My Experiance with Watkins Shepard!

#### I just drove through there last night! lol


American Trucker

 

Thank you!



American Trucker

 

Yea your not kidding, I HATE NJ lol. It wouldn't bother me not one bit if I never went back haha


American Trucker

 

Im going to go waste some perfectly good money at the Flying J Resaurant and then I'll come back out and do my update I'm starvin I haven't eaten in like 23 hours........


American Trucker

 

So I took a nice 13 hour break, then at 8 am I headed to our Terminal in NJ. I got there about 1:30 pm and I had to park on the side of the road across the street from the terminal because apparently thats how they do it in Jersey haha.....So First thing I needed was to take a shower, well you know how we read on here abour how nasty truck stop showers are? Well I have yet to go into a Truck Stop to take a shower and have it not be clean (not spotless or anything but certanly nothing to complain about) well I the showers at our NJ terminal was nasty haha looks like it has Never been cleaned.....but Either way I was taking a freakin shower lol

Then I went back out to my truck and looked on my handy dandy GPS to try and find some food, because I had water and a few pringles left in my truck.......So the closest thing was a Subway/Pizza Place/Chinese all about a mile away acording to the GPS. So I start walking and as soon as I step out of the truck I hear sirens non stop and I was thinking "someone got shot haha" lol. So I get about 1/4-1/2 mile away and I have to walk across the overpass that goes over the Parkway and I can see all these flashing red lights down on the parkway......So as i'm walking across I can see this massive accident right underneith I mean I had a GREAT view.

A car somehow got sideways in the lane next to the fast lane and slide across the fast lane.....across the median.....across 2 more lanes of ON COMING traffic and SLAMS into a car in the slow lane going the opposite way! They hit it so hard the car that got hit was smooshed up against the guard rail. There were like 20 fire trucks, It was BAD. there was a couple standing on the over pass watching as well as some guy and his two little kids, his daught says "I wanna go" so he says "no I wanna see them pull the bodies out" to his 4 or so year old daughter I was like WTF lol. I wanted to take a quick picture with my phone but thats just rude/distrepectful so i just kept walking.

I get my food and on my way back by there is Literaly 50+ people standing on the over pass trying to watch, people are pulling there cars into the Rite Aid to park so they can get out and look, the cops were on the over pass directing traffic, and they had completly stopped traffic on the highway to land this Massive helicopter to bring the people to the hospital......it was just nuts.


Then anyway I spent the night in my truck, got up got to see two guys from my orientation class, Scott and Joel. I backed into the dock, luckily there were 4 open spots in a row so It was easy to back into the dock, It took them an hour and a half to unload 28 pieces on furniture which meant they only left me 45 minutes to get to Elizabeth, NJ, I wasn't to happy about that but I jumped in the truck and hauled butt! I HATE jersey everyone drives like idiots haha I got there with 5 minutes to spare. I pulled into this dead end road/ally and stopped on the side got out with the paper work and asked this mexican guy where to back in, and he's like go talk to that guy so I did, and the other guy said "Tell your dad to back in right here" I was like "WHAT?.....I don't think so, Thats MY truck" haha and he says "what are you 15?" So they all gather around to watch this "little kid" (me) back this truck in, now they don't have loading docks its like this concrete platform thats angled so there was like 50 "docks" but they were angled to me so I was like hmmmmmmm.........and since I had quite the audiance I didn't want to let them down.....So I put'er in 1st and went to the left and did a U-Turn in this little ally and blind sided Perfectly and when I got out to open the doors they we're all like "#### kid know what he's doing" lol I thought for sure that dock was going to be really hard to hit.

Then it took myself and to other guys one and a half hours to unload 78 pieces of furniture, that sucked! haha

So then I headed off to my next load which was 2.3 miles away which was awsome. BUT heres where it all went to H**l. I get there and there NO sign so I stop pull over call them and there like its the blue building and I'm like ok, I keep going and go to pull in and I see spike strips! and I'm like oh h**l no lol So I call again to make sure I'm at the right place and there like yep. But I can't swing the right turn into the place unless I wanted to take the Fire Hidrant with me ....so I had to back out of there driveway and make the driver behind me do the same and I tried again and again no luck so I'm like arg I need a break so I pull up past the place and pull over to watch the guy behind me get in.....I was 2 hours early anyway.....But this guy saw what I went through and said screw it and drove right past the place and somewhere did a U-Turn and came back and did it from the left side lol. But I wasn't sure where he turned around so I backed up the road all the way to the far left side and tried again from as far left as you can get and I made it in with 3 inches to spare lol.


Then I sat there for 3 hours in line waiting for a dock, then sat at the dock for 1.5 hours waiting to get loaded lol. Then finally I get rolling and I had to drive 150+ miles before I found a scale luckily It was 500 feet before the state scale but I was legal anyway lol. Then I was planing on stoping at a Flying J or a Pilot because I needed a shower and I had shower credits well buy the time I started looking for a place to park I only had 45 min left on my 14 and there where NO big truck stops around but there was Billy Bobs Truck Emporium 45 Minutes away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I'm like great my truck can pull a .00001% grade bobtail lol and I need to maintain the speed limit for 45 min just to park OR I can park at one of the 2 Rest areas on the way BUT I had NO food and I hadn't eaten in like 30 hours. So I was GOING to make it, and I did I pulled in at 9:45 PM and my 14 hours ran out at 9:45 PM. I was sweatin on that one lol So then I pull in and theres only 15 spots and they all looked full ....so I crawl through there and whatda know 1 spot left THANK GOD!

Spent the Night there, headed out at 8 AM this morning for NC got there at 11:30 AM and couldn't find the place, so I call what I think is them but NOPE turns out this was a broker load and this was the brokers number . SO he gives me the customers number and of course its not the right one so I call them back, and this other guy answers and was SO ####### rude I wanted to pull him through the phone and beat his ##* . Then he's like well call this guy this is who we got the load from, so I call this guy and he's like Duh I donno.......and I'm like about to explode...and he says " I'll find there number and call you back". So meanwhile I've been parked on the side of this 55MPH 2 lane with NO shoulder 1000 feet from the Police station for like 15 min so I get out put the triangles out Because there is NO where to turn around and I was NOT going to go 40 miles out of route AGAIN to turn around.....so I sit there a total of 1 hour before I finnally get the customer on the phone and she tells me what driveway to pull into. So I do a U-Turn in this dirt area at the end of the road and head over and I pull in and then there like "WHO TOLD YOU TO COME IN HERE!!!!!!!!!" I said "Trish" and he says "NO! GO BACK OUT AND INTO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BUILDING!!!!!!" so I now have to BACK out into a 55MPH road........ I this point I was about done. So I'm like fine I put it in Reverse and back out and pull into the other side and check in and sit there for 2 hours. then the guy comes out and says you need to go back out and go back to the other side. and I took a deep breath and said ok and he walked away and I went back over to the other side and sat there for another 2 hours.........This entire place was MUD so my already rusted old truck is now also covered in mud.

So then I send my MT call, and head the 2 miles to walmart to get a few things, I come back out No load.......So I send a QC message and say "Do you have a load in this area or should I start heading back to Conover to Pick up a Load? If not I need to get to a T/S" I wait 30 min nothing.....So I call and call and call and call 10 times Busy signal every time so I'm like Okie dokie...I sent him another QC message "I'm heading to the closest T/S with over night parking and showers", Which is where I am now.

So hopfully I can get a load in the morning which I'm guessing will be after 8 AM? when dispatch comes in...I donno. This whole load was VERY agrivating, but I made it now hopfully I can get a few easy loads before I get anymore of these stressful ones haha


I honestly Don't see how, truck drivers can get fat......I eat once a day, and Lots of times I have to walk 1-2 miles just to get food lol. Between driving and sleeping and showering and fueling and everything else theres very little time to eat.....I donno maybe they eat while they drive, I don't like to do that.


Sammycat wasn't kidding either, sometimes its SO frustrateing but then you wait like 5 minutes and it's over and you can get on with your life and everything starts going great lol That must be what gets allot of new drivers they just can't hold out for the 5 min until it gets better......


OH ya one last thing, so I'm sitting here in my truck and I see a TMC truck driving in front of me and when my old Boss got Forced into retirement he started driving for TMC I always look for him......and well I saw him but he kept going and I couldn't get out of the truck fast enough so I turn on my CB and he either doesn't have one or he didn't have it on.......I mean seriously what are the Odds I don't know how many trucks they got or how many truck stops there are in the US but I was SO close lol I hope I can run into him again he's a really cool guy. I almost had a really good end to my stressful day lol

But I did get a nice hot shower and the Flying J Restaurant had a Special Speggetti and Meatballs with Garlic Break for $5.95 good deal and it was REALLY good.



American Trucker

 

Thanks, and I hope So to!

While some of this stuff has been tuff and very frustrating, I still love what I'm doing, and still very grateful that Watkins Shepard gave me this opportunity!

I hope those storms stay away from me lol



American Trucker