[Rev.Vassago]

Yes - Dawn = Lewis = Chad = Colonel = Ron

[ben45750]

Originally Posted by Dawn Kirshna

Not trying to rain on your parade, but i don't think the gig will last. Not because it's a bad gig, but because of the hours. I'm living proof of this.

Not to rain on YOUR parade, but working every night is cake to deal with. Try running the extra board.
You will run early mornings, afternoons, evenings and nights. Then to make it worse it changes everyday, 7 days a week.
10 hour breaks? whats that? Get to the terminal, clock out, takes you an hour to get to the hotel, take a shower, try to sleep, get your work call on your 8th hour, get a shower, spend an hour getting back to the terminal and your rolling again to another terminal and repeat process and hopefully you get a long run so you can take a nap.
We have drivers that have been running the extra board for 15+ years.

[Jackrabbit379]

Originally Posted by Rev.Vassago

Yes - Dawn = Lewis = Chad = Colonel = Ron

Yall are pretty quick on the draw. :P

[One]

I get home sat mornings and head bed pretty quick- maybe a quick chore in the yard or something exercise like, then I sleep for a few hours but no later than 3pm or 4pm. sat night I sleep like the civilized people do. Sun awake in daytime, go to bed in evening, get up early mon, chores, chiropractor, email and back to bed for a nap (usually 4-5 hrs). Driving that night im usually a little more tired than usual, but no biggie- Ill stop for a short nap if I feel like it. Thats how I do it. Ive tried the method of continuing the weeks rhythm on weekends, but thats no fun and you end up without much of a life being the only one up all night.

[TruckerChris]

Originally Posted by Colin

Sounds like you got the job at Bettendorf. Cool.

I worked with a lot of their drivers up in Oregon on the night shift. They brought funny looking doubles up to the Weyerhauser sawmill in Cottage Grove. 5 axles total over 2 trailers instead of our 8 axle doubles!

My schedule was 5p-5a for almost 4 years by choice.

First day on:

If you're starting on Monday at 6pm, stay up late on Saturday and sleep for about 5-6 hours. Do your best not to nap on Sunday. Stay up all night on Sunday. Edit some photos. Surf the web. Go grocery shopping around 3 am to keep yourself awake. Get to bed Monday morning about 6 am and you should be able to sleep all day.

When you get home at 6 am, don't eat or drink coffee or soda with caffeine. I like to go to bed after a hot shower within about 2 hours of being off work. Get up around 3 hours before you're due in for work.

You would think that treating your night shift as a day shift (staying up until 10 pm, then sleeping until just before your shift starts) is a good idea. I never found this to be the case. The bulk of my free time was spent before work, not after. If the opposite works for you, do it.

Now when your week ends and it's a Saturday, try to get to bed as soon as you can and get up by noon to be a 'normal person' on the weekend. On Sunday, maybe a short nap so you can stay up overnight on Sunday and then repeat. If your days off are during the week, I would keep the same schedule. I hope you can get to dayshift soon. Night shift is not easy on your life.

I'll be putting your info to test starting tomorrow night... I start on monday. Man, I'm so ready to get back in a truck. I'm still torn on what I want to do at the moment. I have 10months experience so I may stick with this job for awhile or get a couple more months and go drive for Pride OTR... Who knows, right now I just want to DRIVE!

[Colin]

Good luck.

Chips is a fun freight. You get to run empty a lot of the time if the mills are far apart or there is not a load ready.

Contact me privately if you have any specific questions.

[TruckerChris]

Well, I stayed up until 7am and I just woke up. I have to be there @ 4:30 to turn in my paperwork and get situated with another driver that I'm riding with for the first week. I'll report back in the morning with how the first day went... I hate riding with someone when I'm driving. It's like taking the DMV driving test, very uncomfortable, but oh well, I can do it.

Chris

[CaliTrucker]

Good luck with the new gig Chris.

I know what you mean about riding with other people. Seems like every time someone is in the truck with me, i forget how to shift :lol:

Looking forward to the update, i was considering jumping ship lately, but now that I am getting more hours I am content for now. I'm curious to find out what the job is like and how they are to work for.

[TruckerChris]

I'm back from my first night. Basically, I think I'm going to really like this job! My co-driver sean, is a super cool guy so I felt totally comfortable driving with him. He's totally laid back and has been working there for 8 months. He says people come and go a lot due to the night schedule and stupid mistakes (more into that later).

We did just under 300 miles tonight and the 12hrs FLEW by. We hit up 3 chip yards and hauled Douglas fir green chips and a load of saw dust. It's amazing how these things dump their load. No forklifts or shovels here!

I have lots of things to learn, but by the last dump, I was doing it all. All I have to work on paperwork and remembering how each customer wants their paperwork completed and turned in.

We drove #131 Which is a peterbilt 377 built probably within the last 5 years. Real nice truck but it's small inside for my 6'8" tall body. Nothing like the legroom of the columbia I used to drive. I will get used to it, but I wish it had more space. Eaton 10spd, jakes, sliding 5th wheel, cb, long range cb, etc. Real nice truck.

I had a blast today, it's sort of overwhelming the precautions around the dump and loading area's but I'm figuring it all out.

All in all, I'm excited to go back to work tomorrow, well, later today I guess :lol:

I love driving.

[west_coaster]

Chris is haulin' chips!?!? Nice. I hauled chips at night for a while and it was damn fun. I pulled 40-20 A-Train doubles, which are a pain in the butt cause you have to break them down and hook back up like 5 times a night, but oh well. You're gonna like haulin' chips. Just be very careful when loading. It doesn't take much to jam the jaws on the chip bins and box out the trailer! Then it's diggin' time! One night I was waiting behind a newb who was loading and he pulled the wrong bin lever, dumped about 30,000 lbs. of chips on his catwalk and cab. Oops! Good luck man, and careful driving at night!!

West_Coaster