Back on the Road

Well, it's that time. In one week I will be going back over the road and I'm really looking forward to it. It has been a little more than three years since I have been OTR and as much as I enjoy driving locally and seeing the family as much as I do, OTR gives a driver so much more freedom in how the job gets done.

I'll write more about what I have been doing in the time since I last posted here in the coming weeks. I have a lot of good information for new drivers or those considering a driving career. Check back soon!

Deleted my post

I typed out a good long post about my last week on thr road and somehow deleted it before it posted. There is no "undelete" on the blackberry. Damnit! I'll work on it again tomorrow. Too late now.
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1 week out, 1 week to go!

Well, I've been out for a week now and it's been a good week.

I left the house on Wednesday morning and went and hooked to my trailer and waited for a load. My DSR (driver service rep.) told me there wasn't much freight in my area, but she would let me know as soon as she had something for me. It didn't take long. At 9 am, I got a load that picked up just 2 miles from where I was parked. The only issues were that it didn't ship until 3 pm. I tried to call the shipper to see if it would be ready sooner, but the phone number listed for them was disconnected. I asked my DSR for a working number, but the number I got was to someones voice mail. I also tried calling 411, but that had no listing for the shipper either. So much for trying to pickup early. I just took a nap and went to the shipper, which happened to be a mattress company at 2:30 pm.

There was a preloaded trailer for me in a pothole filled dirt lot. Yeah! The holes in that lot were HUGE! Even though I went really slow, it didn't matter, things went everywhere in my sleeper.

I got my loaded trailer and headed out of Denver towards Gary, IN. I got up I-76 and across I-80 to a rest area just past North Platt, NE and stopped for the night. I ran into some really heavy rain as I left CO.

Thursday morning I continued east making a stop at the Walmart in Lexington. That's a really truck friendly Walmart. Lots of truck parking.

When I got back in the truck I had a message telling me that I was relaying my load to another driver so he could get home. The relay point was Aurora, NE. I had about 100 miles to go to get there. I got to the Loves truckstop at about 10:15 am and ended up waiting till about 12:30 pm for the relay driver to get there.

We swapped trailers and I ended up getting a load right out of that town going to Lubbock, TX. It was a dog food factory and you could smell it from miles away. Not a bad smell, just a dog food smell.

I was directed to drop my trailer in a row of trailers right across from from where they were doing construction. There was absolutly no way I was going to be able to stick my trailer anywhere on that row. I found a yard driver and asked him what I was supposed to do and he was pretty good about it. He moved a trailer from a spot I could get into so I could use it. Sometimes it pays to just ask someone for help, instead of risking hitting something.

I got my load and headed south through KS and into OK. The rain was incredible. I found out later that there had been some tornados in the area. From what I saw, I believe it.

I delivered the load to a grocery distribution center in Lubbock, TX on Friday afternoon with no issues. It was over 100 degrees there. Ouch!

More to come.

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Background for the past year....

It's been about a year since I have posted anything here, that's because there really wansn't much to tell about working for Papa John's, at least until now.

Now that I'm not working for Papa John's anymore, and don't have to worry about lossing my job to tell what's going on there, I feel it's my obligation to tell the complete story. This will hopefully be some good info for anyone trying to decide whether to stay an OTR driver or take a local driving job.

I had been with Roehl for about 6 months when I started looking for a local driving job in Denver. I found that Papa John's was hiring "Delivery Specialists" and called them for more info. Now this is not a PJ store, it's the distribution center that makes the dough and delivers the dough and everything else that a PJ store needs to operate to all the stores in CO, NM, (alburqurque area), WY, UT, (northern area), ID, (southern area).

When I called PJ Food Service, that was what the distribution center called itself, I was told to come in and fill out an application. At the time, I was still driving OTR and was in TX. I told them I would be in to fill out an application the next time I was in town. They said that wasn't a problem because it was the beginning of June and they weren't looking to actually hire any drivers until the middle of July.

Why were they hiring drivers? That's a question that every driver looking for a job needs to ask.

I filled out the application in the second week of June 2007 and went back for an interview the last week in June. They hired me for a July 9th start.

The first week at PJ's was orientation. They said all the right things about safety and doiing things the right way. Reality was way different.

Here is a sample of what really happened.

0330 - Wake up and drive to work.

0430 - Get to work and count the truck and do a pre-trip on the truck.

0530 - My partner would start driving us to our first store.

0600 - Our first store. Unload and deliver.

0630 - My partner drives us to our next store.

0645 - Deliver store.

0715 - My partner drives us to the next store.

0730 - Deliver store.

0800 - My partner drives to Pueblo, CO. I get a 1 hour nap.

0915 - Deliver 2 stores in Pueblo.

1045 - My partner drives us to Raton, NM. This gives me another 1 hour nap.

1200 - I start driving in Raton, NM and drive us to Alburqurque. My partner gets a 4 hour nap.

1600 - We start delivering the 10 stores in Alburqurque. This takes about 9 hours.

0100 - My partner, who got a 4 hour nap, now starts driving back towards Denver. I now, having been away working for the past 21 hours, get to take a 4 hour nap.

0500 - I start driving around Raton and get us back to Denver in about 4 hours.

0900 - Back to the terminal and another team of drivers takes the truck to do a local route.

Does anyone see anything wrong with this?

Driving tired is one of the most dangerous things a driver can do. Pretty much the same as driving drunk.

I brought my concerns first to the guy who trained me and he said that this is just how it's done. He told me that the routes can't be done legaly and still get back at a decent time. He even told me that if he had to run legal, he would quit. He said the money just wasn't worth it to stay out any longer.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing! I hated trying to stay awake and drive with such little rest. It scared me silly. Many times I pulled the truck over and slept for a bit because I was just so tired. My partner really didn't like that. It caused us to get back later than he wanted to. Oh well.

I went to my manager with my concerns and he told me that what I said was happening,, wasn't. He didn't want to hear the truth.

I then called Louisville, (PJ's headquarters), and told them my concerns. Instead of resolving the problem in any way, they told the regional manager that I was raising questions about how things were working. Nice. He called me and told me that nothing unsafe was going on. Nice.

I tried one more time to talk to my manager about it and this time he yelled at me saying nothing I said was happening was happening. I gave up. I suggested that he follow an out of town route and see for himself. He said it wasn't his jhob to babysit drivers. Nice.

About a week after that I was given a solo route. I think this was to shut me up about everything I was trying to bring up about how the team routes were running.

I ran solo for about 6 months and then I was put back on a team routem That lasted about 2 months before I couldn't take it anymore and called Roehl about getting my old job back with them.

Roehl hired me back and after a week of orientation I'm happily back on the road with them.

At Roehl, SAFETY is a VALUE!

Having been at a company that was "eyes wide shut" about truly dangerous driving practices, it's great to be back at Roehl!

I plan to keep this blog updated with my daily travels, so be sure to check back often!

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Test Post

This is a test post from my Blackberry. If everything works the way it should, I should be able to update my blog almost daily.
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John has not disappeared!

Hey everyone, this is John's wife. He wanted everyone to know that he is alive and well and has just been too busy to blog--so he asked me to let people know what is going on.

We left Roehl because Papa John's offered such a great deal regarding hometime and pay. It's more of a hands on delivery job than just an over the road driving job, but regardless, he's home five nights a week and has better pay.

We have absolutely nothing bad to say about Roehl. They are a good company with decent pay and hometime. It was nice to find a trucking company with ethics (Take note, C.R. England!) But as everyone in the trucking business knows, you move on until you find something that's a perfect fit.

Because Papa John's is sort of a different beast when it comes to trucking, John probably won't be maintaining this blog anymore. He will leave it up for those who want to read about his experience at the beginning, but right now he's moving on. I mean, really, does any one care to hear about how many boxes of sausage and dough he's delivering? :-)

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement!

All the best,
Sarah (Big John's Wife)

5-8-07 - I have a story for you!

I'm really sorry for not writing more here. I have been busy and happy. It's kinda funny that when everything is going well, there doesn't seem to be much to tell. Anyway, I do have a pretty interesting tail to tell from last Thursday.

First, I just want to answer a quick question that was asked in the comment section. The question was do I slip-seat. NO! I have my own truck!

Ok, about last Thursday. I had delivered near Orlando, FL on Wednesday afternoon and stopped in St. Augustine for the night. I drove up to Savanna, GA to pick up on Thursday morning. My shipper was located in the Port Of Georgia. It was a drop-hook, so I thought it was going to be no problem. Well, the directions said that when I got the a certain intersection, I would see the Port Of Georgia and I was to go 200 yards and turn into Gate 5. I got to the intersection and went 200 yards and found myself in the middle of about 300 container trucks. Now I knew something was wrong. I also knew that there was no way for me to get turned around and get out of there. I saw a sign that said Gate 4. Now I definatly knew I was in the wrong place, but there were about 15 lanes with more than 25 trucks in each of them lined up to go through the gate. I just figured the only way to get out was to go in and have the people running the place show me how to get out. I was in Lane 1, on the far right. I got to a scale in the lane, about 150 yards from the checkpoint and I pushed the button on the speaker to try to talk to some one. It took about 5 minutes, but a guy finally came on the speaker and said I was driving a "van" and that this gate was only for containers. Well, I told him that I had figured that out already and just needed to know how to get out. He said I needed to turn around and go back out through Lane 15. I asked him how I was supposed to do that and he said he didn't know, but that was what I needed to do. OK, so at least I knew what I needed to do. Cut across 14 lanes of trucks and just go out Lane 15. This was going to be fun. I started edging my was to the left and after about 10 minutes and pissing off about 20 other drivers I made it to the exit gate. The Police Officer there asked me for my pass. I told him I didn't have one because I never actually got in the gate. He the asked me for my troubld report saying I didn't get in the gate. I told him I didn't get in the gate to get one of those. He then told me I need to go get a trouble report. I asked where I was supposed to get on of those and he said at the gate. I asked him if I was supposed to go get in line again just to get to the gate to get a trouble report to get out. He looked at me in a confused way and told me to just go! I got out of Gate 4 and found that Gate 5 was up the street on the right about 1/8 of a mile. I got in there with no problem and was directed to a dropyard about 1 mile away. Interesting that I passed the other side of Gate 4 on my way to the drop. They could have let me in there, but I guess it really made a difference what gate I went in.

I found the dropyard, if that's what you want to call it. It was a huge dust pit with hundreds of trailers just parked every which way. I pulled up to a shack and a guy wanted to look at my empty to be sure it was clean and told me to slide my tandems all the way back before dropping my trailer. That was not fun at all. I was in a hole and the wheels just spun even with the differential lock in. What a pain in the ass! The entire dropyard was a dusty, hole ridden mess. I finally got the tandems back and stuffed the trailer back in one of the only empty slots there was. Not that there was any order to the dropyard. I found the loaded trailer I was supposed to pick up and it was nicely wedged against another trailer so I couldn't get to the landing gear crank. That was inportant because the right landing gear was in a hole causing the trailer to lean so much that when I tried to back under it, my drive wheels got stuck! So now I'm stuck under the trailer and I can't get to the crank to get unstuck. I found a yard driver and explained that he needed to move the trailer that was up against mine so I could crank the gear down and get unstuck. He looked at me like I was crazy. I explained it again and he finally moved the other trailer anout 3 inches. Gee, Thanks! I crawled under the trailers and got mine cranked up enough to get lout, but in the process, smashed my thumb. Damn! It was hot, humid, smokey, (from the wild fires), and I was a dusty mess.

I finally got out of the port after 2 hours of messing around. Just goes to show that drop & hook can sometimes be a real pain in the butt!