Navajo Express

Yeah, I took a look at them, too. Hopefully, DOT isn't as prone to going after the service trucks... I was a hired on as a mechanic, not as a driver.

 

Yessir, that was me. It was the green and white lease truck, and I was wearing my reflective vest from MMM because I wasn't sure what the PPE requirements were.. my last shop, we had reflective stripes on our uniforms, and if we had those covered (with a jacket, for example), then we had to wear the vest. Or if you caught me as I was unloading my tool box, then you noticed I need gaskets on my pickup's exhaust system.

Nah, don't overrate me. To be honest, from what I've seen of Navajo's trucks, they're pretty current and get turned in with relatively low mileage. Well, we'll see how it goes. I did some paperwork, got my tools unloaded, and got right at it. Which is how it should be.

 

Ah. Yeah, at my last job, they had a "crawl, walk, run" mentality. Here, it's, "hey, welcome, now get to it". Got there a bit early today, so I'd have time to turn in my DOT medical card (they sent me for a non-DOT physical), direct deposit paperwork, and insurance, then I helped another mechanic with an alignment and changing out four tires. After that, I brought a truck in for what was supposed to be a simple B service... on his report, all he had was a B service, the bulbs in the light fixture on his sleeper needed to be replaced, and he was having issues with the bunk heater. Did the B service, rewired one of his rear lights, did the annual DOT inspection, replaced bolts and gaskets going from the engine to the turbo (since he failed to mention the whistling sound the truck was making), took the bunk heater out and rebuilt it, got caught chasing a red herring when the cap on the tester turned out to be bad and left us to believe there was a coolant leak... fun times.
I like the tempo, though. Being low man on the totem pole at my last shop (which only had five mechanics, and one of those was the oiler), I wrenched, but I also got stuck with wash rack duties, parts runs, stuff like that. There's something to be said for working in a large shop, where they have people dedicated to the wash pay, people dedicated to tires, people dedicated to trailers, etc.

 

Nah, the reverse. Though, I dunno.... I used to drive for Pioneer, and they have a yard not even five minutes from where I'm staying. Depending on what kind of hours I'm getting at this shop, I might see about driving for them on my days off. They're always looking for flat & fork drivers.

 

Yeah, I haven't been wrenching that long. Most of my experience when it comes to trucks stems from when I owned those two end dumps, and I've only been doing it in an official capacity for a little over a year (and that time was spent working on heavy equipment, rather than trucks).
The Navajo shop seems a good place for me and where I'm at, though. Much different than my previous shop.