Well 6 weeks is just about up! I spend the weekend in Spokane, again, then on Monday I will drive back to Sumner where I will get off the truck and my mentor will pick up a new student.
I was able to run the truck for the last 2 weeks, almost all by myself. My mentor did some driving too, but I was running the Qualcom, and had all contact with shippers and receivers. I did all the fueling, got the truck in for it's 30,000 mile B service, and tried to at least have my hands on everything that happened.
While in Lewiston for the B service on Tuesday, I ran into 3 guys from my Swift Academy class, and they were all testing out to go solo that day. The Lewiston terminal only had one truck, so that guy had to take the other 2 to Troutdale were they hoped to find trucks.
Talking with them, they had some pretty good stories. John was running with a Lease/Operator Mentor, and they ran all 48 states. Well John was telling me about how he was running at night somewhere in Louisiana while his mentor was in the bunk. He saw a box in the road, and thought nothing of it, at least until the box started to move! Well that box turned out to be an alligator, and he said he ended up running it over. He stopped on the shoulder and his mentor asked "what the hell was that?" He said he thought it was a gator, and he wanted to check it out. Fortunately his mentor had enough sense to tell him to keep his butt in the truck, cause that thing will eat you alive! My only question was, why were you going to run over the box in the first place?
Kurt had a great story about how he needed to use an engine override switch for over 4 hours. Apparently his mentor left the terminal even though some light came on in the FL Columbia saying the engine would shutdown. So he told Kurt to just hold this switch for 10 seconds every time that light comes on. Well when his mentor was in the bunk, he had to use that switch for more than 4 hours before the light stopped coming on. My guess is at that point the bulb in the dash had just burned out!
As I have said many times before, my training was very uneventful. I learned a lot from a great mentor, and was happy to get the training that I did. I am sure that i will have questions when I go solo, but my mentor assures me that he is just a phone call away! This by the way is how I have learned several lessons.......
My mentor had a student about 6 months ago who still calls him at least 3 times a week! This guy can't use the Qualcom, and he is always asking stupid questions. Today he called and was freaking out because he filled the fuel tanks before picking up his load at the costco DC. Well, he was 450lbs over at the scale. What did I learn? Get your loaded trailer before you decide to take on 200 gallons of fuel! We have been doing this for every load, especially since we got the Volvo. It may take a few extra minutes to double back to the terminal after you get your load, but it's easier than being 450lbs overweight.
I will be testing at the terminal on Tuesday, and hopefully Sumner will have a truck for me on Wednesday. I really want to go OTR and run all 48, but if they ask me to stay with heavy haul for a while, and they can get me decent miles i might just do it. My only request will be that I could go south to Portland as opposed to East to Spokane every day!
I will try to post a couple of more updates once I test out.
Thank's to everyone that has been following my posts over the last few months. It has been great talking with everyone that has PM'd me, and I have a few new friends because of it. I had fun posting my daily routines, and I hope that these posts will be helpful to people that are looking at starting a new career with Swift. My experience through the entire training phase has been excellent, and I am glad that I chose this route to start my career in trucking.