Comments By Suicide Jockey

Wow. Forgot to empty compartment 1 AND forgot to check landing gear before detaching? Bad day.

At least the driver could get some pull ups in on one of the rear axles while waiting for the manager to finish setting up for the termination meeting.

The landing gear are down, but these tanks are so front heavy with product in compartment 1 only that they'll nose stand anyway.

. I'll be one of the only "team" day cab crews (training) in a company truck that sounds like "beagle."

Beagle eh?

Suddenly I have the image of an excited tanker wagging their tail in the air.

Getting a little hard to find tonight. All but one of our suppliers was out of ULSD allocation at KM. There was a Loves driver that had hit every terminal in Selma looking for ULSD to bring down to their Dillion SC location. Apparently they had zero allocation remaining and he was being sent to Charlotte to try again.

Short answer: Yes, if you're up to it.

I have no experience with Roehl. I started out with Prime over the road and exceeded that pay figure my first year, but I busted my butt to do it. Pay in this industry is most heavily affected by the individual driver, not the position they hold. In my current job hauling fuel we have drivers who make under 50k and drivers that make over 100k+ that do the exact same job on the same pay rate. The only difference is the drivers work ethic.

You feed yourself so the diet is 100% on you. I stocked my trucks refrigerator with weeks worth of food every time I went home. A regional position should make it easier to keep to a preferred diet.

Daily exercise is also 100% on you. Some drivers will run around the perimeter of a truck stop, or do pushups and jumping jacks next to their truck. Some keep resistance bands or weights in their truck to work out with. Others will even bring a bicycle with them. Your only limitation is you.

I haul fuel out of Selma NC. We been pulling a lot of diesel to top our stores off in anticipation of shortage. So far Kinder Morgan and Marathon have still had diesel available. My second load tonight has diesel on it. Fingers crossed KM will still have it...

Your driver's sure don't wave much up here in VA! Just got diesel from BP tho today.

I found loading two loads with ( 2800 and 1k ) and shorting another customer 1k regular was the only way to get two orders without requesting too much to upset anyone .

Yea we have a fair amount of cranky drivers that won't even wave to our own trucks, never mind anyone else.

I've only taken one load of fuel up to VA. Greensboro apparently didn't have any 93conv available that day, so they dispatched me out of Selma to split a full load of it between a couple stores around South Boston VA. Most of my time is spent from Raleigh NC east to the beach, from the Outer Banks NC down to Myrtle Beach and Georgetown SC.

I've never had anyone get upset that I loaded to much of a product. As long as it fits at customer of course...

This summer when gas was getting scarce I was about to start loading at Kinder Morgan and the screen displayed, "Low Allocation Warning, 89 gallons remaining". So I quickly loaded 9000 gallons lol. I told my dispatcher and they just laughed, "Good! You got the last drop of allocation and then some!"

I haul fuel out of Selma NC. We been pulling a lot of diesel to top our stores off in anticipation of shortage. So far Kinder Morgan and Marathon have still had diesel available. My second load tonight has diesel on it. Fingers crossed KM will still have it...

Otr I always preferred driving nights for the reasons already mentioned. Now that I'm local I still choose to drive nights. No lines of trucks at the loading racks to wait in. No traffic clogging up the roads. And no cars & customers in my way when I get to the store.

*Loading wait times are faster or nil.

*Travel is faster

*Unloading is faster due to having the place to myself.

Plus!

*I'm not working in the NC hot sun 🌞

* They pay me 10% more to work nights! (And another 25% on weekends), when there is no rush hour to contend with!)

One thing you'll find out quickly is that many drivers are far better at complaining about their job than doing it.

Prime is a great company that takes good care of it's people.

However miscommunications do happen. They may have been given bad info and passed it on to you. It's just as frustrating to them as it is to you when it happens. So yes at Prime I have been sent somewhere for a trailer that wasn't there due to communication errors. But errors like this are the exception not the norm.

I got my CDL through Prime and spent about 3.5 years with them. I only left Prime because the OTR life was hard on my wife and kids. I now have a home everyday local job.

I highly recommend Prime.

Lol yup.

Some of our drivers have started spray painting brightly colored markings on their hoses and fittings.

Yup my wife teases me everytime I do one of four habits.

1: Swing crazy wide in a car. Fortunately I don't do this one much anymore.

2: Back into every parking spot.

3: Turn on the wipers when I see brake lights ahead. Then am puzzled for a brief moment as it mentally clicks that I'm not in the truck.

4: Put on hazards and slow down approaching a railroad crossing. One particular RR crossing I cross roughly 6 times a day at work, it's just burned into my brain to stop. As I come to a stop in my car there's usually a fuel tanker crossing from the other direction laughing and waving. They've probably done the same...