrow and check it out some more before orientation starts. As you can tell, I am pretty disappointed with day 1. I hope this is the most disappointing day I have with Heyl. We'll see what tomorrow brings. We are supposed to get our 1st dispatches Saturday morning. That's it for now.

 

I guess I should throw this disclaimer out there for those that don't know me and prefer fiction. I am an extremely honest person, so this will not be a fairy tale. What ever my experience, good, bad, or in between, I will report it as I see it thru my eyes and fell it with my heart. That's just how I choose to live my life.