9/1/07

I'm posting early today. If certain things don't go as expected, nobody will want to hear what I have to say so I'm taking that variable out of the equation.

I got going at the crack of dawn today. I guess out here it was actually before the crack of dawn, as I made it to El Paso just as the sun was breaking the horizon. About two miles from our drop yard, I received a message asking me to take the load to the broker. You've got to be kidding me. I pulled off the side of the road to see if I could get some clarification. If I got to the yard, I would have to check in with the security guard, give him the bills, have him sign the receipt, and check back with him on my way out. No point going through all of that if I was delivering to the customer.

I sent a request for directions to the customer. No response. I sent a text message asking where they wanted me to take the load. Nuttin'. I was on a call with a friend of mine, so I sat and waited for a response. That response never came, so I ended my call and phoned CFI. On hold for twenty minutes. So, I got pissed, hung up the phone, looked up the address in Streets & Trips, and started heading in the general direction of the customer. Ah, here's my response from CFI... directions to the fucking drop yard! Don't even get me started on night/weekend dispatch.

After calling for a clarification and waiting on hold for another ten minutes with no answer, I just took the load to the broker. I was told that I could put the trailer in any spot from 17 to 20, then wait for the people to arrive at 8am. The only open spot was #17 and it was awfully tight. As I started to swing the trailer in, another CFI driver came over and watched the back of my trailer for me. I wasn't really having any trouble, but he saved me a couple of trips to the back of the trailer. Good lookin' out my brutha.

I dropped the trailer and pulled off to the side to wait for 8am. A few phone calls later (today begins the season for the greatest college football program in history, so the phone has been busy), it was 8am so I went inside. The guy told me that he wasn't sure if the person I needed to see would be in today. You're kidding right? He said that, if the guy was coming in on the holiday weekend, he would be there in a couple of hours. I was welcome to wait. Yeah, no. I don't think so. I told him I would just leave the bills and he could see that the other dude got them. He had no problem with that, but he wouldn't sign anything. You're kidding right? Fuck it, I documented that nobody would sign the bills and went on my way. It's not my fault they told me to take the load to the broker when I was going to leave it on the yard. If I took it to the yard, the local guys could have delivered it whenever this fella finished his Labor Day weekend.

I called CFI again to advise them that I was heading to Petro for service on the truck and then taking the rest of the day off. I had a little over an hour left on my 70, but what's the point? At best I could go pick something up and then have to shut it down. I told the dispatcher that I would board tomorrow morning and she said, "Okay."

On to Petro... I checked in with the shop manager and he asked what service I needed. I told him probably just the preventative maintenance, but the CFI shop would let him know if they wanted anything else done. The Petro manager was on hold for road service for about twenty minutes when he told me I could go out and get in line behind bay #1. Ten minutes later he came out to tell me that CFI told him I needed to call them before they could talk to him. What the hell are they talking about? So I call, wait on hold, get through to road service... "Yeah, this is Joe on truck so-and-so."

"Yeah Joe, you're scheduled for a PM."

"Yeah, well I'm at the Petro in El Paso right now."

"Good, just have them give us a call."

I swear they feed paint chips to their kids in Missouri. Anyhow, these guys at Petro did a nice PM. They were much more thorough than any other T/A or Petro that I've visited so far. After that it was time to make arrangements for the rest of my day. Beverages, check. Snacks, check. Ice, check. Now to find some lodging. The Econo-Lodge had a trucker's rate of $47 plus tax. Sign me up. And a little bonus, the room was ready already. I thought I would have to wait until this afternoon, but nope, I got settled in right away. A shower, a shave, and it was time to put my feet up and soak it all in.

Oh yeah, I don't care if Michigan eventually pulls it off or not man, that's a 1-AA team they're losing to.

8/31/07

Pretty decent day of work today. The drive along the US highways from Kansas into Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico is a pretty uncongested one. I made it into southern New Mexico this evening before my clock ran out, so I'll have a few hours left to run in the morning. Then I need to run down to the Petro for an oil change and, hopefully, get settled in before Our Lady's glorious defenders of truth and virtue pull one of these on the Yellow Jackets...

(Calvin who?)

I was running low on fuel, so I pulled into our fuel stop in Hooker, Oklahoma. It is a Love's but it's really more of a glorified gas station. The satellite pump wasn't working, so I could only take on about 80 gallons. That meant that I was going to have to make another fuel stop. The next one on my route was the T/A in Santa Rosa, so I pulled in and topped off the tanks. I received a message from the shop yesterday advising me that my truck was due for service, so I planned to get the work done while I was at the T/A. Of course, there was no T/A shop there so I'll have to hit the Petro in El Paso tomorrow instead.

Once I left the T/A I hopped back onto I-40 and then took the exit on the west end of Santa Rosa to pick up US-54 west outside of town. Not too long ago, I took 54 through Santa Rosa and wound up having a difference of opinion with a local constabulary. Ultimately, the arbiter of the situation was persuaded to see things my way. No harm/no foul, but I wasn't in the mood to drive through there again. On the west end of town, there were a slew of cops hanging out in the 15mph school zone, but I was going 10mph and smiling as I passed by. I don't think I saw my buddy from a couple weeks ago, but I'm sure he's out harassing someone.

There's a long stretch of construction south of Vaughn, with a posted speed limit of 45mph. In the interest of maintaining a reasonable flow of traffic, I was cruising along at 50mph. People passed me, almost once every 20 seconds, in a construction zone with a double yellow line, over and over and over. Where are the cops for these jagoffs?

I was rolling south and hoping like hell that the impending rain storm would hit me pretty good. In the warm weather, the bugs seem to get quite juicy and quite colorful. My windshield could use a blast from the heavens. No such luck. I got enough rain to make it difficult to see. So I turned on the wipers. Then the rain stopped as the highway turned south. So now the smorgasbord of bug guts is smeared all over the windshield. Always something out here.

After a nice shave of the head I think I'm ready to try for some sleep, although I'm not feeling too tired right now. I'll eventually doze off for a few hours, then wake up tired and start driving again. Gotta love those DOT guidelines.

8/30/07

The double-edged sword of riding across the countryside kept biting me in the ass today. It was a nice ride with light traffic, far from the hustle and bustle of the interstate. For some reason though, I got a lot of phone calls today. The reception was sketchy at best. I would roll along for a while, get a voicemail notification, try to check the voicemail, lose reception, roll along a while longer, and repeat the process. I guess the interstate does occasionally have its strong points.

I got my beep this morning and received a load assignment to pick up locally in Lincoln and head for El Paso. A nice 966 mile run to put me over 7,500 for the pay period... sweet. The load was scheduled for a 1pm local time pickup, but it was a drop/hook so I headed over a little early. It was ready and I was on the road in short order.

I got out of Lincoln ahead of the afternoon traffic and headed south. Aside from the aforementioned cell phone issues, the only thing notable about today's drive was a detour due to road construction that took me about twenty miles out of the way.

Since I had most of yesterday off and got a good quiet night of sleep last night, I was ready to do some serious driving today. The weather in Nebraska was cool enough last night to sleep with the truck off, and I managed to get through the night without waking up. Of course, the DOT sees it differently. I only had enough hours to make it to Dodge City today. Of course that means tomorrow morning I'll actually get outta Dodge. What are the odds I ever would have been able to say that if I didn't start driving a truck for a living?

I pick up a full day's worth of hours for tomorrow, so I'll have to drive all day in order to be able to get a ten hour break and still reach El Paso on time Saturday morning. By then, my 70 hours will be used up again. The good thing about being in El Paso will be that I can find the cheapest motel in town and kick back for some football. Pulling a trailer, sometimes the options are limited. I'll drop this one off at our yard Saturday morning and have a chance to bobtail wherever I want. I can go anywhere with a bobtail, at least that's how it feels.

A little warning for Georgia Tech's new quarterback: Be afraid. Be very very afraid. He's back for another year and he's watching you...

8/29/07

Well, the old midnight express rolled once again this morning. It took my full eleven hours to get to Lincoln, but I made it. The trip was a nice change of pace from all the mountain driving. There are certainly plenty of hills in Missouri, but nothing like the 30mph climbs that characterized yesterday's drive.

I got past St. Louis well before the morning rush, then around KC as the sun was coming up. The traffic on 435 up to 29 was a non-issue, which is a good thing. Any major delays and I was not going to make it to Lincoln within 11 hours. I took a little liberty with the company's 65mph 'request' just to make sure I wouldn't be late, but once I got through most of Missouri it was apparent that I would be fine so I backed it down.

My directions to the consignee referred to a route approaching from the east. I was coming from the south. I really didn't feel like going out of my way to pick up highway 6 and follow their directions, so I came up with my own. I would just cruise highway 2 into Lincoln and make a right on 70th. Nice and easy. Yeah, 70th was a 'no trucks' street down by highway 2. So I wound up having to stay on 2 all the way through Lincoln, then go up 77 to 6 and take that all the way back to where CFI's directions would have left me in the first place. Live and learn, live and learn.

The customer told me that I would get unloaded at 1pm, the time of my appointment. I had hoped to get out a little more quickly, but they had a schedule to keep and I was first after their lunch break. The guy in the receiving office didn't seem to grasp the concept that he needed to cut the seal off of my trailer before I could open the doors. "Go ahead and open it," he suggested. I told him it had a cable seal and needed to be cut. "Yeah, just open it up." With what, my teeth? Eventually I was able to get the point across and he cut the seal. They took maybe a half hour to pull the pallets off and then sent me on my way.

Now, I'm dead flat totally and completely out of hours. I just woke up from a very refreshing nap, but according to the DOT I'm too tired to drive, until midnight of course. At that time I'll apparently be rested appropriately. I'll pick up a few hours tonight, but not a lot. Then I'll get a decent amount back for the next few days after that. Normally, these mandated times sitting are annoying, but given the work load the last few days, I don't mind taking the rest of today off. I'm actually hoping for a slow weekend and, on account of the Monday holiday, I might get one. The miles for this paycheck are currently sitting at 6,556 so anything sensible tomorrow and Friday will put me over 7,000. That's better than a kick in the nuts I think.

On Saturday I'm hoping to have time to find a motel, order a pizza, and kick back for plenty of football. I'm definitely feeling the spirit:

Here Come the Irish

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8/28/07

I've been working on a screenplay. Well, I just started working on it this morning, but anyway... And the characters are states rather than people, but anyway... And the setting is back when the country was being formed, but anyway... Let's see what you think.

Virginia: Psst. Ohio, I need to talk to you. Get Pennsylvania and meet me at the library.
Ohio: Okay, we'll be there.
Pennsylvania: What's going on guys?
Virginia: Okay, here's the deal. That terrain up there in our northwest corner, we don't want it. You guys figure it out.
Ohio: No way man. Those people marry their cousins. Besides, we aren't real big on mountains anyway.
Pennsylvania: Don't look at me. We have all the mountains we need.
Ohio: You know... we could give it to Kentucky. They'll take anything.
Kentucky: I heard that!
Virginia: Damn, even Kentucky doesn't want it. Screw it, we'll just split 'em off and call it West Virginia.

I don't know if that's how it really went down, but that would be my best guess. This was a long day. Heavy load, up down and around, again and again and again. I managed to cover the ground I needed to cover, so I should get to Lincoln within my 11 hours tomorrow, but what a tedious day. Leaving here after midnight should let me roll past St. Louis with minimal delays. Kansas City will be the only real hurdle, but it should work out okay.

I guess there isn't a whole lot else to talk about, unless you're into Michael Vick chat, which I'm not. I'll take a stab at a few more questions, again with the caveat that I don't speak for CFI. I'm just a simple fella doing my thing out here. These are from Shea.

Q: Some companies say they pay for weekly truck washes. Does CFI offer this?
They have wash bays in Joplin and Laredo, so we get our trucks and trailers washed on our way out of those terminals. Otherwise, as I understand it, after three weeks without passing through either terminal, we can get a commercial truck wash and receive reimbursement for it. A work order from the shop is required if we decide to get a commercial wash.

Some customers require the trailer to be powerwashed on the inside before they will load it. Again, we pay, get a work order, and submit the receipt for reimbursement.

The whole truck washing thing is something I should probably pay more attention to. I rarely get a wash anywhere but a terminal. Whenever I think the truck is looking dirty, there is a line of trucks at the Blue Beacon, so I blow it off. Then it rains and the truck doesn't look so dirty and I forget about it.

Q: What kind of bonuses do you get paid?
There is a safety bonus that we get, as long as we have no accidents or cargo claims within a quarter. It starts at 1cpm, then very slowly increases to 4cpm after a hundred years or something like that. Seriously, I think it's a quarter cent increase for every 120,000 accident-free miles, topping out at 4 cents. Have an accident and you lose the bonus for that quarter, plus start back over at 1cpm for the next quarter.

There is a fuel bonus if you average over 6.4mpg from December through November. I started in July of last year and got the bonus through November, so people who say it's impossible are wrong. That being said, I would sleep with a coat on in cold weather, sit with the windows down in hot weather, drive slower than other trucks if I had a heavy load and extra time, and try to choose routes that would be the most fuel-efficient. It took a decent amount of sacrifice on my part, but I got over 6.8mpg for the 2006 bonus cycle. The bonus check I got was less than exciting, so I said screw it and stopped causing myself so much discomfort. Without really trying, I'm at 6.2mpg for this year. Maybe it will go up when the weather cools down a little and I idle less, maybe not. The company has made fuel mileage its big project, but I think they need to pay a better bonus to make it happen. Most of the drivers consider the current bonus unattainable and the ones like me, who know it's actually attainable, don't consider it an adequate incentive. As always though, it's not my company so they do what they want to do.

Otherwise, that's about it. There are bonuses for Driver of the Month and that kind of stuff, but I think I'm too much of a black sheep to have to worry about those. We get the standard six holidays (New Year, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas) and a week of vacation pay after a year, but those aren't technically bonuses I guess.

Q: I've enjoyed following your stories and I'm thinking about giving CFI a try. I've seen that some drivers mention referrals. How do I let them know about your blog so you can get a bonus?
Honestly, it's probably just as well that they don't know about my blog, assuming they haven't already run across it. Some discussions on the message boards have had a 'big brother' feel to them recently so I prefer to stay in my own little world here. If you think I've been helpful in making your decision, you can click the same contact link you used for your questions (but use a real e-mail address this time) and I'll give you my truck number. We don't get a bonus unless you're an experienced driver, but it probably doesn't hurt to let the recruiters know whom you've spoken with even if you have no experience.

Here's my take on referrals: I appreciate those of you who want to mention me to your recruiter if you have found anything I say or discuss helpful in your decision, but I don't keep this blog for recruiting purposes. I keep it because some people have expressed a desire to know what life on the road is really like, so I try to paint the best picture I can. I also keep it because I usually have something retarded going through my head every day and this is my chance to get it out of my head. As soon as people turn toward a recruiting mentality, you start to get a homogenized view of things from them and they shy away from telling you about some of the bullshit they deal with. I'd rather maintain my credibility and that requires telling the truth when I think CFI is screwing up.

If I were to get a referral bonus based on someone going to work for CFI, I would like to think they knew they had someone to help them through the process if they needed any help. That would be the only way I earned anything. Keeping this blog is as much a hobby for me as it is for the readers. I've heard from a couple people who will be starting a new driving career next year and a couple of others who are thinking about it. If you think I've been helpful, then by all means let your recruiter know. The other side to it would be to let me know how you're doing and if you have any specific questions I can answer whenever they came up.

Anyhow, thanks for the questions Shea. Hopefully my answers made at least a little sense. I know I tend to ramble a little (or a lot) but it's my blog, so I get to ramble if I want to. Now I need to catch some Z's before I have to start rolling again. Cheers.

8/27/07

"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing." I'm pretty sure that one was Socrates, although I can't remember if I actually read it or just saw it on Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. It's been a long time, but I don't seem to remember Socrates Johnson doing a lot of talking in the movie. Anyway, yeah, the day didn't go quite as expected. I knew I would get something this morning, but the morning started a lot earlier than I thought it would.

I got a message from the people in Joplin at some point last night asking when my break would be over. I informed them that I could wrap it up around midnight (at least an eight hour one). They sent me to Toms Brook, Virginia to take a load from another driver and run it down to Greensboro, North Carolina for this morning. Sounded fine to me, plus they tacked on a pre-planned pickup in Raleigh for this afternoon, headed to Lincoln, Nebraska. I don't know man, maybe I just get pre-plans now. That makes more pre-plans in the last week than I had in the first seven and a half months of this year. Now, in the case of last night, I was cutting my rest a little short and helping them out in a pinch. In these cases, I have gotten pre-plans to follow up quite a bit of the time, even before my newfound pre-plannability.

Going through mountains with a heavy load = bogus. Going through mountains with a bobtail = excellent. This ride on I-70 was far superior to the ride yesterday morning.

I didn't get a dispatch to Toms Brook, so I sent a message indicating that I was headed that way. I received a message asking which trailer I had. Here we go... don't even get me started on night/weekend dispatch. They had sent me a message no more than fifteen minutes earlier saying I would be bobtailing to a relay, now they were asking what trailer I had. "No trailer, just rolling to Toms Brook," I replied. I got within twenty miles of my destination and sent another message, again asking for a dispatch to Toms Brook. Got to Toms Brook shortly thereafter, still no dispatch. So I called in and got that squared away.

I woke up the guy from whom I was taking the relay. I looked at the paperwork - picked up at 3pm, deliver by 10:30pm. Hmm... "Ran out of hours eh?" Yep, he had a mechanical issue with his truck and then screwed up calculating his hours. That was a time-sensitive load and his mistake most likely cost CFI a pretty penny. Hopefully they won't be too hard on him though. He said he's only been driving for a few months. Mistakes are bound to happen. Faced with the prospect of admitting a mistake and complying with the law or just ignoring it and driving illegally, I think he made the right call.

I got a chance to drive a stretch of road that I've never driven, which is usually pretty cool to do. US-220 heading south from Roanoke was a hilly and twisty ride, but my load was light enough that I was able to enjoy it. In fact, given the short rest the night before, that kind of road was good for me because it forced me to stay alert. There was no prospect of setting the cruise control and zoning out. The fog got pretty dense, so I had to crank up the heat on my defrost and sweat it out for a bit, but what can you do? When I got into Greensboro, I missed a turn to stay on 220. Luckily, in the wee hours of the morning, there was little traffic so I was able to get turned back in the right direction.

At the UPS facility I was told to drop in a given spot, only to find the spot already occupied. Pretty typical for those guys. I dropped in a neighboring spot and went inside to get the bills signed. Then the empty that I picked up was full of cardboard. On the UPS loads, it's pretty common to find pallets or boxes in the empty trailers. For whatever reason, they don't clean them out. We usually have to take ten or fifteen minutes, throw a few pallets in a dumpster, and collect our $35. The trailer this morning took more like forty five minutes, but $35 is still well worth the trouble.

I sent in my empty call and my request for the unloading pay, then headed toward Raleigh. I had until 1pm to pick up and I needed to take a two hour break to complete my split-sleeper break, so I pulled into the first rest area east of Greensboro. I never got a dispatch to Raleigh. I never got my $35. I never got placed on the board. Don't even get me started on night/weekend dispatch. I set my alarm for 11am and took a nice nap. When I woke up, I sent my fleet manager a message asking him to take care of the things the night crew failed to address. I was put on the board, dispatched, and paid for unloading within a couple of minutes. Why the night crew can't seem to handle these things, I have no idea.

The drop/hook in Raleigh was nice and easy. By the time that was done, I had just enough time left on my 70 hours to reach a truckstop and scale my load. I got a message from my fleet manager asking if I could make the 1pm Wednesday appointment. My first reaction was, "No way," on account of my 70 hour issues. After re-checking my log, I think I can pull it off so I told him not to worry about setting up a relay. I'll have to get rolling at midnight, drive until the hours run out, sit until midnight, and get rolling again. I should make it, but I will need some cooperation from the traffic to get the job done.

8/26/07

Do people routinely remember their absolute first thought upon waking up in the morning? I usually don't, but today was an exception. My first thought today was exactly, "Holy shit! What is happening !?!" I was pretty sure we were under a nuclear attack or something. As it turns out, some guy with an old piece of shit reefer just pulled in next to me at 5am and woke me up. Guess my primo parking spot wasn't so great after all. That thing sounded like the tornado sirens that small towns have.

So, in a pretty severe stupor, I scrambled around trying to find my earplugs. I didn't think to turn the light on. Dumbass. Once I got them in, the noise wasn't completely blocked but it was enough to let me fall back asleep for a few more hours.

Today was one of those days where I sometimes have discipline and/or motivation problems. I had to drive five hours, and the DOT says I had fourteen hours to do so. I was dispatched to arrive at midnight and I left at 10:30am. Essentially I had eight and a half hours of time to kill if I so chose. In that situation I often find myself making excuses to stop and check out various things, take an unnecessary nap, or take some obscure route and see what kind of sights I come across. On this particular day, however, I behaved. I stopped for fuel, but otherwise drove straight through to my stop.

The drive across Maryland and into Pennsylvania is a tedious one when you have 44,000 pounds in the wagon. It's one thing to know you will be climbing hills at 35mph. That just goes with the territory. What makes it obnoxious is the fact that cars going 55mph will pass on the way up, then cut in front of you and force you to ride the brakes on the way down, keeping you from maintaining any momentum for the next climb. The traffic volume was a little heavier than normal for a Sunday, so I actually had to pay attention to my 77,000 pound vehicle as it barreled down the highway. Bummer.

When I got to the WalMart distribution center, I dropped my loaded trailer without incident and headed back to the empty lot. Okay, we'll just take an empty and be on our way... Hmm, we'll just circle back around - must have missed an empty somewhere in there... Huh, let's take one more look... Nope, none there. Okay, maybe they put one of our empties in a different part of the lot. Let's cruise back around the rest of the lot... Nope, none there either. Okay, maybe there's one in the dock that hasn't been unloaded yet, let's check the docks... No. The only CFI trailer at the whole place was the one I just dropped.

So, I had to call and see what the dispatchers wanted to do with me. As I suspected, they just boarded me with no trailer. Now, since I'm first on the board, I'll get passed over for loads because I have nowhere for the shippers to put their freight. At some point tomorrow morning, someone will decide where they would like me to pick up an empty and we'll take it from there. It's not a huge inconvenience for me, as my 70 hours are running way low so I would most likely have been sitting until tomorrow anyway. In addition, cruising around without a trailer is a nice change of pace sometimes. I can get into most parking lots, so I can kill my time however I want to. Really though, I'll probably just hang out at this gas station until tomorrow. Man I'm getting boring!