It's really hard to explain without sounding like I am picking everything apart. First of all, I get all kinds of flack for being a "woman doing a mans job" seems that most have accepted women drivers, but still can't grasp that we can run flatbed, you would be amazed how many times people bring others from the back of the place I am at to "see the woman flatbed driver" it happened today at my first stop.

I think the main thing is my cpm because most flatbed drivers have been doing it for years, they didn't start out in it, most started being van drivers, so they already had experience when they started with the flatbed, experience=more money, so they make over 40 cpm, and I have heard a million times that if they were me they "wouldn't move the truck for under 43cpm".

Well, that's fine and dandy, but you can only hear it so many times, literally EVERY driver tells me to move on, especially after my first year is up, that I am wasting my time. Now the "hurtful" part is that they are trying to be nice about it, not brag, or throw anything in my face. It just makes me feel so "small" sometimes. I know it doesn't make any sense, I guess it's one of those "you just have to be there" situations, I dunno. Makes me second guess my whole job, maybe I am not making full use of what's out there available to me.

 

Seriously, turn off or at least down the CB. Just because you have one in the cab you are under no obligation to listen to it or to respond to it. I ALWAYS kept mine on but turned way, way down and I would only turn it up if I saw another one of our trucks or I needed weather/traffic information. If it wasn't a requirement of a lot of the shippers I picked up at to have a CB for directions and information while on their property then I would have taken mine out.

Try turning it off for a whole day, you'll be surprise how little you really miss it or need it.

 

Having worked for many trucking companies I can tell you first hand money is not everything in this business. IMHO, and assumng you are making at least enough to live on, job satisfaction is at least as big a part if not bigger than money.

If you are happy where you are at then who gives a hoot what these so called no it alls think or say to you regardless of their intentions, and as far as the ones who can not handle you being a woman doing flatbed work.....boo-hoo. It is not your fault the have such fragile egos that they feel threatened by you doing a good job.

Be happy, do the job right and forget the naysayers.

After 5 years I would rather make 30 cpm and be happy than $1 a mile and be miserable.

 

I arrived at the consignee first thing this morning, and noticed that my little coolant leak was getting worse, nothing major still, but it shows that it will at some point be an issue. So I finished up in Birmingham, and started my short trip to Murfreesboro Tn, an area that I am pretty familiar with, so I knew a couple of good places to stop and check on my leak. I stopped at a truckstop to see if they had any stop leak, I couldn't believe they didn't, but they did have some pepper, and as I am sure many of you know, pepper can stop a decent little leak, so I poured in some, and sure enough, when I checked it about half an hour later, the leak not only slowed down, but stopped, and every where that was wet from the leak had dried, so it seems like it will prolong my trip enough to perhaps make it back to a terminal, and hopefully won't let me down in the middle of rush hour traffic, we will see.

I got to Murfreesboro and although they took a while, I got managed to get unloaded before I was scheduled to, so that was cool. I sent in my qualcom message that I was gonna go ahead and make the hour and a half trip to the third stop today since I had plenty of time. But they sent a message telling me that the load was reset for 4 pm tomorrow!

Well, since I was ontop of it anyway, and still had half a day left I tried to contact dispatch to let them know that something is wrong, why would they make me wait, then I get a pre-plan to load in the morning, uh.....before I finish dropping my current load?? :?

So I wait a few to see whats going on, and a beep lets me know that I have a message, cool, maybe they got it fixed. Nope, urgent message to call dispatch, so I pick up the phone, call and proceed to get reamed over the phone about being over 68 mph for too long.(if you go over 68 the qualcom tells on you). They told me that if it remained a problem I would be terminated, and since it sounded almost like a threat I almost lost my cool, but I did go over the speed limit and knew it so since it was my bad, I just let it go.

I just figured it was "looked over" since all the trainers I was with didn't pay attention to it, and have never heard anything about it until now. Before anyone says anything about going over, let me tell you that 100% of the time it was on the interstate, and 99.9% of the time it was coming down a gradual grade and I was simply using the extra 3 mph to help make it up the coming hill.(just so you know if you go over 72, you get fired instantly) I have never done it with other vehicles around for fear that I might get reported by another driver, so every time it was safe, I am not dumb enough to mess up that bad. I guess that I will have to stop doing it that way, and just grab more gears going up hills, and run that much slower.

So by the time I get to the 3rd consignee, dispatch has told me that I am due to unload at 4 a.m. tomorrow, now keep in mind I made it to the home depot by 5 pm, and could have made it faster if I hadn't been worried about the coolant leak. So I get to the place, and there are only 5 pallets on the truck, and the guys are like is that all? I say yes so they just unload me and are done in 15 minutes after I arrived, cool. 8)

But I can't get loaded until the morning, so I didn't make it to the pickup today liked I hoped, but at least I got everything delivered, and much earlier than I was scheduled to. If the "seasoned" drivers read this thread, let me know, cause I would like to post my hours for the day to see if I can make any improvements, but I really don't think I can, I will post this week to see what you all think, I just assumed that the other drivers didn't read my posts, only newbies, since that is what they were written for, to help out new people, anyway, I am off to bed, take it easy everyone!

 

Had to get a couple hours sleep before I posted again, but today was pretty uneventful, with the exception of a broken exhaust piece(see other thread) that has caused me a few little problems.

Started the day in Clarksville Tn, expecting to take the load I was assigned last night, but woke up to the beep of the qualcom letting me know that load was canceled for me, and that I had a new load of steel(would rather carry steel, it's easier to tarp) to be picked up in Jackson Tn.

Get to Jackson, wait to get loaded about 2 and a half hours, finally get loaded and tarped which was harder than I thought since it was building materials of all different lengths and heights, so it was a little tricky. I am supposed to take this load to Effingham Missouri, so I was on my way.

I was smooth sailing for a couple hours when the truck got really loud, and to make a long story short, found that the "stack" of my exhaust and rusted in two, and was laying on my headache rack(glad it didn't fall off and hit a car, probably would have been a preventable incident). If you want more information on the subject, look at the other thread I wrote.

I stopped for a minute to check it out and make sure nothing could catch on fire, and went on down the road after contacting the company. I knew my fuel stop wasn't far away, so I decided to wait till I got there to make any more decisions on it(hard to concentrate and look good while on the shoulder of the interstate). Took a better look at it at the fuel stop, found out it should be ok to drive, and was told if I have any problems, to stop and they would fix it.

Now I haven't been pulled over in about a week into a chicken coop, but today when something goes wrong, what do you know, I hit 2 in a row :shock: But thankfully I made it through with no problems, so I was lucky.(a fellow driver got pulled into inspection and he was right with me!).

Anyway, I finish the trip, and decide to not let the truck idle tonight to be safe, and I will try to get it fixed in the morning, since I have found out it could be dangerous, we will see, I will keep everyone informed. I would also like to add that Roehl said they would fix it for me if I didn't feel safe driving it, so it was my decision to drive, they didn't MAKE me, so potential drivers, don't need to get worried that they might be mistreated. I also said that I would start posting my hos to see if the people can see what I am doing wrong, and maybe help get some extra time, or hopefully a few miles extra.


6:45-7:00 Pretrip inspection
7:00-9:30 Driving
9:30-1:00 Waiting to get loaded and tarped
1:00-3:45 Driving
3:45-4:00 Fuel stop in Matthews Missouri
4:00-7:15 Driving
7:15-8:15 On duty waiting for other driver, and swapping trailers and equipment

8.75 Driving
4.75 On duty not driving

 

Here are my thoughts:

until 8:15 - sleeper - line 2
8:15 - 9:15 off duty - line 1
9:15 - 9:30 pti - line 4
9:30 - 12:00 driving - line 3
12:00 - 1:00 load and tarp - line 4
1:00 - 3:45 driving - line 3
3:45 - 4:00 fueling - line 1
4:00 - 4:30 break off duty line 1
4:30 - 7:45 driving - line 3
7:45 - 8:15 trailer swap and pti - line 4 (who can say you didn't arrive second?)

Now down to 2 hours on line 4. Still at 8.75 line 3. You've got to show some off duty time. No one wakes up and start their pretrip the same minute.

Shields up...

 

Oh, and you're not doing anything wrong per se, but the hours can be maximized a little more.

 

And nobody has to be ''sleeping'' to show time in the sleeper. I have never shown ''off duty'' time after the sleeper when my day starts. The first line on my log is from sleeper to on duty not driving to show PTI then directly to driving. And if she started driving at 7am, why change it to starting at 9am? To me, it's way more effort than it's worth to ''back track'' on your log instead of just logging what you're actually doing. Also, if Roehl knows how fast she's going they will also know if her logs don't match where she's at versus what she's logging.

Logging more than anything falls under the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

 

So how did the rest of your week go Novacane? I've missed your daily updates Get that stack fixed?

 

Sorry for not posting, but the past few days have not been so good, and I just didn't feel like posting. Long story short, and off the top of my head. I DID NOT get my stack fixed, every time I would finish up a load, they would say "just one more load then we can swing you through a terminal". But I did get them to put in writing, and I have it on my voicemail that the company will pay for any ticket I may get due to the stack.

I DID finally break the 2k mark, matter of fact, last weeks check was for 2685 miles, and I brought home 562(net) so I was happy, but from last Wednesday to now has been rough, too much to go into, lets just say I got 400 miles in this week, my "long" weekend I was supposed to get last week didn't happen, got to spend one night home. Was promised that I would have a long weekend this week, and actually got home Thursday morning, cool, but then yesterday about 4pm they call me and need me to scratch the load I am on(which was supposed to get me by a terminal for the stack) and take another load up to Indiana. So this long weekend was spending one day(only the day) home, leaving, hopefully getting back by sat morning, then having to leave Sunday night.

For the first time since last march, I have thought about my old factory job. I am right on the verge of giving up, at least with Roehl. I love to drive, but this is getting old. Anyway, I don't want to get into it, I will try to get back into posting, but it may be after I get over this little bad luck spell I am having. Won't be long till the days are good again, I will try to get back with everyone.

Here is a pic from Thursday at home.
http://www.4vu.net/view/personal-94f1561e12.jpg