Comments By J Johns

I think you've made an excellent decision, but then I'm biased. My partner & I started there Feb 1st & while I'd like to say that no one was complaining, what I will say is that it was half-hearted at best, as though from habit, hahaha.

Weariness!

Sunday, 2.28.2016, woke around 0700, and I drove out about 0900. I made it almost 300 miles through those mild hills east of St.Louis. My all-time record is probably 450 miles in a car in a day. I haven't LOVED the driving aspect of road trips, but obviously, I'm trusting myself to learn. Today I was concentrating on lane control, maintaining 60 mph without cruise control, & reading all signs. Greg says I did well & my right calf concurs -- I was glad for the down-hills when I could stretch & counter-flex. He drove for maybe 100 miles until the gusts of wind buffeting the vehicles were reaching 41mph. We parked & took a 3 hour nap which ended just at dusk when gusts were more like 25 mph. He drove for another 300 miles it seemed, & stopped at a truck stop a little after midnight. I was nodding off wildly for the last hour in the passenger seat, which was probably funny to see. Our load is going to Bethlehem PA, appointment for March 1st at 0700, but luckily we can deliver up to 24 hours early so of course we'll be taking that opportunity tomorrow morning.

about 1 mile down the road from the Campus Inn is Pancho's Mexican restaurant. The carne asada burritos are pretty good. Closest thing to the socal version anyway

Psst. Shredded beef chimichangas. I gotta try those carne asada burritos, love that place.

That's too bad, I've been keeping an eye out for the man who looks like my favorite singer/songwriter, Tony Kakko, haha! Maybe another time. Thanks for the luck :)

Saturday, 2.27.2016, shuttle to Millenium, breakfast, shuttle back to the Campus Inn, then I called my trainer who picked me up. He went into a flea market to kill time & I set up a little nest in the upper bunk. We picked up an empty trailer, waited in line for a wash, went to our first pick-up & I shadowed him while taking occasional notes. We dropped & hooked (the newly loaded trailer was inexplicably OFF), did our live loaded call and were about 10 minutes out of there before we learned that the trailer had an error code. Thankfully we were minutes from the Springfield terminal. We dropped it off, ate, fiddled with our phones, napped, and at about 10 or 11 we were able to drive out of there. We made it past St.Louis by 3am then stopped at a Pilot for the night. I need to start using military time, bleh.

Thanks :D I will try.

2.26.2016, Friday, I received a qualcomm message on my phone through the Prime Mobile app. I forgot to mention that the last time I spoke with my fleet manager he 'added' me to the truck using my driver code. So the message was asking my trainer & I to go to the safety meeting at the Millenium if available. Greg didn't respond so far as I know (I only see messages from Prime, not his replies), & I didn't get a text from him, so I went to the meeting alone. Breakfast is free but seating can be difficult to come by. Most of the meeting was about how we're switching out to automatics soon, & so they brought some 2 & 3 million milers out who have been driving them & can speak definitively on how they handle. I got a text message from my partner whose trainer had arrived for a drive, so that's where they were when I got back to the room & packed & goofed off for a few hours. At around 3pm my partner returned for some shared goofing time. At about 4pm repairs to Greg's tractor had been completed so he picked me up with all my things & took me to the Millenium to work some load magic. The load assigned gave us 5 days to get to Spokane WA, but he wanted to squeeze in a smaller load for the coming paycheck. He managed that at the fuel desk in the driver's line-up building next to Millenium. The plan became the folowing: drive about town so I can warm up & he can know where I need help, then drop me off back at the Campus Inn for the night, drive out at noon the following day, & begin our work. So the first time I drove after my test wasn't awful & I'm happy to spend another night with my favorite person.

My days of waiting for a trainer have run together, but I can say that ...

2.24.2016, Wednesday, we took the green shuttle to the post office to get our passports & cards. We plan to keep the passport books locked up for international travel & our cards with us for work-related border crossings. There was a sign saying that they expected people to make appointments for this service. I checked the paper Prime had given me & it said nothing about that, so I dared to hope. Sure enough, we were told that Prime people are fast & easy so don't worry about the appointment times. One stupid thing I did which may come back to bite me is that the only government-issued photo I.D. I brought was my ink-poor printed paper copy of my CDL-A, & none of my recently-voided state licenses. Surprising they would want to see those, huh? Like I say, it may come back to bite me, but the Department of State will let me know what they need, when & how they need it. We left & walked toward the DMV where there's a lovely little place called Hurts Donut, a shop we found to be strangely crowded on Friday & Saturday evenings. We now understand why that is -- I'll let you learn for yourselves. We caught the shuttle back to the Campus Inn from the DMV.

2.25.2016, Thursday, I met my new trainer! His name is Greg & as his Million-mile dinner was scheduled for the evening of our meeting, he can be safely assumed to be a prolific turner of safe miles. He invited his latest student to vouch for him to my partner & I. He's getting repairs done, so a Friday morning or afternoon departure seems more likely. It looks like Prime is working hard to get us two of it's best fleet manager's best drivers to set us up for success & the effort is not lost on me. We got our first paycheck & I noticed that they didn't take the three $200 weekly advances that we didn't touch in our accounts, but instead took the $25 from our paycheck that we were told they would use to repay themselves for those advances. As it seems they're planning to do it that way, & our paycheck was put into that same comdata account rather than our bank account because direct deposit takes a bit to kick in, I got to work figuring out comcheks. It took some doing, but we managed, deposited the checks with our phones because we do our banking online, then paid our bills & were left with a rather satisfying amount left over. We've been sitting on our butts earning money somehow, & it boggles the mind. However easily money comes in the future, I hope I never forget the lessons of the value of work that I've been learning all these years. Prime is spoiling us rotten, folks.

^ I love that.

Great story, Dave! What's so bad about hotels that someone could find another quiet night distasteful anyway?

^ chest

t h u m p i n g

2.23.2016, Tuesday, up very early, redbox movie before we fielded a call from our new fleet manager, then each of us got a call from our respective PROspective TNT trainers, we went to Panchos for some excellent 24hr/day mexican food, bought passport photos & goodies at wal*mart, caught a shuttle to the Millenium building & met our fleet manager. He invited us to watch him work for a few minutes, which was illuminating but also eventually a little awkward. He described our trainers to us & we went back to the Campus Inn to netflix & sleep at about 4pm. I will meet my trainer 2.24 Wednesday evening and probably depart with him 2.25 Thursday morning. My partner will likely depart 2.29 Monday, as it seems that his trainer is taking a spot of home time until then.

2.21.2016, Sunday, goofed off, rented redbox & glutted ourselves on sleep.

2.22.2016, Monday, went to see The Man In Whose Hands Our Futures Rest, assured him that we're packed & ready whenever he can find those trainers, then went to the TWIC office to get those cards. I am once again dismayed at my recruiter's advice to leave my marriage certificate at home. I can't get a card, but my partner can. I'm told that if I had a passport the point would be moot, and that the post office does not ask for a marriage license. That's nice, but a passport takes 6+weeks to process. We got a meal & headed home for a nap. We ended up not catching the shuttle to the post office, so we'll try again tomorrow. Redbox & bed early again.