Semi-Retired ;-) CDL B To CDL A, Lord Willing!

Some of those extra supplies you're getting may be supplied by your company. I've always gotten spare seals, filters, wiper blades, fluids (washer, oil, antifreeze, anti gel, Windex) at the terminal shops at no cost. I've been with at least two companies that issued an air line connection hose for airing up the tires. Spend as little as possible on their truck. Save receipts to get reimbursed for maintenance supplies.

Use the money instead for creature comforts inside the truck like cooking appliances, a CB with a high-dollar coax and antenna, freezers, coolers, a high quality mattress and bedding. I view my truck as an apartment on wheels, outfitted with anything that makes my OTR life comfortable and practical. My truck is so well stocked that I could be stranded for two weeks and want for nothing.

You're about those supplies. I do recall during the initial tour of the shop them mentioning the fluids and that if we needed something on the road, to turn in the receipts, like you said.

I'll need to work, well, when I get a truck assigned to me (haha), on stocking it up with non perishables for just in case.

Received a call from my FM asking me to come in to the yard to get a truck assigned. Ok, be there tomorrow by 8:30 am. Arrive with my wife, bc the plan was to be dropped off and she'd take the van back home, get my work tablet up to date with a few apps, and get ready to inspect the truck. Hmm? Paraphrasing here,... "Where's the truck? According to GPS it should be right here beside the building we're in, but that wouldn't be right bc that's the employee parking lot. Oh, there it is. This is the Volvo dealership building, not the one we're in. Wonder why it's there?" After a few phone calls, it's determined that it wasn't done at the dealership yet, so my wife and I have a seat and wait; and wait... By now it's after 10 am and I ask if it will be okay to leave the yard and he says, "Sure take your time; I'll call you when it's ready."

We go to Bob Evans for brunch, then drive around the area just to waste time, then go to Hobby Lobby and Big Lots to shop and waste more time.

Around 2 pm get a call, "Can you drive to the dealership and pick up the truck and bring it back to the yard?" "Sure, no problem." Get to the dealership and located the service dept, go inside, and get the key.

The truck is a little rough looking, very dirty; definitely needs some lovin'. I whip out the phone camera and started taking time/date stamped pics of the damaged items as I walked around the truck. (Thanks to PackRat for the tip!) Opened the door and kabaam! Whoa! The smoke smell 'bout knocked me out. Took pics of the uncleanliness of the interior, as well.

Got the truck back to the yard, parked it in the bobtail lot, and went to talk to my FM. He says, "How's the truck?" "Filthy"! I showed him the pics and explained how awful it was inside.

It was determined to let the cleaning dept. see what they could do and he'll call me when it's ready.

I get the call 2 days later and he asks that I come in to inspect the truck and that when I get there to give him a call and he'll come and inspect it, too.

Arrive at the yard and call him up to let him know. As I'm still on the phone with him, I open the truck door and kabaam! Only this time it is has a clean dirty kind of smoke smell, haha. He comes down to inspect and he is of the same opinion.

I explained there is no way I can "live" in this without being sick. Imagine what it will be like with the heat on!

We chit-chatted for a short while and he mentioned, "Well, let me see what my options are. I'll call you Monday."

Bit of a rollercoaster ride of emotions; excited, bummed, and hopeful. Praying they'll just put me into another truck.

Received a call from my FM asking me to come in to the yard to get a truck assigned. Ok, be there tomorrow by 8:30 am. Arrive with my wife, bc the plan was to be dropped off and she'd take the van back home, get my work tablet up to date with a few apps, and get ready to inspect the truck. Hmm? Paraphrasing here,... "Where's the truck? According to GPS it should be right here beside the building we're in, but that wouldn't be right bc that's the employee parking lot. Oh, there it is. This is the Volvo dealership building, not the one we're in. Wonder why it's there?" After a few phone calls, it's determined that it wasn't done at the dealership yet, so my wife and I have a seat and wait; and wait... By now it's after 10 am and I ask if it will be okay to leave the yard and he says, "Sure take your time; I'll call you when it's ready."

We go to Bob Evans for brunch, then drive around the area just to waste time, then go to Hobby Lobby and Big Lots to shop and waste more time.

Around 2 pm get a call, "Can you drive to the dealership and pick up the truck and bring it back to the yard?" "Sure, no problem." Get to the dealership and located the service dept, go inside, and get the key.

The truck is a little rough looking, very dirty; definitely needs some lovin'. I whip out the phone camera and started taking time/date stamped pics of the damaged items as I walked around the truck. (Thanks to PackRat for the tip!) Opened the door and kabaam! Whoa! The smoke smell 'bout knocked me out. Took pics of the uncleanliness of the interior, as well.

Got the truck back to the yard, parked it in the bobtail lot, and went to talk to my FM. He says, "How's the truck?" "Filthy"! I showed him the pics and explained how awful it was inside.

It was determined to let the cleaning dept. see what they could do and he'll call me when it's ready.

I get the call 2 days later and he asks that I come in to inspect the truck and that when I get there to give him a call and he'll come and inspect it, too.

Arrive at the yard and call him up to let him know. As I'm still on the phone with him, I open the truck door and kabaam! Only this time it is has a clean dirty kind of smoke smell, haha. He comes down to inspect and he is of the same opinion.

I explained there is no way I can "live" in this without being sick. Imagine what it will be like with the heat on!

We chit-chatted for a short while and he mentioned, "Well, let me see what my options are. I'll call you Monday."

Bit of a rollercoaster ride of emotions; excited, bummed, and hopeful. Praying they'll just put me into another truck.

It's possible to get that smoke smell out. It's a bit expensive to pay for the proper treatment needed to do it, but it is possible. It's likely that you will simply be assigned a different truck and the company will probably save that truck for a heavy smoker.

Received a call from my FM asking me to come in to the yard to get a truck assigned. Ok, be there tomorrow by 8:30 am. Arrive with my wife, bc the plan was to be dropped off and she'd take the van back home, get my work tablet up to date with a few apps, and get ready to inspect the truck. Hmm? Paraphrasing here,... "Where's the truck? According to GPS it should be right here beside the building we're in, but that wouldn't be right bc that's the employee parking lot. Oh, there it is. This is the Volvo dealership building, not the one we're in. Wonder why it's there?" After a few phone calls, it's determined that it wasn't done at the dealership yet, so my wife and I have a seat and wait; and wait... By now it's after 10 am and I ask if it will be okay to leave the yard and he says, "Sure take your time; I'll call you when it's ready."

We go to Bob Evans for brunch, then drive around the area just to waste time, then go to Hobby Lobby and Big Lots to shop and waste more time.

Around 2 pm get a call, "Can you drive to the dealership and pick up the truck and bring it back to the yard?" "Sure, no problem." Get to the dealership and located the service dept, go inside, and get the key.

The truck is a little rough looking, very dirty; definitely needs some lovin'. I whip out the phone camera and started taking time/date stamped pics of the damaged items as I walked around the truck. (Thanks to PackRat for the tip!) Opened the door and kabaam! Whoa! The smoke smell 'bout knocked me out. Took pics of the uncleanliness of the interior, as well.

Got the truck back to the yard, parked it in the bobtail lot, and went to talk to my FM. He says, "How's the truck?" "Filthy"! I showed him the pics and explained how awful it was inside.

It was determined to let the cleaning dept. see what they could do and he'll call me when it's ready.

I get the call 2 days later and he asks that I come in to inspect the truck and that when I get there to give him a call and he'll come and inspect it, too.

Arrive at the yard and call him up to let him know. As I'm still on the phone with him, I open the truck door and kabaam! Only this time it is has a clean dirty kind of smoke smell, haha. He comes down to inspect and he is of the same opinion.

I explained there is no way I can "live" in this without being sick. Imagine what it will be like with the heat on!

We chit-chatted for a short while and he mentioned, "Well, let me see what my options are. I'll call you Monday."

Bit of a rollercoaster ride of emotions; excited, bummed, and hopeful. Praying they'll just put me into another truck.

It's possible to get that smoke smell out. It's a bit expensive to pay for the proper treatment needed to do it, but it is possible. It's likely that you will simply be assigned a different truck and the company will probably save that truck for a heavy smoker.

Talked with my FM again today and he was hinting towards just waiting for another truck (which I totally agree to). But they're going to try and clean this one some more. Well see how it goes.

They tried cleaning that truck some more, but I think it was just the use of some odor bombs, and it didn't work.

So I ended up with a different truck, and though I found evidence of it having been pretty dirty, they did a good job at cleaning it up.

At the yard to get signed off on this truck at 9:30am. I inspected the truck and found a few things broken/not working. Talked with our service writer and got the truck scheduled to be in a short while, however, that short while took a few hours. Then another few hours waiting for it to be done once it was in the shop. Meanwhile, my wife and I had to time to go out for lunch and dinner! Coming up on 12 hours at the yard and decided I've had enough. They appeared they had a ways to go yet, so I let the mechanic know we were leaving for the night and would be back in the morning. (They were not working on my truck this entire time. Today was especially busy for them and were several drivers waiting for their truck to be done, as well.)

Fortunately, my CB and speaker came to the house during our time at the yard so when we got back to the yard the next morning, I asked the service dept. if they had time to install. Sure enough, no problem. In fact, hardy waited at all.

My load was dropped off at the yard the night before. (Actually about an hour before I decided to leave the night before. Had my truck been finished, I would have hooked and gone home, then make the del. from home the next morning.) Got hooked and headed out for the del.

We have available to us a gps program on our work tablet. I set up a route and head out of the yard. This program has a problem once in a while, even though it's supposed to be trucker friendly; and wouldn't you know it, the second turn on my maiden solo run, it wants me to turn onto a road that has a "No Trucks" sign. Seriously?! The program advises me to turn here. Dang it all.

Arrive at my destination with one hick up. I misunderstood an intersection and ended up, in a since, going around a block. I needed to turn left and goofed. I hope that's the last time I do that... yeah, right.

Arrived, pulled in and parked. Found the office with no one there. Waited for a bit, looked around hoping I flag somebody down, or just get someone's attention, but it was a no go. Went back to the truck and looked up the company phone number. Called the primary number and goes to VM. Called the secondary number and the fella doesn't have a clue about expecting any shipment. He sends to the docks at the far end of the building, saying, we get all our deliveries there. During this brief conversation, I mentioned that my company notes say it should be the first set of docks. He explains that he doesn't know and reaffirms that all deliveries to the far end of the building. Well, ok, so I go to the far end and park.

Now where's the office!? Another driver had backed into a dock and was exiting his cab. I asked him where the office was and he pointed. Haha, don't tell me some companies don't have a sense of humor. I go in and there's nobody here, either. Fortunately, that driver I spoke with came in with me so I asked what was the procedure here? Oh, ok, easy enough. You back into any available dock, turn off your truck, and bring the paperwork and your truck key in and set it on a table. But I needed bolt cutters to get this seal off. So I wait around for someone to appear. Finally, an employee shows up after about 10 minutes and I explain that I need bolt cutters. He hands me the tool and I head out.

Get all situated, backed in, paperwork and key to the office, and the same fellow was in there. He asks me what my load is and I tell him. He then explained that I'm at the wrong dock. Hahaha, oh geeze. He said, just take whatever dock is available at the other end of the building and dock it. Ok. Easy peezy.

All docked, wheel chocked, paperwork and key in hand, go to the office, still nobody there. Again look to get someone's attention. There's some people I can see, but it seems as though they're deliberately ignoring me. I decide to try calling that primary number again, this time leave a message. Waited for like another 10 minutes and someone shows up. I don't know if the phone call did it or that he happened a long and seen me.

Unloaded and off towards home. Exiting first day, none-the-less, and a learning experience, too.

Until later...

Time flies when you're having fun, as they say. I've been busy driving and over-coming challenging situations all week, and it has been exciting and rewarding. Throw a couple frustrations in there for good measure, too. But overall, really happy to be a part of trucking and knowing that I am an intrical part of commerce, literally, for all of us, just doing a very small part, nevertheless, important part, with every truck load.

Keep the shiny side up and keep truckin'!

Until later...

Great news FR8M4N!! This fellow Michigander is rooting for ya!! Keep the updates coming please and stay safe out there man!

Great news FR8M4N!! This fellow Michigander is rooting for ya!! Keep the updates coming please and stay safe out there man!

Thanks! And good luck to you! Practice, practice, practice!

I did a reverse lane change maneuver the other day without realizing I did it until parked; that was cool.

This week's lesson is to check for a seal.

Not all my loads have required a seal and the advice I remember from the trainer was, if given a seal, check the seal number against the BOL. Well, that works for when they hand you the seal or tell you there is one in the back. So, if they don't give you a seal, I figure, a seal must not be needed.

I made it to the delivery point, which is like just several blocks away from the yard, go to get checked in, and she says she'll need to go out and verify the seal number. Whoa! I said, "There isn't a seal. They didn't give me one." She says, "I can't accept the load, then." Uh oh! The day went from going great, being 2 hours early, great wx., and great traffic, to "Like, wow! what just happened!?"

I called my FM and explained. A sigh of relief came over me when the first thing he said was, "We've had so many problems with that company." He says he'll make a couple of calls, to hang tight.

After a little over 30 minutes, he calls back and asks me to check the trailer; look for a seal at the back or between skids. Sure enough, there it was. He then says his boss will be out to see me. Uh, ok, this could be bad, having to see his boss right now, dealing with a load that might get rejected. He shows up within minutes and there are two other guys with him. I meet him and the two others and they ask me some questions about where I've been and how many stops I made. I tell them there was just a truck stop I stayed at overnight and that was it. The other two discussed the matter briefly and said they would approve the load. Wow, that was a relief. Then they followed up with, "Just remember; if you pick up from our company again, to make sure the seal is on." "Yes sir!"

I think a combination of things, like, I was right next to the yard, arrived 2 hours early, those two others was from the company I just picked up from, and the seal was in the back, that contributed to a good outcome. Really don't want to know what the ramifications are for having a load rejected because of a missing seal.

Now I look for a seal on the floor when closing the doors!

Until later...

That had to be a scary feeling, glad it worked out for you! My company gave me seals so if a shipper doesn't give me one, I throw one of those on.