Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

I am not missing the points that several people are making. I am simply following the plan that I chose to implement.

Are there other ways to do things? I am sure there are.

Are there different companies that would hire me as an o/o? I am sure there are.

However, I have chosen my path. I will take less money per mile to start my o/o career in order to be on a drop and hook account with all the miles I care to drive.

I will take less money per mile in order to make the learning curve easier. Right now, I am developing new record keeping methods and working to understand and track expenses in a way that wont get me thrown in jail on my first IRS audit.

I drove only 1/3 of a day today, (going on home time for a few days) and submitted a 3200 mile week.

A fair week. Today was a bit annoying though. I had to use a cargo strap creatively to pull and hold a tandem release lever that could not be pulled out far enough to lock in place. The load was a light load, but the tandems were set illegally for the state of TN. They had to move, or I could not take the trailer to go on home time.

 

Any trailer 48-50 foot from kingpin to back of trailer must be no more than 41 foot to center of the rear tandem group in TN, is what my atlas says.

I can't make them enforce their laws, I can only try not to give them a reason to bother me.

 

Before or after FSC?

 

I suppose it isn't all learning. It is also developing habits and processes.

For instance I now keep two notebooks. One is my load book. The other is my problem book. Any time I see a problem, of any type, or need to do something, I write it in the problem book.

I am separating tax documents, non-reimbursed expenses, and load documents, and figuring out how to best organize and store them.

I am learning how to deal with dealerships, as opposed to writing up a problem and letting the terminal guys fix it.

I am actively trying to learn more about truck maintenance.

For example, the other day I had a tractor ABS warning that would not go away. When it was serviced, there was no problem other than excessive grease and dirt buildup around the sensors. I now know that I will need to periodically get the excess grease removed from the chassis lube points, or the stuff will gunk up sensors. Makes sense, but I never had to deal with that as a company driver.

There is a lot of stuff to learn, and a lot of good habits to develop. I COULD do it with a steeper learning curve, but I do not have to.

While I was in for the ABS light, I also had a B service done, since I did not trust Crete to have properly done it. I had also discovered that transmission oil, and both differential oils had *never* been changed by Crete in 450k miles, so I had that work done as well. And had them pull an engine oil sample for analysis.

Total bill for B service, trans oil, 2x diff oil, ABS service, and oil analysis was @ 2200.

I paid with my money, so I didnt have to deal with getting 'permission' to access my maintenance account. The card I paid with also has a % rebate on all purchases.