Comments By Mountain Matt

"set out into the gorgeous": What a beautiful turn of phrase, Anne!

I’ve been solo for 3 months. I'm already making 80% of what I made in my previous job, which required a grad degree and supervising 4 people. I got my training paid for and I am accumulating needed experience. Down the line, I can stay here, or I should have options open to me.

Was everything perfect with my training and company? Certainly not. But it's all been good and done what I needed. I focus on the many good aspects of my company that I like and on what I enjoy in this job every day. I feel like I'm living life rather than waiting in the cubicle for quitting time. And I'm learning more every day. I'm glad to have found a place in this industry.

Anne,

Back at it! I was Down with the Sickness, but no more.

Maybe I'll get to that movie now that my inverter died and my DVR/TV no longer work...

Just this morning, in Kentucky

Hey Laura,

Yeah, I try to consolidate fueling stops as much as possible, so I'll top off the reefer, knowing I have to drop it full. Like now, for instance, I'm running a dry load, but I topped off the reefer, knowing I'll need to eventually. So I end up doing the Three Tank Dance often...

Good luck with your new equipment!

Agreed, Bruce. This is by far the least stressful and irritating job I have had. I just wondered if I was doing something wrong, or if others had had similar issues.

Thanks for talking it over, PackRat. All good suggestions! It definitely makes reefer more annoying, lol.

So, during training, I used my trainer's card (Comdata), and now I use my own company Comdata card. He was a lease operator, while I'm a company driver, so does that possibly make a difference?

Yeah, it happens to me about 50% of the time, more often at Love's. It encourages me to use the mobile fueling apps so that I don't have to re-enter all the info multiple times. I've never heard anyone mention this before, and it NEVER happened to me during training (and I'm faster now, if anything), so I'm just feeling like a Reefer Dolt, lol!

Yup. I select "truck fuel," "DEF" (usually), and "reefer." After the DEF, it says, "Authorizing reefer." I quick pull up the truck, jog back to the pump, and try to start filling the reefer, having already removed the cap to save time. Sometimes the pump even looks like it's going to work, but then it won't. It ends the transaction. Then I run my card again to fill the reefer, and it says, "Previous transaction still processing." So I have to wait a minute or two in order to start a new transaction to put those 6 gallons in the reefer.