Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

I've only been with one OTR company and they didn't pay for truck washes (like at a Blue Beacon or something) but they did have truck washes at the terminals. At times I went 6 months without seeing the terminal. I refused to spend my own money to get the outside of the cab cleaned. I kept the inside immaculate and for the outside I made sure to scrub the passenger and drivers side doors off every once in a while with the window squeegees (yeah sue me lol) so that I didn't get my hands or jacket dirty during the winter time opening and shutting the doors.

Other than that I didn't care how dirty the outside got. As long as the inside of the cab, in my living space, was nice and clean, I was good. I'm not going to spend money keeping their equipment clean when it doesn't affect me or affect safety.

 

Recaps are fine but resets, at least once per month, is nice when you stay out for 4 weeks or more at a time. They need to be respected when a driver asks for one if the driver isn't being unreasonable about it like taking multiple resets per week or something.

I've never understood companies taking a hardline stance against a reset, if they're being taken within reason, like in TravR's case. All that results in is a driver burning up the 70 hour clock on purpose to force a reset, which will often times inconvenience the company and whatever load the driver was on. Whereas a planned and thought out 34 reset when the driver starts to get burned out can be beneficial to both parties.

I think this type of problem often times comes into play when dispatchers have never driven a truck before. I also think many dispatchers have never worked more than 6 days in a row in their entire lives so they don't get how burned out you can get when you go weeks or even months without a break. They don't understand that to save themselves a penny they will cost themselves a dollar if the driver wants to force the 34 hour reset.

 

Nope

 

Going on 3 weeks straight with no reset. Getting good miles. Currently unloading on this 1800 mile load and if they are quick will have just enough hours to make my next live pick up that goes 1000 miles.

They also have been pushing my recaps to the limit. The loads I've been on require a minimum of 500 miles a day to make the tight delivery window.

Like the next run picks up today and delivers on wendsday but I'll be out of hours when I make it to the pick up, so really 2 days with me just scraping by on delivery day to deliver.

Been having to pc away from shippers almost every load. Record was having to drive 80 miles past my clock to find parking when I delivered to California. Which I then had to tcall that loaf cause I was going to be shy just 30 minutes on my hours to make it to customer.

All I known is the shaffer side has kept me moving a lot more than the crete side. Just to many live loads/unloads.


Also I don't worry about those priority loads. They already know I can't get a 10 hour in before pickup window. One of them was due for pickup just 3 hours after I was done at my deli wry so I found the, get a 10 hour break in msg, quite funny

Still made on-time delivery but barely.

 

Next week's check is looking good. Did the math and I'll be right at 3000 miles on Wednesday. Based on my recaps might be stuck on a few short runs right after. On my 8 day chart, I have 3 days where I get between 4-6 hours each day then it picks up where I get 10-12 hours each day.

Also i have a question...either every shaffer trailer has abs issues or it's my truck. Cause on every trailer I've pulled whenever I hit my brakes my trailer abs comes on. If I do it when at a stop, it sounds like the whole trailer abs system is restarting cause it makes those little clicking sounds. Not a huge issue if it's my truck, cause I'll get it looked at on my next B services but them clicking sounds be driving me mad when driving in the city.

 

Just learned that there is a big defect on 2019 - 2021 cascadia's that came out of a certain plant in Mexico. Something about possibly losing control while going down the road. Loose joint on steering arm. Wonder that factory our trucks come from.

 

Look at the sticker on driver side window…if their is a sticker resembling the state of North Carolina then your truck came out of the Cleveland nc plant otherwise its the Mexico plant.