Ok i've been meaning to post for a while but havn't had TIME. so todays post will be multi part.
Ok so what Don't I like about central? well.. TIME for one, the OTR dept is way undermanned. as such it can take hours to buy a windshield wiper blade over the counter, for me it only took 4. Yes the place I was at was very busy but OTR taking hours to respond to qualcoms and not answering the phones did not help.
Time off, i'm not talking home time here just time to sleep. you will run every hour you have to get your load on time. I don't know why these shippers and receivers want everything moved around so damn fast. However I do wish they would put an hour or two of leway in instead of booking everything at what seams the theoretical minimum time it takes to legally get to point a to b.
Speaking of legally if you want to make decent money with central you will fudge your log book a little, every driver here does. as they say, "we have over 1500 trucks and only a few people in safety. its not like anyone is watching you with a magnifying glass"
Tomorrow after I get my pay statement I will show you how much money you can expect to make running for central week by week running (for the most part) completely legal.
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ok so in orientation central gives you a little card with location of 24 hr blue beacons. They also say they have an account with them and you can just go in and they charge the company, no PO's or comchecks required.
so, I pull into the blue beacon last night because my truck and trailer are FILTHY I am in line for like 2 hours and think to myself hmm this must be why I never see central trucks here I guess the other company drivers don't care if their truck is dirty and don't want to wast the time. They ask me if I want my engine washed and my truck waxed also I say sure, they give me the works. I go inside to pay and tell the girl It's central she tap taps on her computer and asks if its the one out of salt lake city or and then lists all our main terminals. I tell here that salt lake is my main terminal and she shakes her head.. It won't go through. I have her run all the other terminals also no dice. I think to my wallet which is empty and kinda start to freak out. do you take comchecks? yes she says. good I run back to my truck. no signal on the qualcom, duh i'm inside a building. so I grab my cell phone and my central list of numbers and call night dispatch. I explain whats going on and he transfers me tothe comcheck handling dept. I tell him I'm at a blue beacon and it won't run through and he asks me what one I am and I tell him, then he asks how much it costs and I tell him its 64 dollars. hes like uuuhhh ok thats seems like alot but anyways what load are you on. And I tell him, and hes like so you delivered it already? and came back up I-5 to get a wash? and I tell him no I haven't delivered it yet i'm still on my way and he asks me why i'm trying to washout the inside of a loaded trailer and then I tell him no I'm washing the outside of my truck AND trailer. They are filthy. and then hes like oh so you want an advance on your paycheck. I say no central is supposed to pay for this. Thats what they told me in orientation. Then hes like your new aren't you.
Thats when we figured out what was going on. Central pays for trailer washouts ONLY. not truck washes. so yeah long story shorter he was super cool about it and gave me a comcheck and is going to try to get the cost not taken out of my paycheck since it was a beginners mistake/communication error.
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Ok now a few good things about central. They will let you run legal! completely! and won't give you a hard time about it... but you won't rake in the dough. as they put it. as you are out here longer and learn how to better "manage your time" you will be able to earn more money.
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ok number two. I will not say the company involved in this incident but I'm sure you will be able to guess.. they have a reputation for this sort of thing... some people say that they deserve this reputation others say you can't judge all drivers of a company by the actions of a few.. I will leave that up to YOU to decide.
So I was heading south bound over the oregon I-5 mountain pass. well I should say crawling, at 79,920 my volvo can barely manage 30 mph. I had my hazards on and was leaving plenty of room for people to pass. As those of you who have driven this stretch of road know it is only 2 lanes, and sometimes the really slow vehicles (like myself)will move over onto the shoulder if their is a truck coming up behind them so that the two trucks do not block the cars that like to whizz through at 70 mph.
Anyways I saw in my left mirror a truck coming up behind me at about 45 or so and some cars in the left lane, So I throw on my blinker and check my mirrors to move over onto the shoulder and what the hell, I am SWIFTly being over taken by another truck that is PASSING ME ON THE SHOULDER!? wtf. well these cars are now on my left next to me and the other truck is behind me. I don't slow down because if i do i know I'm going up the rest of this hill at 15 mph instead of 30, then we come around a curve and their is an oversize going up the shoulder at about 20 or so, the truck that is trying to SWIFTly overtake me was doing about 50 but not anymore... I think I witnessed the SWIFTest application of brakes on a truck while out here. he came to a dead stop fast having nowhere else to go with me to his left, a guard rail to his right and a truck behind me.
I then moved over behind the oversized and plodded the rest of the way up the hill with him and let the other more beefier trucks past me.
I guess the moral of this little story is don't be to SWIFT to try and save a few minutes off your trip doing something stupid.. in the end it won't... or worse.
and
Always check all your mirrors, can't ever assume anything.
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And don't forget coming tomorrow, the low down on the real take home pay for a student truck driver. (and no its not what the recruiter told you) *builds suspense*
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