J.S. Helwig & Son

Yeah I could probably sit down and take an hour lunch and still make it there before 2pm.

 

Got to Dillons at about 1:45 and they put me right in a door. They didn't start unloading until my appointment anyways, so I didn't get out of there until a little after 4. Believe it or not, the load was over by one pallet even after they took 3 off at the shipper. I couldn't make this up.

Got to Dodge City about 6:30 and picked up my preloaded trailer going to Mason. Went about 20 miles back east and shut down for the night.

 

First week at Helwig and I got 2739 miles. Didn't get paid yet since I started right after the cutoff for their pay period though. Would have got a bit more miles this week but I couldn't make my delivery on time the other day so I swapped loads with another driver. This meant that yesterday I was sitting all day waiting for an 11:45pm delivery appointment. They are very strict about on-time appointments so they'll do anything they can to ensure a load will get delivered on time. On the plus side, if you're the one rescuing a load you get $100 on top of the miles. So far it's been about 50% drop and hooks. No complaints yet, but I'll keep this thread updated when I can.

 

Got my settlement statement for tomorrow. 2168 loaded miles 314 empty, total 2482. Reefer fuel was properly reimbursed as well as scale tickets. I even got $12 for 15 minutes (after the initial 2 hours) of detention that I didn't even ask for. I wouldn't really bother with 15 minutes as it's not really worth my time, but I guess they just keep track of when you're at a shipper/receiver over 2 hours and if the times are on the bills they bill the customer for detention. The customer happened to put the time on the bills in this case so I got the detention. I'll take it.

 

3156 miles this week. Still no complaints. Something I've noticed now is that the safety guy sends out a message every morning with a summary of the weather throughout the country. "It's raining in these states, high winds in these etc.". I do check the weather daily, but it's nice to get a little summary in the morning right when I wake up.

 

This morning I woke up in Oklahoma City and noticed a huge air leak coming from my truck almost to the point that the compressor couldn't keep up. When looking for the air leak I noticed my radiator was also leaking. I went to the TA shop and they fixed my air leak and quoted me $560 for labor on the radiator. Not too bad. They called Kenworth and they wanted $3200 for a new radiator. What a joke. Did some looking around and found one in town for $780. Couldn't get someone over to pick it up quick enough (the place closed at 2pm) so now I'm a sitting duck until Monday. Helwig is having another driver meet up with me tomorrow to give me an empty trailer and take my load that was going to Dodge City. It's always something with these trucks.

 

2209 miles this week thanks to the radiator. But I was fortunately able to hit the road right away once it was fixed Monday afternoon and pick up a load in Edwardsville, KS going to Lewiston, ME. Helwig definitely seems to be doing everything they can to keep me rolling, as long as my truck isn't broke down lol

 

Helwig loads typically run from Texas or Kansas to the east coast or Midwest. They do not run west of New Mexico, Colorado, or Nebraska. Don't really go north of Nebraska either, I think.