A Summary Of My First Week

So the summary of total hours that I drove all the last 8 days amounts to a grand total of 2025.40, I dunno if that is good or bad for my first week out? My DM did tell me yesterday over the phone,, that I am doing an amazing job! So I am believing that I am! My first week was not without challenges, however I am learning how to steadily work through those and how to communicate with the Qualcomm and dispatch.

My first challenge of the week, which caused the most embarrassment, was getting my trailer's DOT bar stuck on a low curb while attempting to pull into a receiver in Lynnwood, WA (Lowe's retail store), I pulled as far wide as I could and went as fast as I could but still got caught up on the narrow curb, the setup for the store is simply not designed for 70 foot CMVs and the turn by turn directions from May's Qualcomm, frankly left much to be desired, in fact I am finding out that most of the turn by turn directions leave much to be desired (not griping just pointing out a fact!, they do). So I basically had approached the turn from the wrong way, the tow driver even admitted that he has had to unstick many trailers from this specific area and May safety even admitted that they have had drivers get stuck there many times. There is a good side to this - 1) No damage to the trailer ; 2) Customer even admitted that this has happened before, so no property claim filed. (You could literally see the divets, chunks and ruts made by previous DOT bars in the EXACT same spot. So at the end of it, I thanked God and my lucky stars and got back moving.

My second challenge was getting lost for my second delivery to Costco warehouse in South San Francisco, ironically this Costco was the one I felt that I had the best directions to. My first delivery was 4 AM at the Costco warehouse off 10th street in San Fran. I hadn't been able to get ahold of the customer for better turn by turn directions all day the day before. As my luck would have it, when I exited off the baybridge Exit 1C a local Costco semi pulled behind me and then around me, the driver paused and waved his hand out the window, basically saying follow me, so I did, Right up to the entrance to their underground dock, I got to the receiver window ,had to wait 30 minutes (keep in mind i was early and arrived at 320) on the street and pulled in, their underground structure is huge! Plenty of space to do a pull through with a 70 foot vehicle and line up for a straight back.

It was my second and final stop in SF that presented the challenge, this Costco is off S.Airport Blvd and though I had gotten the best turn by turn directions I could, the construction going on made for a maze of confusing signs , I ended up having to take this giant loop around twice to figure it out, I did and was 20 minutes late, I communicated that on my Qualcomm, I was advised that was okay and was given my next load assignment. Since both costcos were live unloads , I took an empty to the Home depot RDC in Tracy, CA.

The shipper did not have the paperwork ready and it took about an hour to figure it all out, I remained patient and waited and communicated the info and got it sorted out. When I hooked up to the trailer however, I noticed that the trailer airlines were hanging way lower than the DOT 8 inches, by that point I had been up since 1 am and I was really fricking tired! I used mac #6 for our OTRS and they got a trailer mechanic by .....5 hours later. At that point I communicated that I was out of hours to pick this load up and conveyed to nearby parking.

When I went back to the trialer the next morning, I discoved that the service glad hand connection piece on the trailer had a slow leak! I missed it the day before being so tired after being up since 1 am and waiting five hours for the trailer guy, had to then take it to a shop about 8 miles away and waited another 3 or so hours to get it in and repaired. I was then off on the road....finally! And made it to the pilot off i80 east (cant rmemeber the exit number) did a pull through and parked for the evening. The next day I was off to my receiver a home depot retail store.

I see why TT doesn't reccomend local or dollar general accounts for new guys and gals, the stores simply aren't set up for a 70 foot vehicle to maneuver and they have stuff everywhere! I finally got the trialer in and had to swap out a empty for loaded triaker and put the loaded triaker in the same dock as the empty. Did all that and got a preplan for a load where the planner hadn't seen that I was out of legal hours to run it. So I ran the empty to the shipper communicated why I couldn't take the preplan and dropped our empty and conveyed to a safe place to park for a 10.

I thought I would get back hours to run today but, I guess not as I gota hos warning flag for my 70 in the way to the shipper, that load got voided and I conveyed to the loves where I am at now.

I'm just looking back over my week and seeing what I can do to improve for my next week after reset

Hope that all makes sense

the tow driver even admitted that he has had to unstick many trailers from this specific area

ROFLMAO~!! "UNSTICK" hahahahaha!!

That was a MUCH NEEDED giggle today, good sir! Seems like you're doing well, overall. IMHO, those miles are great for a newbie. Just right. Kearsey actually will admit that to be her 'normal' approx.

It's in here:

Truckin' Along with Kearsey

Keep on KEEPING on, Moe!

~ Anne ~

ps: Do you keep a 'pocketful' of gladhand seals? (Tom does; I always find'em in the wash, haha!!)

Sounds like a decent start to me, keep up the good work!

Sounds like a good start to me because you've already encountered some challenges that even experienced drivers have difficulty with and you met them and overcame them