My new experience with Gordon Trucking, post-buyout

Updating PTA is probably what I meant. It was covered often and strongly. As for covering dating, well, I'll leave that one alone!

 

I'm sitting in the lounge of the Country Inn and Suites that has been home for this week, waiting for the yummy breakfast bar to be set up. Today is the day I will be assigned a truck and driver manager and hopefully be dispatched back home for the weekend to set it up. There is quite a bit to remember from this week and most of it is brand new to me. Gordon's way is very different from my recent experience; I have confidence in the support system behind me and I'm am sure Gordon Trucking will do what they can to keep me out of trouble as much as possible. I have much to learn.

Our class had a very scary experience yesterday at lunch. I may not have mentioned that GTI provides lunch each day. On Monday, we ordered individual sandwiches from Subway, Tuesday was pizza from Pizza Hut, and yesterday was freaky fast food from Jimmy John. The last two days was food we did not specifically order, but ate what came and that created a major problem for one of us.

One of the students has a known serious food allergy to something in the sandwich she ate and she had a pretty violent, ugly response to it. She vomited, almost passed out, and coughed long and hard. Eventually, she did get it under control with the help of the Regional Risk Manager who taught the afternoon session, but continued to cough all afternoon; she's also a pretty heavy smoker and her cough is a smoker's productive cough, so it was a long afternoon for her and us. As a former paramedic, I wonder how a person with a known food allergy eats a sandwich without knowing exactly what's in it, but I'm glad she's okay.

We should be done by 11:00 this morning, then some of us will head to Pontoon Beach to pick up our rides. Rumor is that there are three available units here in Indy, so I'll see where I end up.

 

It's 10:30 local time and we've completed orientation.

I've been assigned truck 10210 and will be in a van with six others heading to Pontoon Beach to pick it up. One thing we learned is that for the next month or so, except for the 3 TC people, we will be on what is called the Orientation Fleet so we can learn how Gordon works, including being sent to all areas of the country (for those of us on the US fleet) and learn the idiosyncrasies of their Qualcomm system. My DM's are Brianne and Tyler here in Indy who work with all new hire drivers. After about a month or so, I'll be moved to a "regular" DM's board assigned to our regular fleet


So soon, the last free lunch comes and then we will head for Pontoon Beach. Hopefully, before I leave, I can get one-on-one training on chains since I've never put a chain on any vehicle.

 

I'm about to go to sleep in my new truck for the first time. So far, the only bad thing about it - and it's pretty bad - has nothing to do with maintenance or age.

The previous driver was a smoker and the truck reeks of cigarette smell.

Even though it's been cleaned, there's no way to get all the smell out except with time. So I'll sleep with the window open a bit and hope for the passage of quick time.

The group of 7 of us who came down to Pontoon Beach arrived only to discover that the maintenance crew was just beginning to work on several of the trucks that weren't ready. Fortunately for me, mine wasn't one of them, so I didn't have to go to a hotel for another night, which is good...no snoring roommate!

I will call my new DM tomorrow morning when he gets in and get my first dispatch - thereby qualifying for my sign-on bonus, an unexpected bonus! - back home for the weekend. I plan on spending it prepping the truck for 6 weeks in the field and that will take some thinking/planning.

So thanks for sticking with me this far. I will continue my thoughts as I move into the Orientation Fleet and then into the regular US fleet. I'm very, very excited about this, especially considering the 2011 Freightliner Cascadia that will carry me through.