Comments By Mitchell C.

Currently @ 48,071 miles, we ran 6212 last week and 5700 so far this week. Waiting for dispatch to give us a load before pay period ends, hopefully 800 miles or so going from NY to IL to put me at less than 1200 miles needed to finish TNT. Think i’m going to finish my first year in a LW for the extra income then upgrade to a condo after.

Not sure how accurate this is but my trainer said there’s people still waiting to upgrade since September. I seriously hope this isn’t the case because he’s starting to drive me crazy lol. After this Wednesday, i’ll have 8k miles left, we drove 6k miles this week alone. The load we just dropped was a low elevation load coming from Palmyra PA to Ogden UT, pretty much i-40 all the way until i-15 with a side of i-80, was around 3300 miles. Had to use via points over the QC, also done a high value load a couple weeks back. Think i’ve done most reefer loads except for beer.

Any updates, Mitchell?

Yeah i’m still here, we’ve been running non stop. I told my trainer every-time he pulled into a shipper/receiver to wake me up so i can get more backing practice in. Up until about 2 weeks ago i’ve been going for easy pull in parking spots. I’ve been doing a lot of tight parking spots and empty trailer sections that has tight spots as of late. I only have about 3 weeks left of tnt until my 50k is up so i’ve been doing the majority of things. Lumper fees, macros, live load calls, etc. On my next 34 hour reset which should be soon, i’ll add more stuff, i forgot a lot of it except for the mistakes i’ve made. Also got a level 1 inspection about a month back, wasn’t bad.

Man load 3 has been a huge pain in the doo-doo. The 01 kept rescheduling us because they were missing a pallet, after waiting a full 24 hours in their lot, dispatch said to go and pick up 02, had no problems, just took them forever to load us, around 6 hours for 12 pallets. Then we headed back to the 01 at around 3 am. Back in the 01 we got rescheduled again until 10 am, ok fine, waited until then and finally got a door. Took them 5 hours to load 13 pallets, one of which was a partial. Called live load and they asked why we had a partial and then they had to figure out if we’ll be fine for the 03. An hour later they called back and said go ahead to the 03, we got there at 5 pm, then had to wait for a door. They called at 8 pm and gave us a door and took them 3 hours to load 3 or 4 pallets. These shippers don’t pay detention so we missed out on a lot of driving time and just general time wasted. If i could blacklist a company it would definitely be these 2. Ocean mist an taylor farms. We’re finally on the road and i’m currently on my 30 at a loves in arizona, lots of road construction on i-15.

Small update, i got a pretty good tnt trainer, his condo is pretty decked out and has wifi.

Load 1: Our first load was from Springfield, MO to Reno, NV. It was a Walmart DC load, 1716 miles. I enjoyed the drive but hated Wyoming, i got hit by light/hard rain and light/hard hail, and strong winds, i literally couldn’t see anything for a good 10 mins, was driving around 15 mph. Rest of the drive was smooth. Enjoyed my time through Nebraska and Utah.

Load 2: Dreyers Grand Ice Cream load from Manteca, CA to Tualatin, OR. Empty 195 miles and loaded for 626 miles. God climbing mountains loaded has to be the most boring thing ever, i was actually nervous going downhill with a loaded trailer but got over it about 2 hours later. The scenery was pretty amazing. We had to pay a lumper fee of $691 (prime pays back) for them to unload their products which makes no sense to me but ok.

Load 3: This is a high paying load for trainer and our current load. We’re going from Castroville, CA to Salinas, CA then finally Springfield, MA. It’s a produce load. Empty 707 miles and loaded 3119 miles. At the rate we’re going i should be done with tnt by the end of July. We’re teaming now so i’ll be driving from 6 am to 6 pm and he vice versa.

Hey man congrats on the house! That's the middle goal for me right now, hopefully i'll be able to buy a house by the end of next year or 2022. I just have to find out where i actually want to live first lol, not going back to Louisiana.

Hopefully i get a call today cuz i want to start making some money lol

Don't sweat it too much. You're making money right now to the tune of $700 a week while sitting in your hotel room.

No, it isn't what you'd be making solo, and you need to get through TNT to reach that solo money. But it'll come.

Oh i know it isn't solo money, i just thought i had to be on the road to get the $700 a week that's why i said that.

Small update, both the fleet manager and trainer called today. Trainer will be here later this evening, he's about 300 miles away in Arkansas dropping off a load before heading here to get his APU fixed (uh-oh). Talked to him for a few minuets, he asked if i dipped because his last trainee made a mess with his spit being everywhere and that i'm required 8 hours sleeper berth. His last trainee only took breaks and didn't really sleep. So he doesn't want to be put in a dangerous position and nor do i. I'll either meet him later today or tomorrow, apparently he's a lease op and i'm company. I thought you could only be trained by company if you go company? Regardless, i got my parking permit for my car so i'm getting my groceries out right now before i drive it to the prime parking lot.

Rob D is finally heading back this way today so i'll catch up with him later as well.

I'm jealous, seems like your psd is pretty much tnt and here i am waiting in my room for a call to start my tnt phase. Sharon already got her trainer, she took her test Saturday, guessing she also trifecta.

Thanks for the support all, so i'm still waiting on my call for my tnt phase and nothing so far. Sharon already got her trainer and the only thing i can think of why she got hers before me was because i opted for a non-smoker. Hopefully i get a call today cuz i want to start making some money lol

Yes, yes i'm still alive! Sorry for the lack of updates, i was pretty much doing the same stuff everyday and figured it wouldn't be that interesting to post. Like the last 3 days i've just been practicing alley docking and driving on the road. However, i actually tested out today and trifecta'd! I got a 2 on my pre-trip, i actually forgot to do the break test and pull forward to 5 mph and apply breaks etc. I caught the mistake after i told the examiner that i'm done with the in cab. Literally a second later i told him i forgot to break check and he said it was too late since i already told him i was done. So i got 2 points on my pre-trip, 0 on my backing, did perfect straight, offset left (g.o.a.l once to be sure, didn't need it), and parallel left. So technically i could've taken the test 3 days ago and pass since i was worried about alley docking the most lol. As for the road test, i got 4 points, 1 point for not making a choice in time. I was stopped at a red light and no sign was up saying i couldn't turn but didn't make my mind up in time and just sat at the light until green. Didn't want to auto fail, another point for not turning my blinkers on until i got up to the turn, was a left turn, noticed this too late. 2 points for the safe stop, did everything right but forgot to shift to drive when i was trying to get back onto the road, so i revved up the engine in neutral and that gave me points. I'm now currently waiting for a call from either Stephan, dispatcher or tnt trainer. It's just a waiting game right now until 1 of those 3 happens! Also need to figure out what to do with 401k and insurance and all that jazz, if anyone has some advice on those, that would really be great!

All in all this has been a amazing experience so far, going from never driving and even being near a semi to trifecta is a pretty amazing feeling. My trainer knew that i would trifecta and he wasn't worried one bit he said.

Tldr: 2 points on pre-trip, 0 on backing, 4 on driving = trifecta.