My Day By Day Experience At Eastern Freightways Flatbed Division

Day 40

Last night I was able to shut down pretty early, run to the truckstop to fuel and get a shower in. Also bought another coffee pot. Got an early start and was in W. Springfield by 6:00 Untarped while waiting for another truck to get unloaded. Was able to get out of there pretty quick and headed to Rockland. had a 45 minute delay on 90w but other than that it was a good ride. Get to the receiver, get unloaded and get my next plan. Up to Newington, NH again headed to Williston, VT. Already know it's going to be a live load as my last 3 times there were.

Yup live load but this time there are only a few trucks in front of me. While waiting I did some planning and this was going to be a 23:00 delivery appt. I figured if I was loaded soon enough I could get there and park and they could unload me at 23:00. I call dispatch and filled them in and at that time I learned that it was for Thursday night at 23:00 and not Weds night. So let me get this straight. You want me to sit in Williston, VT for 29 hours before I can get unloaded? Yeaaaaa that's not happening. I had asked dispatch for either Friday or Monday off whichever was easier and they said Friday. I now understand why. I would have been home Friday morning at 4:00 after working all night..

So I get to Williston at 18:00 go in and find someone who has some knowledge of receiving and they tell me just park up front, get unstrapped, and have the tarps ready for a 22:00 unload. Long story short the guy comes out to unload me and says did you know this was/is a Thursday night appt. ? Umm no, really?

Get unloaded by 12:00 and head over to our Williston terminal to shut down. Absolute ghost town at the terminal but a huge parking area. I sent an empty call at midnight and never got anything back. hmmm I get up the next morning and send another empty call this time I get a message back saying "cannot empty, unit 41015 not dispatched" Well at this point I had a rock that had hit my windshield on the way to Williston it left a 1/2 dollar sized chip/crack and the truck was overdue for a PM. So I head back to the Concord terminal. The shop said maybe Monday by the earliest to get everything done.. ehh

 

UPDATE

So as I've mentioned in the past I've been having some thoughts about being out here. After talking to a couple of other drivers it seems that they are starting to push Saturdays and I like my weekends and after the week they wanted me to work Saturday and changed it for me, last week all of my runs were min runs under 300 miles. A small punishment for not wanting to do Saturdays? Maybe, Maybe not. Another driver was going through the same thing so...

Anyways I've been looking for something local which is tough to get into with only 4 months experience and I live in a pretty small area so there are not many options but after several applications the calls started coming in. I talked with 1 company and set up an interview and road test for last Friday. Everything went great except for backing. LOL going from a sleeper and a split tandem flatbed to a day cab and 53' box proved to be a bit of a challenge. Did the drug test and got my MVR. I had things lined up in case this doesn't work out and had given my notice last Thursday. They left it up to me as far as when I wanted to get done.

I decided Friday afternoon that I was done. I went down Saturday to clean out my truck and the windshield was not done so I would have had to sit Monday anyways if not Monday and Tuesday reaffirming that I had made the right decision.

I got the call Monday! Offered a driving position. Local, dedicated, M-F, home every night and weekends, $21 hr, 45-55 hours a week, overtime after 8 hours, smaller company 45 trucks. I'll be covering the West Lebanon, NH to Burlington, VT routes. and I start Monday the 23rd. I call that a win.

So unfortunately this thread will be ending and I'm not sure if there is any interest in a local gig thread or not. I'd like to do an unedited overall summary of working for Eastern Freight ways. The good and the bad.

 

HaHa looks like Newington.