THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

EggoTrucker · Dec 13, 2013

dieselfuelonly said: ↑

I'm headed up to the drop yard in Seville, should be there tomorrow night, weather permitting. Found a load that I pick up and am then supposed to relay at the drop yard - first load that I have seen like that for ICs.
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Maybe its going into Canada...maybe lol

mickeyrat · Dec 14, 2013

Main areas of concern by the end of the day are the NW corner of Ohio. Big gap in the storm widened just north and NE of columbus. You should be good to go for delivery to seville.

dieselfuelonly · Dec 15, 2013

Had a rough start on Saturday, first got sent 150 miles to get an empty (about 100 of that was out of route) then got to the shipper expecting a drop and hook and was told it would be a live load. So, didn't make it up to Seville last night like I had originally planned, so I had to finish that drive up this morning. Of course the guard didn't know of any empties that came in, so I was worried I'd have to call and see if I could have my appointment for my next pushed out because I didn't have the time to go on a trailer search thanks to yesterdays delays. Luckily, just as I'm walking back to the truck I see another driver backing in to a spot with a trailer, and it was empty and he was dropping it. Perfect! Grabbed that trailer and made it to my pickup just on time.

Getting loaded now, and then it'll be off towards NC again and I'll make that delivery some time tomorrow. Guess its time to hit the load board and see what is available next.

popcorn169 · Dec 15, 2013

Do you get paid for miles that require you to go here and there looking for empties? I noticed you stated in a bunch of your replies that you have to go chase down empties. It seems a little disorganized IMO that they tell you to go here and look for an empty and when you get there they do not have any. It is a waste of your time, money, hours and the biggest of all fuel.

Freightlinerbob · Dec 15, 2013

A positive attitude often makes it's own luck. Good job DFO.

dieselfuelonly · Dec 15, 2013

popcorn169 said: ↑

Do you get paid for miles that require you to go here and there looking for empties? I noticed you stated in a bunch of your replies that you have to go chase down empties. It seems a little disorganized IMO that they tell you to go here and look for an empty and when you get there they do not have any. It is a waste of your time, money, hours and the biggest of all fuel.
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We are supposed to for any searches above 50 miles. First 50 are on us. I haven't seen any on my settlements yet, but I haven't exactly looked carefully either. I'll watch my next one carefully and see if the excessive box search pay is on there. If not I'll be making some phone calls.

mdmedicgod · Dec 15, 2013

dieselfuelonly said: ↑

Late this morning I filled up with as much fuel as I could squeeze in the tanks and then scaled my tractor. I have to provide Schneider with this scale ticket, it is used to determine the responsibility of the driver or SNI when it comes to a load being overweight.

The first situation is the bad one - I get to the shipper and find that the load is overweight. Schneider looks at the bobtail scale ticket that I originally provided them with, and if its determined that my tractor, according to that bobtail scale ticket (regardless of what else I have put in the tractor that has increased the weight of it) could handle the load, I am charged $500 in order for someone else to deal with the load.

The other situation is the OK one - I get to the shipper and again find that the load is overweight. Schneider looks at the bobtail ticket and sees that the load would have been too heavy for my tractor to begin with - then its not my fault.

That is why we are told to scale HEAVY. Luckily, it sounds like I will need to turn my ticket in to my ICA in Charlotte. This will give me time to swing by the house and load up the extra gear that I didn't bring with me (tools, etc.) so that I can give myself some headroom. With full fuel and the APU I'm not exactly rolling around on a lightweight truck to begin with, lol, so I will have to watch this carefully for a bit. However, with the exception of one or two loads I always had 2k lbs leeway with my company Cascadia, so I should be OK overall.

After that I headed over to the OC and me and the other SNI company to IC transfer driver met with a SFI rep who sat down with us and just went over a lot of what we had talked about briefly in the past couple days in a lot more detail. She answered a ton of questions that I had and offered some very helpful advice. I left that meeting again feeling like I really do have people that are going to have my back and really want to help me succeed.

Tomorrow is the final day of training where we go over the actual load board, and after that we will be on our own! Hopefully I get sent to a good location on an empty trailer search and can set myself up for several really good loads to finish off this short week with.

I have a few things I will go over with the shop about my tractor - I am missing the flip-down cover for the slide-out drawer that turns into a little table, and am missing a bracket to secure my CB in the area where the sunglasses pocket on the company Cascadias is located. If they don't have these no big deal, but I figure it won't hurt to ask. Otherwise a trip to the Freightliner dealership will be in order at some point, I gotta have the table to make my peanut butter sandwiches on LOL.

The one thing I do want to get checked is I noticed that my temperature gauges for my transmission and both rear ends are not moving from their "cold" resting positions. It could be that I am not generating enough heat just bobtailing around to get anything to register on the gauges. But, just in case I will ask about it because like I said earlier, any problems that I fine before I'm pushed out into the O/O world on my own will be covered by SFI at no cost to me.

I also got it confirmed that my truck had a complete PM performed before it was handed over to me, so I have a good baseline to start my maintenance schedule on. They have a sheet with some basic recommended maintenance intervals on it, however I will probably talk with the shop that performed the work as they should have more complete records about what kind of work was done during the "reconditioning" process.

Again, everyone I dealt with today were as professional and helpful as could be. I have nothing against the Charlotte group, but one thing I noticed during my company driver orientation that sometimes included IC's as part of the group, when someone asked a somewhat difficult question, several of them would skirt around the question and try to answer it but not really. Maybe it's just my attitude has changed and they can tell from the way I ask question that I know when I am being fed BS or not, but so far everyone up here has been extremely straightforward and honest with me. I really appreciate that.

I'm excited (maybe just a little nervous, but mostly excited) to get moving tomorrow. That $650 of fuel I put in the tractor today isn't going to pay for itself!!

My first goal is going to be to save up $20k in my own personal maintenance account. I am about 1/4 of the way there now. I feel that this will be a good amount to have on hand to cover any major repairs that may show up while the engine/trans/rears are still under warranty. When the warranty expires, if I'm still in this same truck and want to keep it rolling, I will probably add another $10-15k on there. Complete rebuilds/reman replacements of these newer engines aren't cheap!! If it really came down to that much money though, I'd probably try to have an older pre-emissions engine stuffed in there assuming it would be legal, lol. ANYWAY...

After that is saved up, it will be SAVE SAVE SAVE as much as possible to put towards the buyout of this truck at the end of the lease. I am going to run hard this first year. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to take some hometime and breaks as I don't want to burn myself out. However, the rule I have set for myself is that before I take any home time, or slow down in general, I will have money saved up and set aside to cover my complete truck payment for that time off. Talking with the SFI rep today I asked about making payments from my own personal savings - she said this is no problem, that I will just need to get in touch with my ICA in Charlotte each time I want to do this and we can set it up. Rather than taking off 5 days at once like I did as a company driver, I will probably try to aim to swing by home more often, but just for much shorter periods - I have a feeling being able to do some laundry, sleep in my own bed for a night, and eat a real home-cooked meal will be all the refreshment I need before heading back out for a week or so.

One of the biggest expenses in which I basically take money out of my wallet and deposit it in the toilet at the truckstop right now is food. In my company truck I was terrible about this - every time I would head off home, after a week of PB&J and cold lunchmeat I would get sick of it and run into whatever restaurant (if you can call a McD's that) the truck stop had and eat dinner there. Usually lunch too. Not only was it unhealthy and made me feel like crap, it adds up so quick its not even funny. Being able to have an inverter large enough to power a microwave in my truck will be a godsend. Now I just need to find a tiny microwave to fit in the little cabinet midway up on the drivers side - I think I found one that may fit!

Hopefully tomorrows report will be as good as the past several days and I'll be underway with or very close to picking up my first load!
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In the truck I was in at Prime. We hung our microbe from the bottom of the top bunk with a ratchet strap. Of course you will need to leave the top bunk down but, it was rock solid and didnt move

ETCH5858 · Dec 15, 2013

dieselfuelonly said: ↑

We are supposed to for any searches above 50 miles. First 50 are on us. I haven't seen any on my settlements yet, but I haven't exactly looked carefully either. I'll watch my next one carefully and see if the excessive box search pay is on there. If not I'll be making some phone calls.
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Always call your DBL immediately so they can add it to your settlement. Don't ever expect any added pay to just be added on. VNU, detention or excessive mileage searching for a empty. These acts generally require a action from your DBL to be added in the computer.

Opus · Dec 16, 2013

ETCH5858 said: ↑

Always call your DBL immediately so they can add it to your settlement. Don't ever expect any added pay to just be added on. VNU, detention or excessive mileage searching for a empty. These acts generally require a action from your DBL to be added in the computer.
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yep.....was gonna say the same thing. Usually, you gotta ask....

dieselfuelonly · Dec 16, 2013

I need to figure my internet situation out - I used to use Millinecom's unlimited plan, but they had a falling out with Sprint, then tried to transfer us over to a different provider but everything got all messed up and a long story short I've just been tethering through my phone.

BUT, the problem with my phone is that it is also using the Sprint network, and without the ability to use my external antenna like I was with my USB modem, there are places I can't get internet.

And in places I can't get internet, I can't get on the load board. Like last night. So I missed out on some light loads from a customer I like a lot. I saw them earlier that day, but didn't know how far I would make it so I didn't try to book anything until I got stopped, and of course couldn't get any signal. You've got to stay about a day or two ahead of yourself on the load board otherwise you'll do some sitting while you wait for loads to show up if you try to always find a load right after you deliver your current one.

So my only option really is switch over to Millinecom's hotspot plan (which uses the Verizon network) but its limited to 20GB of data... but it is what it is. Better than no service at all I guess.

So, today I delivered to the Walmart DC in Hope Mills, NC. No empties there of course, and I took a look at the load board, and not much was heading anywhere this evening since all those loads already got booked. So, I bobtailed home to Chapel Hill.

I'm trying to plan out the rest of my week now, I want to be back on or around the 20th so I'll have to plan carefully. We'll see how that goes.

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