Novacane, I don't know how else to tell you this but you need to get that dang stack fixed! :shock: Can't get you to a terminal they need to run you into an International dealer. Indiana is expecting snow (rumor has it) and you are going to have snow on the inside of that truck.

For your sake you need to get it fix now.

 

You only got 400 miles all week and they could not get that stack fixed?? :roll: If they keep giving you that "1 more load" BS then I think it's time to seriously start looking for a new company!

 

Novacane,
Don't get discouraged! You have been a trooper through all of this BS and there are only good things ahead of you. From reading your posts your a good driver, and work hard. So it is time for you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps here and change the chain of events that currently has you over a barrel. First things first... Get Roehl to fix the leak and the stack(and anything else that you think needs attention). Put your foot down. Your putting yourself in a bad place by not getting your truck fixed. Secondly from reading your posts I would have to agree that you are probably not getting the miles and professional respect that you deserve with Roehl. Once you hit your 1 year I would start looking for another company.

Don't let this learning experience get you down. Roehl sounds like a lot of other companies where is appears to be hit or miss if your going to get the miles. I would say that Roehl has pushed you around on this truck issue only because you cut them some slack. You can bet the first load that you cannot deliver on time due to "driver preventative" maintenance issue that you will get the blame. Don't put yourself at risk and your career. I can hear it in your posts that you really love this job. There are other companies that will not only pay you better, but will get you the miles you need to pay the bills... Cut yourself some slack, and go get what you deserve driver!

We all enjoy reading your posts so keep us updated on how things are going. You have fans! BOL

Longsnowsm

 

Be careful on planning your fuel like this tank capacity is not always the amount of fuel you can actually draw from the tanks, you dont want to run dry they can be hard to prime again. Also look on ebay for a laptop i bought a nice lease return laptop dell 1.2 ghz for like 300 runs fine for what a do on the truck plus it has a dvd player which makes you popular in a shop waiting area i found out

 

Hi Novacane...sorry to hear about all the crap that Roehl is putting you through. I hope to be in my own red truck by the 20th of the month once my partner finishes up Evol 2 and I get back from my cruise to the Caribbean that starts on Sunday. Just keep in mind that women always have to prove themselves in a man's world. Hang in there and prove to your fleet manager that you can do the job and take the crap given to you because you are a strong woman. Jumping to another company just means that you will have to go though all this crap again just to prove to the new company that you can do it. I am enjoying your posts too. Will let you know our truck number once we get assigned even though we will be on van division.

Soladad
Good judgement come from experience...Experience comes from bad judgement.

 

Novacane, a leaky exhaust is nothing to play around with. If the top of the stack fell off, there is a good chance that the rest of the exhaust pipe is rusty and perhaps leaking underneath the tractor. I have experienced a leaking exhaust first hand. You don't want to risk your life by not having this repaired. Exhaust leaks are usually easy to spot. There is usually black around the pipe where it is leaking. Failure to make this repair is something which can kill you. I don't want to scare you, but this is way past time to fix. :shock:

 

Novacane, like everyone else, I am mesmerized by your posts. As a 'somewhat' accomplished and published writer, I can vouch for all the comments about how natural and engaging your "style" is. I hope you write a book someday as I'm sure it will be a best seller.

But, your driving career is a mess! :!: No One should drive a truck without a stack (and what looks like a rusty exhaust system.) And get only 400 miles in a week? What are they doing???

You said you didn't want to drive up north, right? Southeast Regional is what you want? Maybe a little Texas thrown in? Have you checked into McElroy? I'm not sure if they can hire from your hometown. I don't even know what it IS.

But they are a GOOD flatbed company, Christian owned, who seem to care about their people and their equipment. You need to find a "medium sized" company that can give you the miles AND the appreciation of your efforts. Not to mention, PAY!

I got lucky. Right out of CDL mill, and after doing my homework, thanks to all the help from this forum, I chose a small/medium size company that is LOCATED within 1 hour from my home. BUT, they do west coast team runs. That's EXACTLY what I wanted.

I KNOW I'll get over 5000 miles every week, with 2 days home, and I'll take a few pennies less per mile... for consistency. I can't compare NET $'s with you, cuz I don't take company insurance (have the VA,) and get half my pay in perdiem. But, I've been "in this industry" and driving my butt off for about 3 1/2 months now, and the LEAST I took home - at training pay - was $591.

Now that I'm a REAL trucker, and worth the extra 2 cents / mile, I average $700 /wk. I give my 2 cents BACK on this forum. :P

What I'm saying is... Don't give up on your dream of trucking! Just take charge of it and shape it into what works for you. What you're doing isn't working for ANY of us! You haven't even mentioned Chris lately. You still can't take him with you, but they never let you go home, except under load, and then they screw you on that!

There are over 573,000 trucking companies out there. Roehl is just ONE of them. You want west Texas?? Get a job with an "oilpatch" company in Midland/Odessa or the Big Spring area. Probably short miles as well, but that's because it's all right around them. (that's 800 miles radius.) Probably minimal tarping due to good weather, but constant work, with liberal time off, and good pay! I hear these guys on the CB every time I go through. They are scheduling bridge games with the families! They all know each other, and quite often run in convoy.

Roehl has a Flatbed division, because they WANT to present an image to the industry as being able to handle ALL their needs. They don't specialize in freight, they hedge their bets against it. They only PLAY at flatbedding, to hedge those bets. They are confused. And too big to even notice, let alone give a Dang.

A hard worker like you should and CAN be rewarded with a smaller company, where you get to communicate with those who need something done, and get appreciated when you prove you can DO it.

Or here's another idea. I read on another thread, you could be a trainer with Werner after only 3 months! Heck, you've been doing this almost a year, right? The industry in general, and most companies, are SCREAMING for female trainers. Heck, I bet you could even train ME to tarp and drive a flatbed! :lol: And trainers get paid for all the miles on the truck (usually) and you could be making a REAL difference in the industry.

Check into McElroy. Find several medium size flatbed companies in the area you want to work and live. And check them all out. Then, go INTERVIEW with them. This, I think, was the most important step I made in finding my company. I was, sort of "referred to them" rather than recruited by them. I went there on appointment, and talked with their director of Safety and Personnel. I wanted to see if she and I would "hit it off." We did. When I asked her if I would have to be "approved" by a comittee, she said that SHE was the committee.

Point is, it's time to make trucking a personal lifestyle with REAL workplace relationships. As "being a number" goes... you're batting Zero!

We should never forget that we are MORE than JUST a skill. We are, or should be... trusted, useful and worthwhile employees.

You want to work and excel at it as much as anyone I've ever heard of. But, there's a disconnect at Roehl. Either tell someone in power about it and get it fixed, or find a company that fits your work ethic.

If I hear "factory job" out of you ONE MORE TIME... :roll: :shock: :lol:

Focus! 8)

 

Well, it's been an interesting few days. I just realized how long it has been since I last posted a report, so I thought I better get on the ball again, so here I am. Truth is I have been just as big an influence on my recent bad luck as the company has. I guess you can say I brought in on myself, I won't go into it in great detail, but you will get the drift.

First off, I have to admit that I have been telling some little white lies, and I said I never would, so just let me redeem myself right now.(as bad as it's gonna suck for me). The whole "stack" thing was true, but I didn't stay and try to get it fixed, and to be honest, I had to let it idle at night. This was only after talking with a lot of people, some in safety, others mechanics and so on. All agreed that while idling, the truck would be no different than if it had a full exhaust, mainly because the exhaust was pointing up. All said a leak under the cab is bad, but in my case it wasn't nothing to worry about.

I understand everyone's feelings about it, and I know that everyone would just ream me to get it fixed, so I lied and said that I would get it done, truth is, I didn't even try. I did finish my trip, and they kept telling me that they would get to it after the next trip, and so on.

That is one reason I didn't write, another is that while I admit I only got 1300 miles last week, it was my fault too, I guess they were offering the miles, I just couldn't take them. Long story short........ After being out 2 weeks, I was supposed to get extra time at home, but that weekend I got screwed out of it because dispatch "forgot". So I head back out due Monday morning, and the whole time I was telling them to make sure and get me home the next weekend, and that I still needed some extra time off.

There are circumstances at home that prevent me from being gone that long, well, I will just say it. Chris is disabled, he can't do shopping, or doctor's visits or pet care, so I have to be home on the weekends to get things done, and usually only can accomplish things on Saturday morning. He can take care of the house, but he has a problem with being in public, I won't go into it any further, but now maybe you can understand why it's a pretty big deal for me to get home.

I needed the extra time off, because I had a lot to catch up on from the weekend before. So Monday morning I get unloaded and am waiting on a load. qualcom beeps and I see that it is a tall lumber load, but I don't have my lumber tarps, cause I gave them away with a relay load(I was supposed to get lumbers back, but they said they were lumbers when they were really steels). Now dispatch knew about this problem, cause the next morning after getting the relay I reported it after getting unloaded and realizing the mistake, this was almost 2 weeks ago.

But dispatch insisted they weren't informed, I simply tell them to check the qualcom messages and they would see, I knew I was right. So they tell me to go on and pick it up anyway. I am thinking that they will find another driver in the area to come and give me some tarps, so I went on. Well, I get on top of the city and still no word on what to do. I don't want to accept the load, cause once it's on the trailer it's my responsibility, and since I can't let it get wet and I don't have the proper tarps, well you know. :roll:

Luckily I had a fuel stop and while fueling another Roehl flatbed pulls up. They didn't even get in touch with him, I had to work things out with him, and contact dispatch on what was going on! I get there, get loaded, and head to the consignee a whopping 300 miles away. I get there that night, and while turning around in a tiny little parking lot, I catch a air hose on the corner of the trailer and snap! :evil:

I get up the next morning and put in a compression fitting and head to the first place I come to that can fix it and get a new air hose, and this one is 10ft shorter and very nice, doesn't flop around any(if I had this hose, it wouldn't have got broke). So here I have bitched at them all week about getting me home, then I don't have the correct tarps, then I break a air line, I was beginning to feel small.

I didn't write about it here, cause I knew it was my fault to, and didn't want to hear it to be confirmed, I felt bad enough. So I drive Tuesday, small runs, and pick up a load Wednesday, and they tell me to head home. I think cool, home on Thursday 8) this will allow me to get some serious things done, wow, weekdays!!

But that was short lived, Thursday afternoon, they call me and tell me that the load I have was to be relayed and they needed me to run a load up to Evansville Indiana. Well I got one day off, headed back out, and got back Friday night due to sitting yet again waiting to get unloaded and pick up another load. Again, I didn't write about it, cause I know it's a "truckers life" so there was no need to moan and groan about it.

I actually did get about 1300 miles in the end last week, but it's not like that is good or something! So this week, I had another load due in Indiana, so I get there, get unloaded and they dispatch me to pick up a load of raw wool, I told them I wouldn't haul this stuff, I almost killed myself during training with this crap, and I will literally quit before I haul it again. Again, this is my fault, and I knew the board would say something similar to "quit being a sissy, it's your job!" "this is why you don't get the miles, you turn down loads" and so on, so I didn't want to be reminded of that either.

Well, this made them mad at me, and they told me to sit till Tuesday cause they didn't have another load for me. I ask if I can go ahead and deadhead to Gary to get the stack and leak fixed, they say no. I go to bed wake up to qualcom, "deadhead to Gary for repairs" man, I couldn't have done this last night when I asked??

So this is where I end my day, I got here at 9 am this morning, and they just finished it(I hope). So I just wanted to clear the air, apologize for the lies, and let everyone know that I am back and will start updating my days tomorrow.

On a side note, J.B. Hunt keeps calling(big surprise there huh?) and offering me better and better deals, and I check them out with other drives and such, and everything seems to be for real. Just offered me a sweet run out of Knoxville concentrating in 13 states, no new york, no west coast, all drop and hook. 6 cents on the mile raise and the bennies are about the same, I am really thinking about it, but I don't want to quit with Roehl. But when one company is offering what you want, and you know your current company never will, what do you do??

I was tempted to take it, but I declined. But sooner or later, they will offer me a dedicated run from here in Tn, to somewhere in Texas and I am afraid that will be the end of Roehls chapter of the novel called my life. I told him to give me a Texas dedicated run, 38cpm, home every weekend, and a good truck and I would probably hire on with them, he told me he would look and let me know what he can find, and you know, I bet he really will, and I am pretty sure that Roehl would never do that. So I don't know what the future holds, but until the right job comes along, I will rough it out with Roehl, unless they keep doing this to me, 2 more weeks like this, and I don't know, I have to make enough money to live on at the very least, and paychecks under $200 don't get the job done, you know?

(imagine if this had been the long version of my story instead of the short :shock: )

 

check you PM please.....

 

Novacane................sometimes the grass actually IS greener on the other side of the fence. It's not like the grass is very green on the side of the fence you're on right now :lol:
Don't feel guilty about switching companies. Roehl would drop you in a heartbeat if it benefited them.