bigdad7 that's pretty cool about the monthly bonus. Cluggy- I wouldn't consider doing otr for any company, I like being at home too much. The only reason I'm considering this job is because they say I'll be home every other day. As far as u-turns go I try to avoid making them, but some times it's unavoidable. I was actually terminated for making a u-turn at Werner.

 

I drove a JB Hunt dedicated account for 1-year (JC Penney) over a 6-state region. When I left (over 1-year ago) I was at .36/mile and something like $15/stop to fingerprint the load. Mileage averaged around 2,100/wk. Keep in mind that the senior drivers get the routes they want--hang around a while and you will (as drivers retire/move on, etc.). It was a fairly good gig. I was home weekends and 2 or 3 times a week. I signed on with JB Hunt dedicated primarily to get more home time and that was worth it to me. (wrote that here: http://www.classadrivers.com/phpBB2/...=271723#271723)

As far as fingerprinting the load, you will be using a step stool to unhook clothing hanging from ropes suspended from beams in the trailer. You hand the clump of clothes over to a JC Penny's associate and they place them on a clothes rack. Underneath all the hanging clothes will be pallets. Using a pallet jack, you pull the pallets out first. Sometimes you can get all the pallets out before you start unhooking the clothes (it helps to be shorter in stature since you are ducking beneath the clothing to get the pallets out). If you can't get all the pallets out, you pull 2-4 pallets out, unhook 2-4 rows of clothes, pallets, clothes, etc.

 

Big Wheels- For some reason I pictured the clothes on roll out racks, wrapped in plastic. I didn't know it would be hanging on a rope. I'm 6ft and about 340lbs climbing on step stools and doing a lot of stooping to get to the pallets underneath doesn't sound real good to me, maybe I need to rethink this. Is the clothing always loaded like that? Is there clothing loaded on the trailer most of the time?

 

Perhaps they do things different in So. California. In the Midwest, that's how they did it when I left (1-yr ago). I'm 6' 3" 220lbs. You get a good work out going up and down the step stool--that's for sure.

All the trailers were loaded like that. Sometimes you had full trailers (pallets and clothes) for one store. Sometimes 3/4 to 1/2 of a trailer full of pallets/clothes for one store. Sometimes you had a trailer full of both but with 2-4 stops. The senior drivers every now and then had an all pallet load. Around Christmas time, there were trailers with all hanging clothes.

Backhauls were returns from the stores--that's it. Occasionaly there were pickups from other vendors--but not that much.