Profile For icecold24k

Hello everyone! It has been a long time and I have truly missed this forum and all of the great people here. I wanted to drop in and see how everyone is doing and give an update on what is going on with me.

I completed 2 years with Prime Inc and do not have any regrets whatsoever. I did however leave and start a local job about 6 months ago. I loved my time at Prime and even worked out a 2 week notice and left on very good terms in case I have to return someday. I didn't want to burn any bridges. My fleet manager was sad to see me leave but he understood that I just wanted to be home more and return to a more normal lifestyle. Prime taught me a lot and I will forever be thankful for the opportunity they gave me and would highly recommend them to anyone in a heartbeat. If it ever happens that I need to ever return to being OTR I would not hesitate to go right back there.

Now about the new job. I had a friend help me get on here about 20 minutes from my home doing the livehaul for Tyson Foods. Basically we go out to the poultry farm and pick up loads of chicken and bring them to the plant for processing. I enjoy the job a lot and the group of people I work with. Everyone here has been amazing in teaching me and leading me on the correct safe way to do things. This job can be dangerous as we always run over gross weight usually between 84-90000 lbs and the loads are obviously very top heavy. There was a huge learning curve coming here but they have been amazing and super helpful to me. The pay is decent I did take a pay cut coming here but I knew that I would and I am okay with that as I am home everyday. The hours also aren't too bad some days we only work 6 hours some days we run out our 14 hour clock, but even on the short days the money is still good so I can't complain. We are paid by the load so obviously you want to hustle and run as many as you can. All in all it has been a great experience so far.

Anyway it feels great to be back here and I cannot thank this site enough for all the help and advice along the way. You guys are truly the best.

Let me welcome you aboard Roman. There are tons of great information here on this site. A quick search up top in the search bar will yield you a lot of results. Take a while and read through that. I must say they both seem to both be very good companies so I don't think you could go wrong choosing either one. Just take a bit and figure out what you want as far as hometime, type of freight you want to haul and possible dedicated accounts they may offer that interest you. Then you can make a decision that works best for your situation.

Without knowing any more details this is a very difficult question to answer. What carrier would this job be with? How many miles per week? What routes? Are you currently teaming now and what is your experience level?

Can't say that I blame you for wanting to leave. Seems to be a lot of shady things going on at your current company. I know sticking it out is a good thing to do but in this situation I am not sure. If you get into an accident and it involves injuries or god forbid a fatality and your log history gets audited it could end very badly for you. The only thing I can advise is to apply literally anywhere and everywhere you can think of. I truly do wish you the best of luck in your situation.

What's going on... It has been a while? Doing okay?

Late to the party also but this is so awesome to hear. Good job I knew you had this. On to the next phase.

Sounds like you are doing an amazing job out there. Keep up the good work. I am happy to see your trainer is letting you do all the backing and dock bumping and also practicing that oh so important PTI. Looking forward to seeing that trifecta post soon.

Sounds like you pretty cool trainer so that is a huge positive. It makes learning a whole lot easier and a lot less stressful. Sounds like things are going well so far and I am enjoying reading your updates. Keep up the good work and ask lots of questions and just become a sponge absorbing every little thing that you can no matter how irrelevant it may seem right now.

G-Town giving me mixed messages! lol

We never recommend starting with a company with the intent of moving on after only 3-6 months. It's highly recommended to commit to your first company for at least one year.

But then:

Get 6 months of OTR experience then look at tanker.

Just teasing, you did follow up with

If you choose a company like Prime or Schneider, you may have the option of moving into a tanker job once you have some experience.

so its only SORT of confusing! :)

Just wanted to give you a hard time, you do great work around here - keep it up!

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse. To clarify; move to a tanker job available within the same company.

Yes this absolutely. I did 8 months in the flatbed division at Prime before switching to tankers here. It is a whole different world pulling tanks and even I would advise against it until you have a good winter or so under your belt in another division. I just don't think it is a good idea to jump straight to tanker. Even with the experience I had before moving over to tanker I can honestly say this winter I had a few pucker moments pulling a fully loaded 48000 lb tank. Also we do strictly food grade and to add to the danger factor Schneider does some Hazmat. Just something else to consider.

I have to agree with everyone else, for sure keep the car. I live in a pretty small town and there would be absolutely nothing worse than going home and trying to find rides anywhere you need to go.

Team Showers ?

A true bonding experience. This is where you really get to know each other.

Best of luck and I am sure things will be fine. You chose a great company and I will be following along also.

Good luck to you and can't wait to read your diary.

Hey Icecold24K! Would you say you were still a rookie when you switched division? The misinformation here at Sprimo is very confusing. One sim trainer said to talk to Steve, another said to talk to my reefer FM. Whose the tanker FM? I’m seriously hoping to make the switch now! Just need to weigh the numbers due to present debts.

To make the switch all you have to do is talk to Jeff Bruton he is the one over the tanker bootcamp and they could set it up with your FM to have you routed into Sprimo to hook up with a tanker TNT trainer. Technically yes I was still a rookie when I switched to tanker I had only been in the flatbed division about 9 months when I made the switch and have been in tanker ever since, and I am coming up on my 2nd year here at Prime.

I must say I am really enjoying reading this thread. I truly hope you keep the updates coming. Do you guys happen to load at the Nucor in Wallingford Ct? I could of swore when I was flatbed here at Prime I loaded there with a couple of drivers from your company. Really helpful people also it was coming a blizzard and we all helped each other tarp and get out of there.

Thank You IceCold24K. I plan to. It helps pass some time, keeps a diary of my day for my kids, future grandkids etc. Hopefully helps some other newbies get a feel for the life and struggles out there. Yes we do a fair amount of Slinkies at Nucor. I have found that most of our drivers are pretty cool and helpful. Yea I'm not looking forward to the future blizzards.. HaHa You still with Prime?

Yes sir they were very helpful to me. I did appreciate it.. I am still with Prime however I am in the tanker division now hauling food grade liquid products.

I can agree with this I have the 740 and it is less than 3 months old. It is constantly doing that, sometimes to the point where I have to mess with it for 20 minutes or more to get it to work. Usually it ends up responding after a while. Luckily I have my atlas and my Navigo on the qualcomm as well so I never really have to fly blind. If you happen to find a fix for this please do post and let us know.

Welcome back Tyrone.. Fellow tanker driver here, do keep the updates coming and glad to hear things are going well for you.

These things will happen. You will have days where no matter how long you plan to spend at a shipper and receiver things will go wrong. Honestly sometimes all the planning in the world is no help because of Murphys Law. You did all you could do in this situation. Things happen and sometimes customers don't understand these things. As far as communication, me personally I never really talk to the customers personally. I usually keep my dispatch updated and let them handle things on their end. In my opinion you did what you could and I wouldn't sweat it.

I must say I am really enjoying reading this thread. I truly hope you keep the updates coming. Do you guys happen to load at the Nucor in Wallingford Ct? I could of swore when I was flatbed here at Prime I loaded there with a couple of drivers from your company. Really helpful people also it was coming a blizzard and we all helped each other tarp and get out of there.

This is completely off topic but at one time didn't Swift actually have a car hauling division? If I remember correctly they had them cool looking enclosed carriers.