Worst job/truck you started in when you got your cdl?

I've drove soooo much (junk) in 35 yrs I just don't anymore. Hauln logs on the coast of Oregon in a 56 needle nose Pete with a 318 Detroit and a 6 &4. That's 1 way to learn to drive.

 

Driving junk trucks for a scaffolding company in NYC. Flat tires and overloaded trucks. The job foreman would overload the truck and I had to drive to thing through Manhattan back to the yard, praying that the load didn't fall off and crush some school bus or something. Got fired because I wouldn't drive a truck with a flat tire back to the yard. Can't say that I was sorry to leave.

 

B&B Concrete of Little Rock had a 9800 Pay or Transtar conventional. It shook at any speed, closer to 70 your retinas sparkled because of the severity of viberations.

Finally one fine day the freaking floor fell a foot out of the entire cab down to the twin rail frame exposing my feet to the spinning drive shaft, transmission and moving pavement below me at 75 on I30 about Alexandra to Hope in Arkansas.

Scared to the point of being unable to think about how to work this problem I just froze and allowed the upgrade to roll the thing to a halt on the side. Crept to the next truckstop and sat there for hours while my plant dried up on cement they never got.

Then I got angry. Combative even against the three bosses who runs the outfit. They stuck me in a autocar mixer and told me to shut up and stop whining. Two weeks later and a thousand more fresh rivits around that cab it showed up. Guess who it's for. Me.

My attitude got really rebellious then. I recognized the classic signs of a dangerously disgrungled employee and at that time it only took one verbally expressed threat from one of the bosses there at 5 minutes before 6 AM opening (On the dot) to clock in to get back in my car and roll home.

That was about 16 years ago. That was also the day I swore on all that's holy I will run new equiptment with full air ride and so forth for someone and never ever again touch that pos equiptment.

To this day Im still suffering some of the effects of the shaking inflicted on my body, in those days no one knew enough to file medically against this company because there were at the time a attitude that you gotta suck it up and get back on the road big boy.. a little ache and sore does not stop people.

 

Where ever you go .Stay FAR away from NATION
EXPRESS out of FT.MILL SC. You ll never get paid. The Trucks are tin raggs. Dispatch is bad. Not a good or professional company in anyway.

 

Moral of the story. Don't drive for aholes that could care less about your safety or anyone elses. They will try to lie,cheat,steal from everyone they come in contact with. Even if you need the job, it will end up being a waste of time at best.

 

This is my 28th year of driving full time. I paid for tech school training, then got hired as a lumper and second seat driver for a meat packing plant in my hometown. They paid $5.00 an hour.
I found out fast that the real reason they hired me was to be a relief driver for the first seat drivers that showed up to work too drunk or too stoned to drive.
Most of our runs had 30 to 50 drops and the first seat drivers would usually be sober enough to take over after sunrise. Every truck had to return in 24 hours or less and sometimes if there were delays, i would simply change trucks when we rolled in the gate and start another run. No one was enforcing hos or checking logbooks in those days and when it came time for the drug testing, the packing plant handed out cattle urine for testing. A few times i accidentally caught first seat drivers sticking needles in thier arms in the sleeper. I hate needles.
Anyway, i made more money than the first seat drivers cause a normal week usually totalled nore than 120 hours. 40 hours at $5.00 an hour and the rest at time and a half. I lasted ten months, then went over the road. I wanted that local job so i could learn to back and drive before going over the road, my first otr company refused to acknowledge that job as experience. Funny and ironic, cause they paired me with a trainer named Bruce. Bruce recently retired from the Air Force and had only been driving trucks for six months. I had to do all his backing and all the city driving for him. He got so upset over it that he quit after training was over.
Anyway, not to brag but i'm almost 60 now. I got broke in tough and can still unload trailers faster than they can cart away the freight. Nothing will ever be as tough as unloading swinging and frozen meats, then driving from stop to stop in a crazed frenzy.

 

In early 2000 class A with a 57 restriction meaning I could drive class B trucks and pull a trailer but couldn't drive a tractor trailer. I took that in a mack dump truck. 3 weeks later the boss has me moving our grading and paving equipment with the lowboy. Think it was a 1983 or 84 Gmc with a 52' ramped trailer. After 6 mos of that we decided I should get my reg class A. We also had a 84 Mack tractor that we thought was in better shape. Lol after the truck failing the pretrial twice I took the GMC. It was the 4th visit to the dmv before we finally had enough duct tape and silicone on the air lines and breakpods for it to pass the pretrip. Lol those trucks were ratty as can be but I gotta say I enjoyed driving them and that time more than anything I've done since.

 

I hate spell check. Its so hard to type anything that makes any sense with it.

 

That one time I decided cover for a friend ummmmm rust much? XD

Swear that thing went all but 45 to the floor.