Trucking lore: how we used to get paid / Comcheks

Liberty Bell 76 in Elkton, MD was still giving out S&H Green Stamps around 1995/96.

They'd just spin the dial on the dispenser and hand you two feet of stamps.

Drivers who didn't want em would leave em on the counter. I'd grab those up, too.

Got myself a 12-volt water boiler cup with stamps.


As to the fuel accounts, I remember having to write down your mileage and bol number, then pick up the phone near the pump and give them "Carrier, truck #, bol#, gallon limit or fill, cash advance?", then having to PULL FORWARD, then go in and sign the receipt.

One copy for the driver (that's your shower coupon), one in the trip envelope, (where you put your log sheets, toll receipts, scale tickets, and fuel receipts inside, and wrote in your state-by-state mileage on the outside) and one for the fuel desk.

 

We had a fight in the parking lot one night cause truck 09 come in and seen his ol lady gettin out of 007. Apparently had been a hot minute. 09 told Dad it’s me or him Dad said well you’re just gonna have to learn to fight, get along or quit. 007 has been with me a long time. Like a brother to me. It’s a ####ty deal but you 2 rub noses hell we got work to do.

007 was a owner operator leased on to us. Every time he come in he’d call for head count and bring all the shop help a sausage biscuit from McDonald’s. A big deal back then. He was outta NY I always looked up to him. I was from 12 to 25 or so. Not 1 day of my life did he treat me like a kid. I was treated like a grown shop hand. Weather is was horsin around or I needed an ### chewing for flipping his aluminum wheels on the floor without a blanket.

 

in 1976 when i started in this venerable industry, the Comchek system had just been introduced. The way it worked at northAmerican Van Lines at the time was thus:
The drivers were not allowed to have the checks. They were only available at the truck stops. You weren't even given the "express code", which as you described was at least 20 digits long.
Your dispatcher would ask "Where do you want your checks to be sent". While you were on the phone you had to conjure up the route you were going to take, and which truck stop along that route, not all were Comchek locations, you would pick up your checks.
When you got to the truckstop in question, the limit per check was $150. If you were getting an advance for say $600, there would be 4 handwritten checks waiting at the fuel desk for you, if you were lucky. If Comchek in Nashville was busy, or the truckstop didn't answer the phone, no checks.
Then the truck stop would have to call for authorization before they would cash the checks, matching the express code with the check numbers and the drivers name and identification method. All over the phone. No wonder a truck stop pumping fuel like a busy Pilot or Loves today had at least 6 or 8 people behind the counter at all times, day and night.

If you bought fuel, the check fee was waived, fuel was like $.60 a gallon, so a 100 gallons would cost $60, they would cash one of the checks and give you the $90 in cash. That is what you ate on, used for repairs etc. Next check, next truckstop. Present it, and the authorization phone calls started all over again.

It was such a pain, if a driver could manage it, he would leave home with enough cash to pay for fuel and expenses for the trip, 1 week, 2 weeks whatever. That's where the chain drive wallet came in, and a huge potential for guys getting robbed.

 

I was with my cousin on a multi stop trip to florida before cell phones and we stoped at a k-mart to use the pay phone to see where to after all the stops were off. I remember standing there in the lobby area waiting on that pay phone to ring and people just looking at us. Lol.

 

I remember standing in the middle of winter in Chicago with the wind cold enough to freeze skin, at a payphone calling in! Even though we had this "new" Qualcomm satellite system with a phone in the truck, the company didn't want to use those phones because they were too expensive to use. And I know this thread is about how we got paid but since we're tripping back on memory lane, how many of you out there had to write your mileage down and the name of the last town when you were leaving a state, every state? Boy, the good old days.

 

[QUOTE="The one california kid, post: 12979371 And I know this thread is about how we got paid but since we're tripping back on memory lane, how many of you out there had to write your mileage down and the name of the last town when you were leaving a state, every state? Boy, the good old days.[/QUOTE]
Ha, I still do that.

 

We used to do the same thing with the phones.
Then drug dealers all over the country got the same idea, started using payphones for their "offices"
Then the cops and the phone company got wise and removed the bells.
But they still vibrated. So you called a buddy, told him to call you back on the number to see if you could hear the vibration
If you could, then you were good to go even without bells.