My Pneumatic Tanker Job

After today I will have survived 2 weeks solo. I know it's only been 2 weeks but so far I really enjoy this job and can see myself doing it for a long time. My first week pay was $750 gross and should only go up from there.

I moved up into a volvo d13 earlier this week. Might be a coincidence but I have found that I am able to get more done quicker with it over the 10 speed freight I was in. Also, the space in there is a suite compared to the freight haha.

Today I agreed to do a job that nobody else wants to do. One of our customers does something with sand all day once a year. We bobtail out and unload trailers all day for 9 hours and come back. Getting paid over 17 an hour for the day which includes drive time but I don't leave the yard until 1:30 pm and won't get home until like 6 am Saturday. But it's helps out my dispatcher and can help down the road when I need something.

Amish

Sounds like your doing well....definitely, you scratch there backs, and they will remember that....I still read...well when you post lol..

Be Safe....

Saturday 5/12, finished my 3rd week. We had to do another night of unloading sand near Philly on Thursday. Left the yard at 2 am to get there for 4:30 and unloaded 2 1/3 trailers in 9 hours which apparently was pretty good since my dispatcher was shocked. It was boring but I made around $250 for the day to sit around. This was a last minute thing for this company so it pushed orders back on my dispatcher. I ran a load today to help catch up and nothing wrong with a little extra money.

My second week i grossed $815 for 5 days of work. I did a lot this week so my check should be more for the 3rd week on my own. It may not be as much as an otr guy but I'm home on the weekend and every night with my family and that's what really matters to me.

Getting quicker with everything and starting to have a couple repeat customers so know the process already. The automatic truck has helped on time tremendously as well. Some days are long but I'd say I average around 50 hours a week.

Occasionally you will have a pick up time but there are no delivery times past when the customer opens. So as long as you do you load for the day you can start whenever you want. Helps big time if you had a long day before and need the extra sleep or have something going on in the morning you can run the afternoon instead. I like to run earlier, leave the yard between 4 and 5 am.

The shop guys here have been great. Every time I ask about something they are on it. I had a drive tire the other day that had started to separate tread, still drivable. I showed them just to make sure I'd be all set for the next day and was told it was ok. Came in the next morning to a brand new drive tire anyway. I also like that they inspect the trucks and tanks every 3 months top to bottom. Might not be the newest equipment but it's maintained really well.

Still loving the job, doesn't really feel like work and I'm making hundreds more then I was before with less stress. Hard to believe I know. Hear from my dispatcher once a day and he has let me choose which load I want to do the next day already. Helping him this week and showing him I can get the job done has gone a long way. He thanked me multiple times when I stopped in yesterday to fuel up heading back to the yard.

I try to update once a week but now my days are starting to get repetitive and the little time I have between work and sleep is spent with family. First really vaca in over a year coming up in a couple weeks so pumped about that, much needed.

Wanted to pop in quick and let everyone know I'm still around. Got an email from quality the other day saying I hit 75 days. Almost 3 months in, its flown by! My dispatcher has been keeping me busy but it's getting to the point where I have a lot of extra time at the end of the day depending on the run. I've taken this opportunity to see if I can do anything else with my time instead of just going home (even though I usually want to). When I have the time I will help and preload trailers that are needed the next day or bobtail out to the other yards and bring our trailers back. Paid hourly so it isn't big money but that extra 20-30 bucks adds up in a week. I've put almost 30k miles in since going solo and a lot of days I'm running 400-500+ miles in a day. Like it's been said in the "local food service" thread, the days are long and I really only have 3 or so hours of family time before needing to get some sleep and even then its 4-5 hours a night since my alarm goes off around 2 am usually. But it's a job that i truly enjoy and allows me to at least see my family every day.

Pay has been pretty good (to me at least). The past month or so I have grossed just under $1,000 a week on average.

The past 2 weeks I have only been doing pebble limestone instead of feed which is ok by me. Like everywhere else we are a little short handed on drivers so i get to help out with what the Ono yard typically does. They tend to be longer runs which pay out better. Everything has gotten a lot easier and the majority is becoming muscle memory routine. Only thing that really slows me down is when I need to go to customers I haven't been to before and learning the procedures and where the hookups are.

Man this has been one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right.

Monday(7/23) I couldn't finish my second load because the shipper ran out of product. So went back the next morning to see if I could load and they had just started the kiln back up so I lost out on that load. I did get paid hourly for my time so it wasn't a complete loss and I still had another load both days.

Wednesday it rained and rained and rained some more. I had a run out to Broadway, nj that went like normal but couldn't do my second load once again. Every road surrounding the quarry was closed because of flooding.

Thursday morning a few of the roads had opened back up so I went up to deliver wednesdays second load. I forgot my safety vest at home after washing it and had to turn around which put me back an hour on my plan. I get to the customer and another truck was waiting to scale. Turns out he needed to unload right where I needed to as well so I had to wait for him to deliver before I could. I lost around 1.5 hours on my day which would've been avoided if I didn't have to go back to my house. So once again I didn't have time for my second. I did get it loaded still so I only have an hour to the customer in the morning.

So with all that hopefully the next 2 days go easier. Friday(tomorrow) I need to do the quick delivery an hour away and then load up in york for Kreamer, pa. On the way back through stop in ono and grab some parts and finish "early".

Saturday will be an early run of pebble from Strasburg, va to morrisville, pa out near philly.

Almost done and ready for my reset!

Man this has been one of those weeks where nothing seems to go right.

Monday(7/23) I couldn't finish my second load because the shipper ran out of product. So went back the next morning to see if I could load and they had just started the kiln back up so I lost out on that load. I did get paid hourly for my time so it wasn't a complete loss and I still had another load both days.

Wednesday it rained and rained and rained some more. I had a run out to Broadway, nj that went like normal but couldn't do my second load once again. Every road surrounding the quarry was closed because of flooding.

Thursday morning a few of the roads had opened back up so I went up to deliver wednesdays second load. I forgot my safety vest at home after washing it and had to turn around which put me back an hour on my plan. I get to the customer and another truck was waiting to scale. Turns out he needed to unload right where I needed to as well so I had to wait for him to deliver before I could. I lost around 1.5 hours on my day which would've been avoided if I didn't have to go back to my house. So once again I didn't have time for my second. I did get it loaded still so I only have an hour to the customer in the morning.

So with all that hopefully the next 2 days go easier. Friday(tomorrow) I need to do the quick delivery an hour away and then load up in york for Kreamer, pa. On the way back through stop in ono and grab some parts and finish "early".

Saturday will be an early run of pebble from Strasburg, va to morrisville, pa out near philly.

Almost done and ready for my reset!

I hear yah...didn’t know PA had a summer monsoon season did yah? LOL! Normally this time of year the grass is all dried up, not this year. A bailer is necessary to cut the lawn.

At least you’ll have nicer weather on Saturday. No rain in the forecast.

Not sure if you are familiar with that area, Morrisville is off RT 1, last exit before crossing the river into Jersey. Lots of construction on RT 1, watch your signage, so you end up in the correct lane. Just went through there yesterday...kinda messy.

Safe travels!

Yea I have been put there a few times. The first time almost got me all kinda mixed up. It's a fairly easy day with only 1 load to worry about(pays a lot better then the feed stuff too)

Recently had my first inspection, a level 2 with elog. Passed through it no problems. I was over weight on my rear tandem so he was out to talk to me already and I think they had inspections scheduled for that day because they hit the guy after me as well. But since I passed I pocketed an extra $50 in my check.

Some days I think my dispatcher has more confidence in me then I do but 95% of the time I somehow make it through even if it is with minutes left on my clock. I can't really complain though because it keeps the paychecks in a good spot and he tries to set me up to run how I like. I'm averaging between $1100-$1300 gross a week. Even on my slower weeks like the flood week I still make $850. Which from talking to other drivers and from what I've seen on here is above average for a rookie that has only been driving for 4 months. I take advantage of the work and fill my days with whatever I can. Leaving between 3-4 am still gets me home in the afternoon for when the family gets home so I dont miss much time there other than going to bed around 8 PM. We take full advantage of the weekends though and it seems like every other weekend we are road tripping to mass to see family and friends.

I found out that we do quarterly safety bonuses the other day. As long as you dont get a speeding ticket or fail an inspection, etc. You qualify. The person I was talking to said mine will be like $100 and since he has been with the company over 8 years his is more like $400. I didn't know that was a thing so I'm just happy about the little extra money. Also, after 2 years I believe that you get paid for your loading/unloading time at your hourly rate. That could equal out to an extra $200-400 a week! I know you do get a slight bump in pay percent and hourly rate after 5 years as well. Just some of the perks to staying with a company for longer then a year.

Amish Country

Sounds like things are going well. Way to go. Keep on keeping on!!

Chris