JB HUNT ,started 07/26/10

I have had many trucking jobs that range from dry vans to reefers to car hauling. I went with jbhunt just now because they offered a good starting mileage pay and was told it would be 85% drop and hook running the I5 corridor from southern cal to northern cal with weekends off. I was realistically only expecting 2000 miles a week. I have read this forum for awhile now and figured since I have nothing but time on my hands since going with jb I might as well kill some time here recapping my first week and see if the bad circumstances continue on.

07/26/10 to 07/29/10 orientation with 43 other drivers took place.
out of those, about 20 of us graduated. The word was circulating early on that trucks may not be available upon graduation.

07/30/10 is the date of when I said I would be available to go to work. I did not hear anything by noon so I made the call and found out I was scheduled to pick up a truck 350 miles away. This required either driving a rental car or taking a bus. I chose the rental car and was paid as if driving a big rig. Not too bad.

07/31/10 at 9pm is when I finally got in the truck(an 09 cascadia,not too bad again) after taking the rental car and turning it in 50 miles past the truck location and getting a shuttle back from the airport. It is saturday night now and did not expect to get a load sunday and of course that was correct. Ohhh and besides there were no empty trailers of which I was told to find one. (not sounding like a drop and hook arrangement already)

8/2/10 at 7am I would be on a whole new 70 hours. But at 10pm the night before I was qualcommed to shuttle a loaded trailer 4 miles at 6 30am.( i was told i had to log this). This trailer when empty is to be used for a pick up at 5pm. By the time it loaded I had one hour of legal drive time left.

8/3/10 Got to the receivers city with 5 hours to spare. Took this time at a nearby terminal to load up my truck with stuff from my personal vehicle. The terminals loaner car was not working and so I used my own vehicle to go around town. Also, during the trip I experienced having to come down the grapevine fully loaded with what I thought was no jake brakes working. I talked to maintenance and they said I had to go to my home terminal to have anything done to it and even if they did look at it , it wouldnt be for another day and a half. After getting back to my truck to deliver the load I stopped by maintenance again and found someone willing to look into this jake brake issue. I suggested maybe it was a fuse since the jake button on the console wasnt even lighting up. He looked at various stuff and couldnt figure it out. After delivering the load I had 2 hours legal drive time left in rush hour traffic to go 60 miles to my home terminal and I took myself off of any future load scheduling. As drive time was running out I shut it down early at the ontario ta and figured I would deal with this jake brake issue in the morning. (to be continued)

 

thanks for posting, would like to hear how it goes for you in the coming weeks.

 

Well, today is the 9th of August. Lets all hope he is okay. Or, did he get tired of the B.S. and throw in towel?

 

was not able to post the recap for the last week until now, for those who are interested.

8/4 took the truck to home terminal and the maintenance guy knew right away what the jake brake issue was without even looking at the truck. Turns out that a little button on the steering wheel has to be pushed in conjunction with the console hi and low buttons. I put myself back on schedule for a load at 8am and was 3rd in line to get a load. This can be checked by calling a certain number to see where you are on the list. I never got a load all day.

8/5 got a load assignment that picks up 50 miles away at 8pm and delivers
400 miles away at 930am. Thats 13.5 hours if I was already at the shipper to do this under 14 with 30 minutes to unload and drive out. (not realistic if you are stressing running logs straight). after accepting this and then realizing i should have headed to the shipper right away so that I could be off 10 and start the 14 at 8pm it was too late and I had to figure a way to pull this off. (will be discussed later) If I decided to leave where I was after 6:15pm I would have done a 34 hour restart but I didnt want to risk being late to the shipper driving in socal evening traffic.

8/6 got to the receiver 4 hours early and parked in the street along with other trucks in a no parking zone. got on receivers property at 9am and just got completely unloaded right at the 14 hour mark. Next load assignment came in at 2;30pm and was told it was a relay to be received at one yard and taken to my home terminal yard. It had a destination date of 8/12. Since this was 6 days away I called after hours dispatch,,,eastern time,,,,and they said the trailer was en route and 500 miles away,,estimated time to get to me was 10am to 12 noon saturday.

 

8/7 called dispatch at 1pm to see where the trailer was. was told it was 200 miles away. another driver that was in my orientation was waiting along with me at the same location for a relay as well. at 6:00 pm i called dispatch again and found out the driver shut down 77 miles away. I offered to go pick up the #### trailer from him and was authorized to do so by 6;30pm. I waited 30 minutes so that I could get a 34 hour restart done and when I got to the driver at the truck stop I asked him,,ummm werent you 500 miles away over 24 hours ago? he said,,,yeah so? turns out he didnt want to be stuck at the terminal knowing he wouldnt get a load out on the weekend. Another jb driver confirmed the same thing at that location and I think that was the trailer to be relayed as well. I drove this straight thru all night after being up all day waiting for the trailer and having to go a total of 600 miles.

8/8 got to my home terminal just under the 14 hour total with that ,out of the way, pick up and 600 miles total drive. stayed up all day as well to take care of personal stuff on this one day off. I had texted that other driver that was waiting for his relay along with me if he had gotten his trailer and he did not respond until later on this day and said no,,it never got there.

 

What a bunch of BS you are going through. Did you ever find time to take a p**s? I sure would not want to be in your shoes.

 

Wow! Sounds rough. Hope things get better for you. Update if you can.

 

Please get some sleep ...

 

so to recap that last week. I almost did 3 restarts in one week. and still somehow pulled off 1200 miles.

8/9 finally got a trailer to pick up that was loaded. only downfall was if it was picked up to early to avoid LA evening traffic then total hours would run out and wouldnt be able to deliver at scheduled 6am. waited til estimated 7pm for traffic to die down and it worked perfectly to drive straight thru 400 miles and stop close to receiver at 4am.

8/10 things are looking better. a drop and hook from sf area to salt lake city.

8/12 drop full and hooked empty trailer in salt lake city. dh to ogden for quick live load.

8/13 ogden utah to redlands ca. and told to not assume time off for the weekend. was told i could be worked until midnight on fridays if needed. but was told when i get to redlands est time of 6:00 pm to take time off until 10am sunday.

8/15 sunday live load from city of industry ca to stockton

8/16 delivered at noon and pick up in same city at 4pm but not loaded til after 6pm going to phoenix on 8/18 right after midnight.

Looks like things were a bit unorganized until I got assigned my regular dispatch and now its been the way I expected it. Perhaps this is in the bad trucking section but has gone from bad to good. Cant expect much more at this point.

 

I don't know what you expect. If you wanted a 9-5 job, you should have been a bank teller. I don't see how this is a bad reflection of JB Hunt. What you are describing is a bunch of typical days of trucking.