Life Post FedEx Freight... as a Local Cryo Driver

I wish I could milk the clock. Boss keeps reminding me while I'm training that he has all the work I want and more, so I plan on running out my duty status clock as long as they'll give me the work. Mathematically, running 58.75 hours a week at my current hourly rate puts me yearly at $99,190... $100 less than my run to Newburgh at FedEx Freight, while working in the daylight and being home at 5:30 in the afternoon as well as a reduction of 8.75 hours at work during the week for the same money, or the equivalent of 455 hours less work per year..

 

But, I also recognize that with the summer being my location's slow time, even if I am down to 45 hours a week during the summer time, I'll be home by 2:30pm, with plenty of daylight to kill with my kids and still be close to $90k.

 

Also, so far the company is proving itself to follow through on their own safety first motto. Today, during my lunch break, I went through the truck that is assigned to me with a fine toothed comb because I was dumb enough to forget my lunch box at home. It's a several year old Kenworth T370.

I told my supervisor the following:

• The steer tires, while just above 4/32 tread depth (measured with a gauge), were getting questionable
• Both of the headlight lenses were cloudy
• The drive tires had some minor bulges on the top of the walls
• One of the fender turn signal lights had a LED bulb that was not lighting, the rest of the light panel was working fine
• On the top of the tank near the rear, there is a port hole that can be removed for a person to enter the tank and perform some type of required service. Under this port there are "DANGEROUS" stickers that say that a special permit is required to enter the tank. I'm not sure if this is an internal company permit or an OSHA permit, but regardless, they are faded.
• Def tank cap plastic cord that retains the cap from being lost, is broken
• The AM/FM radio backlight didn't light up
• The fuel tank's little "colander" in the tube was dangling by the steel cable connected to the fuel cap and was dangling in the tank
• One of the steel cables holding the hood from falling forward when lifted was kinked
• Fuel filter was filthy

I ended up deciding to extend my lunch a bit and go to a local restaurant that I like. When I came back, my truck was leaving the yard on a hook to the local Kenworth dealer. My boss told me that he put in a work order to fix/replace all the things I reported as well as do a new PM on the truck as well, even though it wasn't due for one for another 8k miles. I asked him why a bunch of those things went without being fixed, his response... "was never brought to my attention". He followed up with saying something to the effect of "we are a global multibillion dollar company, there's no reason we can't have our equipment maintained".

I also got him to order a couple bottles of various WAB cleaners because I've expressed that I take time to maintain an immaculate truck, inside and out.

So, drivers, if you have things wrong with your truck, no matter how small, try reporting them. You may have a supervisor that cares about the equipment you drive.

 

Happy new year everyone!

2019 was a very BRIGHT year for me, professionally. Hopefully it is just as if not brighter in 2020.
Hope you all are safe this evening.

 

Yes, I’m aware that hazmat regs are the same regardless of carrier. Policy geared toward using the minimum required placarding vs. full use of permissible placarding and placarding for every qty of Hazmat (no matter how small) is a company decision that poses no violation. Similar to flatbed companies that embrace over securement vs. the minimum.

 

And to hell with Table 1 materials?