Profile For Papa Pig

Dan

Welcome to the trucking world. Wishing you luck. Most large companies that will hire you will not care to have a resume. It will be applications and question and answer with a recruiter. Some local companies and private fleets will require a resume. I know my company did.

The backing and the shifting will come. Just try and come up with a rhythm and a mojo on your pretrip. Lights ccc color , cleanliness, not cracked. You have the benefit of being able to get a flow down setting in your living room. “My television and securely mounted to the wall, not broken or cracked, and the cord has no abrasions cuts or frays.” My yeti cooler is properly mounted and secure with cap. The seal has no abrasions bulges cuts or dryrot and it’s not leaking” you get the picture 😂

You can also learn the sequence of your air brakes test from studying and repost home. It is IMPORTANT that it is done in sequence because it is pass or fail! Remember leaks , alarms, buttons. DO NOT FORGET to put the key back to accessory mode after you build air pressure and turn the truck off If you do happen to mess it up by say…. Pumping the breaks and the alarms do not go off at the appropriate time. You most likely have forgotten to turn the key to accessory mode. If that happens ….sometimes…. Stop lol and ask the evaluator if you can start over. And most times they will say yes please. Daniels pretrip is good and a great tool before going to school but I would suggest to use the material that your school gives you as that is generally what your evaluators are going to be looking for.. Good luck!

Your school will teach you how they prefer it done. Especially if they use their own testers.

Generally you start with a walk up . No leaks and not leaning.

Do the front of the truck with the clearance markers Down the hood to the lights

And I preferred to start on the passenger side of the hood and then over to the drivers side. That’s how we taught it when I was a cdl instructor.

Consistency is key..do it the same way

Some testers start you off with the brake test so if you fail that they don’t have to listen to the rest of it since it is go/no go

I didn’t do dollar tree but did dollar general. But I know a few people that did dollar tree.i worked for Werner and do not really know what the pay package is like with cr England. But I do know that with Werner it is possible to make that type of money if not more after you get through the learning curve.

Personally I wouldn’t like the dollar tree/ family dollar account because you have to set up the rollers. You can be working really fast but are reliant on how fast the store employees can empty the roller on the bottom. Or you may have to wait on them to get a crew there to receive the load which can kill your time/ how much revenue you can make that week. You have to be fairly precise with the backing because the rollers have to be set up just so.

You will do some city driving but will be doing a lot of small towns. Going around shopping centers in not so great areas

Go visit a few stores . Find out when they are expecting trucks. Talk to a few drivers that are doing the job. See what they are making .and be honest with yourself about your backing abilities. I am not going to join with the others saying definitely don’t do it. But definitely put some thought into it. I was successful partly because of luck and partly because I had a very good trainer.

There is nothing wrong with normal trucking. Flatbed, dry van, reefer.

If you decide to go a touch freight route. Personally I would pick dollar general. Or food service.

Whatever you decide I wish you luck and if you ever need advice or help I will try my best.

Bobcat Bob You just reminded me that I don’t see much about doubles on here. Would anyone like to see a how to of how to hook up or anyone that is interested in getting doubles like to see the components that you are studying for? I know it was all Greek to me and I passed the test without really understanding. Bobcat Bob would you be willing to contribute? We may have a different way of handling Dolly because if different types. We use silver eagles . Would you be willing to collab with a how to? Brett. Do you thing this may be something of interest?

So I have been pulling doubles for 6 months now and I have truly enjoyed it. The transition has been overall very easy. The biggest thing besides the extra time of hooking doubles is there are 2 additional pieces of equipment to pretrip. The converter dolly and the additional trailer. A few weeks ago I had to drop in one of our outlier yards where my company is renting spaces. I drop my loaded trailers and hook their empties and bring them back to my yard. When I hook up the empty set which is on a brand new trailer , I notice that the piston which comes out of the tow hook to secure my dolly is upside down.

So I have to break the set down and reverse the order which is ok since both are empty. When it is finished it is supposed to look like this

If you look at both pictures you will notice one barely has any overlap and one goes over the hook quite a bit. This prevents the hook from popping out. Well the thing that sucks was when I went over everything and checked my hoses to the dolly . A “bubble” appeared. Wasn’t there when I broke the set down but appeared when I supplied air the second time.. it can happen that quick

This sucked because I didn’t have anything to repair the hose with. It would have been as simple as cutting it at the bubble, and putting a new compression fitting on and screwing it in. But I didn’t have said fitting. I decided that I couldn’t pull the rear trailer so I had to leave it. Drive 1.5 hrs back to my yard. And drop the 1 trailer and the dolly , bobtail back and get the trailer I left. I normally only have about 8 hrs a day on duty time but I had about 20 minutes left on my 14 when I shut down. I went to maintenance the next day and got some extra hose and some extra fittings which I secured to my dolly for extra. I will NOT get caught off guard again. I am just happy I caught the bubble and didn’t have that line pop and have my rear trailer lock up while going down the road!

Good news is also I was recognized as shuttle driver if the month for our southeastern division for the month of November.

I am still enjoying my time here and feel that if you do your job correctly you will be paid fairly and left alone.

My first time driving a tractor trailer at night was in WV . Some of it on interstate, some of it on2 lane roads going up the dang mountain trying to find the store. It really made me wonder if I had made the right career choice lol.

Well, put myself in the unfortunate position that I had to straightline back a set of doubles last night. I don’t recommend it lol

I had to drop a set at a different shuttle depot than my home yard. It was later than usual and a hellacious lightning storm and I was unfamiliar with the road. What looked like the road I was going to take ended up being a dirt road. Almost got my whole set in it before I could stop.

Well my blood ran cold . I have practiced trying to straightine back a set and have averaged 15 foot before the dolly got all wonky and I gave up. Last night I had about 50 foot or more. Backing uphill before it would be safe enough to make the turn.

To those who haven’t ran a set the 2 trailers isn’t the issue with backing, it’s the pintle hook to the dolly between trailers which will make it very unpredictable. Pretty much the darned thing goes wherever it wants to go. It was slow going a foot or 2 at a time back. A foot foreword to get the dolly out of a twist. After 45 minutes or so and a severely warm automatic clutch I barely got it back on the road enough just to make a turn. Once I got straightened out I got out and checked my truck and my set. Everything was good and the only damage was my pride. I NEVER want to do that again!!!

I have gotten a lot better on the yard backing the dolly up with it being behind the lead trailer. This has a lot of benefits and I recommend practicing it when you have time. Can save some time and energy.

From what I have learned so far. You CANNOT be in a rush when building , breaking down or driving doubles. Goes the same with all truck driving but even more so to me with a double setup.

Still happy with the company and everyone I work with and work for. Genuinely nice people that will help out with anything. Only met a few disgruntled drivers.

Quick note they are hiring for shuttle drivers out of Pensacola fl and our jemison Al drop yards. If you are interested in shuttling check it out.

I think that a lot of companies have the policy that if you are gone more than a week that you have to empty out your truck. I understand it because well that’s just trucking. Now 3 days… nah I think that is just a dispatcher not wanting a driver to take vacation

If you really want the 2 weeks then I think it would be worth it. In the end a truck is just a truck. If you really don’t want to turn it in then maybe take a week , come back for a few then take another week.

Been here for about a week now and starting to get my routine down.

Something that I have found cool is that all of the shuttle drivers on my shift all work as a team. It’s not dog eat dog and every driver for himself. They have all offered me lots of advice , lessons learned, and given me the tools needed to be successful. Of of the trailers that we return to the warehouse always has pallets from the routes and return product that has to be offloaded with a pallet Jack. Most places would just let the driver who took that trailer unload it all. But everyone goes to the door and pitches in. No big rush to get a load and roll back to the drop yard.

Yard dogs are helpful and efficient but will let you know REAL Quick if you put a trailer in the wrong spot on the yard! Lol!

So far so good!

I just recently ended a job as a cdl instructor. There have been rumors of updated skills on the test for around a year now but they haven’t taken effect yet. Probably won’t for a little while.

Quit stressing. I promise it’s not rocket science. If you need a confidence booster go to any truck stop and hang out by the fuel pumps and fuel desk. You will realize that if those dudes can do it so can you. Kind of the same effect as going to Walmart at 3 am depressed and seeing all the other shoppers and realizing you don’t have it so bad lol