[TomB985]

You know, "mike", you remind me of lots of other drivers I run into. Always something to complain about, never, EVER happy. Yeah, I've had good weeks, and I've also had some really bad weeks, but if I let it get to me like you do, I wouldn't have any hair left! For your own sake, I'd suggest letting the "little" stuff go, and worry about what REALLY matters.

Beyond that, you came on here with an elementary-school user name, looking to get people's sympathy or maybe start a bitching party. If you don't like your job, it's your right as an American to go elsewhere and find another job. Just please, PLEASE don't try and find a job with my company, as we already have plenty of whiners here.

[GearGrabber]

I guess my only suggestion for the other new guys is to hang in there. Keep in mind that a lot of new guys wash out. So try not to hold it against your dispatcher or Driver Manager if they seem indifferent or uncaring. You have to figure they are dealing with dozens if not hundreds of other drivers. All of them with problems and many of them just as pissed off as you are. I bet they figure you are hours, days, or weeks away from quitting anyway. So why should they go out of their way to help you over a guy that paid his dues, has been out there for a couple of years and is likely to be out there a year from now.

Today you are paying your dues. You have to show you have the mettle to make it. When you have a year or two in you will have proved you are a real truck driver. The pay is better, the loads are better, and the career threatening challenges you face today will hardly even be a speed bump tomorrow.:thumbsup:

[Mackman]

Hey mike i think you need a local job that pays by the hour. That way when you show up to get a trailer with a flat and wait for road service you are on the clock. :thumbsup:

Some people love OTR and others hate it. To each their own. I guess

[Mike Hunt]

Originally Posted by GMAN

Even though the other tire wasn't in good shape, you could still likely have made it to a truck stop. Ultimately, it was your decision as to whether to proceed or not. We live with our decisions. I would think you could have made it on the bad tire had you taken it easy. If not, then you would not have been much worse off than waiting until someone could get road service out to you. I am not suggesting that you or anyone do anything that would have put the public at risk. A blowout is not likely to do that. Had the bad tire been on a steer axle, then that would be a different story.

LOL buddy do you work in dispatch? Well sir the answer is has been and always will be NO I WILL NOT PULL UNSAFE equipment down the road. End of story. I ain't risk gonna get pulled over by DOT and get a ticket. I ain't gonna leave a gator on the road behind me so some poor 4-wheeler can run it over or swerve and wreck. I'm not gonna get into an emergency situation where I gotta make quick moves with the wheel and who knows what happens back there with two flat tires and tall rolls sitting over them tandems.

But this is trucking lock stock and barrel you see I'm the BAD GUY here and all you guys say just pull the load down the road. No sir, ain't gonna happen. Not on my watch.

I hope all you young men see what goes on this business and get away while you can. Nobody gives you nothing but a hard time in this industry. Always has been and always will.

[Syncrosonix]

Originally Posted by Mike Hunt

LOL buddy do you work in dispatch? Well sir the answer is has been and always will be NO I WILL NOT PULL UNSAFE equipment down the road. End of story. I ain't risk gonna get pulled over by DOT and get a ticket. I ain't gonna leave a gator on the road behind me so some poor 4-wheeler can run it over or swerve and wreck. I'm not gonna get into an emergency situation where I gotta make quick moves with the wheel and who knows what happens back there with two flat tires and tall rolls sitting over them tandems.

But this is trucking lock stock and barrel you see I'm the BAD GUY here and all you guys say just pull the load down the road. No sir, ain't gonna happen. Not on my watch.

I hope all you young men see what goes on this business and get away while you can. Nobody gives you nothing but a hard time in this industry. Always has been and always will.

i used to be like that for my first few months. what changed my mind is that onroad is often slow to respond, and getting them to answer the damn phone is task in of itself. then the final straws were the times i was in the ghetto, had a flat or two, and didn't want to wait for somebody to arrive while the day was coming to an end. i decided to drive that shit to the nearest terminal or truck stop to have it taken care of. i once drove the truck from el monte to mira loma with three flat drive tires after running over a patch of nails. i didn't want to wait there for somebody to arrive. el monte, ca is almost like gary and/or east chicago, indiana. just wait until you're in one of those shituations. then we'll see if you wanna sit around for somebody to come handle the problem.

as for the other stuff, if you wanna be a pain in the ass type of driver, expect to sit.....a LOT. they'll simply starve you out until you turn over the keys.

[mike3fan]

Originally Posted by Mike Hunt

LOL buddy do you work in dispatch? Well sir the answer is has been and always will be NO I WILL NOT PULL UNSAFE equipment down the road. End of story. I ain't risk gonna get pulled over by DOT and get a ticket. I ain't gonna leave a gator on the road behind me so some poor 4-wheeler can run it over or swerve and wreck. I'm not gonna get into an emergency situation where I gotta make quick moves with the wheel and who knows what happens back there with two flat tires and tall rolls sitting over them tandems.

But this is trucking lock stock and barrel you see I'm the BAD GUY here and all you guys say just pull the load down the road. No sir, ain't gonna happen. Not on my watch.

I hope all you young men see what goes on this business and get away while you can. Nobody gives you nothing but a hard time in this industry. Always has been and always will.

You have 6 posts,show some respect to one of our more respected posters on this board. And quit being a overly dramatic ass about sitiuations we all have done in our trucking lives,sometimes you have to make a judgement call and sometimes yes we do things that are not "DOT" legal. But we get the job done and get home to our families and live to do it another day.

I know they push all this legal and by the book stuff down your throat going thru driving school and in driver orientation,but it isn't how it works out here in the real world. And after you get a little green rubbed off your horns you'll understand and won't be so quick to talk down to a real professional.

[Mackman]

Some of you guys crack me up on here. If this guy Mike would have came in here saying something like this.

I did my drop and went over to get a loaded trailer. As i did my pre-trip i came across 1 flat tire and one that had a flat spot so bad it had the wire showing. So i said Fu*k it and took it on down the road to the truck stop to get fixed. Well on the way guess what the tire with the wire showing didn't hold up and the re-cap came off and killed the guy on his Harley behind me. I need help.

This would be the super truckers on CAD.

Well i hope they throw the book at you. What are you retarded for moving that trailer like that.

I can hear it now. Anyway mike i more or less agree with you. Don't let some of these posters get you down. You cant win with some of them.

[wanderingson]

Originally Posted by mike3fan

You have 6 posts,show some respect to one of our more respected posters on this board. And quit being a overly dramatic ass about sitiuations we all have done in our trucking lives,sometimes you have to make a judgement call and sometimes yes we do things that are not "DOT" legal. But we get the job done and get home to our families and live to do it another day.

I know they push all this legal and by the book stuff down your throat going thru driving school and in driver orientation,but it isn't how it works out here in the real world. And after you get a little green rubbed off your horns you'll understand and won't be so quick to talk down to a real professional.

Nicely said Mike3fan. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Mackman makes a good point too.

Really, it does come down to the driver making the "right" decisions out on the road. Most of the time, we professional drivers make the right decisions.

Mike Hunt....(lol) you have much to learn about being a trucker, and this business in general. I'm not putting you down, I'm just saying, give it a chance.

Keep in mind though, that driving semi-trucks is not for everyone.

[BanditsCousin]

Originally Posted by Colts Fan

Or they are working in the trucking industry.

That'd be me with my dusty engineering degree!

[bentstrider]

Originally Posted by Mike Hunt

Well I have about had it with this trucking thing. What happened is that Wednesday I picked up a load of chemical powder in bags. This stuff was heavy but the company had a scale on-site so I weighed up and it looked OK. I asked if the scale was calibrated and they said "oh yeah our trucks use this all the time." But as I got out onto the road it just didn't feel right so I stopped at the Flying J and re-weighed and of course I'm over on the gross. Call my dispatcher Glenn and after waiting 30 minutes on the phone he asks me how much fuel I have in the tanks and then he tells me to bring the load back to the shipper and have them strip a couple pallets off the back. Well on my way back there's a scale that was closed just a couple hours before well guess what it's open now!!! I tell you if it wasn’t for bad luck I’d have none at all. Roll over the scale and sure enough the red light comes on and DOT man tells me to swing around back and bring in my paperwork. Go inside and he's an older guy like me and he says "where'd you pick that load up from driver?" I tell him and he shakes his head and says bunch of Mexicans those guys always load trailers wrong. He says he's not gonna fine me just bring the load back and get it fixed. I said thank you sir and head back to the shipper but shipping/receiving closes at 1500. And they're closed for Thanksgiving too and they're closed Friday and don't open until Monday morning.

Call up Glenn again and tell him what happened and he says OK hold on and watch your qualcomm and after waiting 1 hour I get a message that says take the load to a dropyard about 82 miles away. I check my atlas and there's no scales going that way so I take it over there and drop the trailer. Call up Glenn again and he says wait just awhile and after and hour or so I get a message: pickup an MT and take it over to a paper plant there’s a load there that’ll get you home.

Go to the paper plant and I give the lady my load number and she says drop your trailer in door 42 and pick up your loaded trailer in 33. OK great but as I go to pullout I thump the tandem tires and notice one of em is flat. Also notice the one next to it has a bald spot and showing cords. Looks like the driver before me or the yard jockey dragged the tandems. Call up Glenn but he went home and a lady answers the phone and she tells me to take the trailer over to the T/A and get the tires fixed. I say “ma’am I’m not pulling these paper rolls on a flat and one bald tire you’re gonna have to get someone to come out here.” Well she gets mad and puts me on hold. By this time my 14 hour clock is about up so I just send a message saying I’m shutting it down here and taking my 10-hour break I’ll call you folks in the AM.

Well I’m getting a mite long winded so long story short I didn’t get home til late Thursday evening. I missed Thanksgiving dinner and the family coming over all because of this stupid trucking job that don’t pay squat seein as how I worked the whole day of Wednsday for basically nothing. I tell you all the aggravation, BS, low pay I’m finished with this trucking thing. What a joke this is.

Well, sounds to me like they'll at least make sure the equipment is fixed and taken care of before you roll off.
I'm still just hoping I have to only hold out for another two weeks before seeing about getting rehired back to my old job.
The people I'm with right now are sloppy on all manners of doing things.

Another thing I have to complain about is all the local driving I'm doing in the So Cal area.
I've got to deal with a lot of migrant drivers who love to speed everywhere, some taking spots that I was assigned to in the railyards and then cursing me out in Spanish for obeying yard-laws.

Good thing I don't understand a word they're saying.