[Orangetxguy]

Originally Posted by catalinaflyer

Well Orange, I must admit that in reflection I shouldn't have parked there but you have to admit that 99% of us have pulled into a place that is closed/abandoned etc. and parked because there were other trucks already parked there or there were the sign's of other trucks having used that area as a parking place. and 99.9% of the time nothing bad ever happens. In my case I could have got hit no matter where I was parked and in fact had I parked somewhere where trucks were not allowed and there were no other trucks I probably woudn't be setting here right now. Throughout the day there were probably 25 trucks that came and went, one of the freight companies came in, broke down a set of triples, made deliveries, put them all back together and left. Another company came in with a reefer and met three straight trucks and off-loaded onto them. There were no signs saying it was closed other than the small one on the front door. They even had all the lights on inside and out.

LS has said nothing to me about parking there other than at one point my terminal manager asked if there were other trucks there besides the one that it me. I did meet the owner of the place right after it happened, he was there doing some work to get it ready to re-open in a couple of weeks and had no problem at all with people parking there, said that's why he bought it and is re-opening it because he's an old driver and admitted that there really isn't any place close by for trucks to go.

I did hear from the main office last night and my truck won't be ready till Wednesday so now I'm just hanging out at the hotel waiting to see what the terminal manager wants me to do.

Catalina......I wasn't trying to say anything bad about your having parked at the old T/S. I have had to do the same plenty of times myself, so I understand.

I was simply saying, that Lonestar was stand-up, for NOT firing you because of where you parked. That indicates that Lonestar management does have a clue on how hard it is to find a safe place to park at the end of the day. The other big thing is that, instead of sitting in the bunk half dressed saying "Oh chit", you got out there and got the DUMMY stopped. That says huge amounts about your character and your commitment to Lonestar.
Getting out of the truck and getting the "DUMMY" stopped is something "Newbies" need to understand about. Sometimes it will save a ton of greif being willing to give up a small amount of modesty.

I'm glad to see you have some managers that have at least half a brain....each. So far, from the sounds of it...they all have a full brain...which is sort of amazing, given that this is the trucking industry.

[catalinaflyer]

Yeah orangetxguy, so far I can't say much about how they are to work for as far as freight and such but otherwise everyting else has been good.

As for me getting out and stopping the guy, I was raised that if a man hands you the keys to a peice of equipment you treat it as your own. Thats even more true when you work for a company that either has only a couple of trucks or in the case of LS has 300+ but a 10 week waiting list to even get a job. If you don't take care of that piece of equipment you find yourself setting and waiting while it gets repaired. At least LS pays for someone to sit if they weren't at fault for the truck being down.

On an up note, it looks like they found seats for the 3 of the 4 people waiting here at the hotel so I might get another truck sooner than Wednesday.

[catalinaflyer]

LS Update
Well I settled into the motel last night figuring I was here for the weekend. Spent the day doing laundry and just relaxing.

Well at 8:30 this morning my phone rings and its the terminal manager asking me if I was ready to go. Seems as though there's a driver in route to California that for whatever reason is cleaning out his truck when he gets to Ft Worth. I told him I was ready so he said he would get all the details worked out and have dispatch get with me.

10:30 and I get a call from dispatch saying the truck was 8 hours out and that they would give me a call later today to give me all the particulars.

I decided to head on down to Ft. Worth about 4:30 and checked in with the dispatcher once I got here to the terminal. She said that the truck was in Waskom, TX so he wasn't 8 hours out this morning unless he took a 4 hour nap. Not to worry, I'll be here ready to move all my crap into the truck as soon as he's out of it. I did get my dispatch when I got here and found out that as soon as I deliver in LA they have a load in San Jose going to Columbus, OH that will take me through the house for Turkey Day.

So here I am in the drivers lounge at the Ft Worth terminal waiting on the driver to arrive.

[Jackrabbit379]

Just curious, what part of Kansas are you from, catalinaflyer?

[mnc41]

Catalinaflyer, I have been following your thread with great interest. My husband is going to be attending orientation on the 15th and we both hope this was the right decision for him. Right now he's not making any money where he's at and he's only been there for a year. We have our fingers crossed.
Good luck to you..

[catalinaflyer]

Jackrabbit - I live in Newton about 20 miles north of Wichita.

mnc41 - Tell you hubby to be patient once he finishes orientation, it may take a week or more for them to get him a truck. It took me 5 days the first time and after wrecking it it took another 3 days to get into one.

Anhow on with my update, haven't had time to stop and get on the computer since getting the truck.

Well I finally got the truck at 8:00 Sunday morning, the driver called me at 8:30 Saturday night and said he was 90 miles away so instead of going to the motel I just hung out at the yard. Well by midnight he still hadn't shown so dispatch tried contacting him and checked the sattelite position, he was in Tyler 120 miles away. He finally called dispatch back at 12:45 and said he was on his way. Well by 3:30 he still hadn't shown up so dispatch ckecked the position again and now he was in Sulphur Springs which is North - Northeast of Tyler, not anywhere near on route to Ft. Worth. The dispatcher wanted to call the terminal manager but I said there wasn't much he was going to be able to do at that time of the morning and if by 7:00 he still wasn't here then we would call. No sense in getting someone else out of bed since I had now been up 24 hours.

Well the driver finally pulled in at 6:30. I waited for him to get moved out and quickly threw my crap in the sleeper, drew a line and hit the road.

On a good note, I got one of the newer 389 Pete's, really nice truck but the fuel mileage sucks no matter how you drive it. That leaves me wondering if all this new cleaner technology is helping when you figure that the exhaust is cleaner but we now burn 33% more fuel on average just to go the same distance. Something to ponder there..

Anyhow, I beet feet to LA and got unloaded as soon as the receiver opened the gate at 7:30 Tuesday morning. I was already preplanned on a load out of San Jose going to Columbus, OH that was supposed to load at 10:00 Tuesday morning. That wasn't going to happen since I was 375 miles away and it was already 7:30. I had talked to the Terminal Manager from Memphis on Monday (it was his load) and he said it wouldn't be a problem. I called him Tuesday morning as soon as I was empty and he said the place where I was picking up quits at 3:00 but he would see what he could do. He called me back a few minutes later and gave me a guys cell number to call when I got to the airport at San Jose and he would come out and load me so I could get home.

Less than 10 minutes after arriving at the airport the guy from UPS met me there, we drove the 4 tugs onto the trailer and 30 minutes later I was sitting in rush hour traffic on 101.

Fast forward to this morning and I finally made it home to spend a couple of days (and have T-Day a day late since the former driver lied to me from the start about when he would be in Ft. Worth.)

Lonestar has been great, they knew the situation when I finally got in the truck, called ahead and made arrangements for me to deliver a day late, pick up 6 hours late and even pushed this delivery back a day to give me an extra 24 hours at home.

Not a bad start, when all is said and done I will have 4281 miles in 8 days and 48 hours at home to boot.

[mnc41]

4281 miles in 8 days? Wow, I am very impressed. My husband hasn't been able to break 1800 miles in months.His pay check this week was equally depressing: less than 375 bucks. Sometimes you get with a company that is ok on everything else except what really counts, the miles..

[Jackrabbit379]

Originally Posted by catalinaflyer

Jackrabbit - I live in Newton about 20 miles north of Wichita.

Oh ok. I went on harvest for 6 years. I've heard of Newton, but I don't think I ever went there. We used to go to Hutch, Partridge, Bird City (north of Goodland) and Ulysses, Lakin, etc..

[catalinaflyer]

Jackrabbit379 - If you were in Hutch then you were 30 miles west of Newton. I worked on a harvest crew out of Doland, SD 23 years ago and ran from Texas to Cut Bank, MT (where I met my first x-wife).

LS Update 12/04/08
I made it to Columbus, OH late in the day on Monday and the receiver was more than happy to unload me so I got empty a day early. It was 4:00 pm by the time I made my empty call and my DM said she didn't have anything ready for me so figuring it was late in the day I tossed a coin and headed out East of town to the truckstop to get paperwork off to payroll. As soon as I turned in the drive the sattelite went off and sure enough, they had me a load the opposit direction. No big deal, had all night to make the 90 mile treck to the shipper.

I got to the shipper at o-dark-30 Tuesday morning and checked in with them. They said it would be a couple hours which was fine, my appointment was for 10:00 am anyhow. I finally got loaded and tarped (it was a piece of CNC machine equipment) andhit the road about noon. This turned into one of those loads from hell, couldn't keep it on it's dunnage, fixed that with 4 lag bolts, couldn't keep the tarp tight,fixed that with 250 bungie straps. To make a long story short, thisload was godd for about 100 miles a shot then I would have to stop and adjust something.

Got that off this morning and headed over to our Ft. Worth terminal to change trailers, take care of paperwork, take a shower and catch up on e-mail. I load an oversize going to Indiana tomorrow morning that will keep me somewhat busy for the weekend.

[Jackrabbit379]

I'm sure I passed through there. That's cool.

Be careful, going to Indiana. Getting close to that time of year. You might start seeing that white stuff. Of course, I'm sure youre used to it, being from Kansas.