Experienced Internal Combustion Propulsion Specialist Advice (Or Experienced Driver)

Had to think of a catchy name.....

I thought that the experienced drivers here could list one thing that new drivers need to have to succeed in this business. Lets try to keep this to 3 words that people can remember and then you can give an explanation. This is going to be REALLY hard for Old School.....

For me the one thing that I see people need to be successful is.....

PATIENCE

I see thread EVERY day where people are very impatient to get more miles, get started or something to that effect. This job is a whole lot of rush, rush, rush followed by NOTHING! If you don't have the patience to see these little bumps through, how are you going to do in Houston rush hour traffic or NYC anytime traffic?

You have to get out of the mindset that it is all about you. You are only a number. You can argue back and forth about this but it is not about you it is about the company making money. At the same time, YOU have the opportunity to make some money but it will take work on your part. If you are a ME, ME, ME type of personality, you ARE going to fail.

So step back, take a DEEP breath and roll with the flow. Remember the old Heinz 57 commercials? Anticipation is making me wait! Have some patience and the good will come. You can't get to the roof without first climbing the ladder and that starts at the bottom.

Maintain situational awareness.

Lets try to keep this to 3 words that people can remember and then you can give an explanation. This is going to be REALLY hard for Old School.....

Ouch!

Okay, one of the things that helps me succeed is that each day I have a:

Game Plan

Now I will be the first to admit that often times my plans go awry, but it is still good to formulate a plan and try to execute it. Those times when everything comes together can really be both helpful and satisfying. I will strategize in my mind as to how I want to go about my day and what I want to accomplish - I may do this the evening before or in the early morning before I get started. I've shared examples of this before with you guys, but here's an example from this week that worked out nicely.

I needed to get from my first stop of a four stop load in Riverdale, New Jersey on up to Farmington, Connecticut and then get myself back down to Cressona Pennsylvania to pick up the pre-planned load I had on me. I needed to get this all done on Friday and I would be going through New York City in the morning rush hour to get to one of my stops. These are all places I've been to before, so I was a little familiar with what to expect at each location. The first stop (Riverdale) would be critical to the days success - I needed to get in and out of there as quick as possible. Here's the strategy I developed, and it did work out excellently this time. I called all my customers and made appointments - Riverdale starts receiving at 8:30 a.m., but when I talked to the guy and he realized I was a flat-bed he told me to be there at seven and there would be someone there to unload me. It is tricky at this location for the flat-beds because they have four docks for dry-vans, but the flat-beds have to be unloaded out in the parking lot area that is blocked off by the dry vans backed into the dock - consequently you end up waiting until they unload the dry vans that are ahead of you - doesn't really seem to matter to anyone that you had an appointment. They don't allow you to sleep there in there lot, but I wanted to make sure I was there early, and I didn't want to start my clock until I was unloaded. So I pulled in there after hours on Thursday night and slept in the street out in front of their facility. It's not a dangerous place to sleep because it is a dead end road and they are located at the end of the road, which means little or no traffic will be in there through the night.

My plan was to get up at 5:30, roll my truck around to the back at 5:45 and block off all four loading docks with my truck and trailer parked perpendicular with the doors so that no early dry van drivers could block me out from my unloading area. I did that, and not five minutes after I was in place a tuck pulls up behind me and the driver steps up to my door asking me to move so he could back into a door and wait to get unloaded. "Sorry, Pal they told me to park here so they could unload me first and get me out of the way" - well, that wasn't exactly the truth, but it was enough to call his bluff and send him stomping back into the cab of his truck to wait behind me. Before the forklift operator showed up I had six angry truck drivers parked behind me! It all worked out and they got me on my way. What was critical about this is that I could not afford to start my electronic logs going that early and still get everything accomplished. I had to end my day down in Cressona, Pennsylvania by dropping my empty trailer and securing my pre-loaded trailer while off the electronic clock. It was a long day - started at 5:45 a.m., ended at 10:30 p.m., but I got done what I planned, and that is how you make the "big bucks" in this business.

I love it when a plan comes together, and your dispatcher will be amazed with you when they realize how much more work you get done than the other drivers on their board - they may not understand how you do it, but they know they can count on you in a pinch, and they will.

Sorry Pat, my explanation kind of got away with me!

Lets try to keep this to 3 words that people can remember and then you can give an explanation. This is going to be REALLY hard for Old School.....

Ouch!

Okay, one of the things that helps me succeed is that each day I have a:

Game Plan

Now I will be the first to admit that often times my plans go awry, but it is still good to formulate a plan and try to execute it. Those times when everything comes together can really be both helpful and satisfying. I will strategize in my mind as to how I want to go about my day and what I want to accomplish - I may do this the evening before or in the early morning before I get started. I've shared examples of this before with you guys, but here's an example from this week that worked out nicely.

I needed to get from my first stop of a four stop load in Riverdale, New Jersey on up to Farmington, Connecticut and then get myself back down to Cressona Pennsylvania to pick up the pre-planned load I had on me. I needed to get this all done on Friday and I would be going through New York City in the morning rush hour to get to one of my stops. These are all places I've been to before, so I was a little familiar with what to expect at each location. The first stop (Riverdale) would be critical to the days success - I needed to get in and out of there as quick as possible. Here's the strategy I developed, and it did work out excellently this time. I called all my customers and made appointments - Riverdale starts receiving at 8:30 a.m., but when I talked to the guy and he realized I was a flat-bed he told me to be there at seven and there would be someone there to unload me. It is tricky at this location for the flat-beds because they have four docks for dry-vans, but the flat-beds have to be unloaded out in the parking lot area that is blocked off by the dry vans backed into the dock - consequently you end up waiting until they unload the dry vans that are ahead of you - doesn't really seem to matter to anyone that you had an appointment. They don't allow you to sleep there in there lot, but I wanted to make sure I was there early, and I didn't want to start my clock until I was unloaded. So I pulled in there after hours on Thursday night and slept in the street out in front of their facility. It's not a dangerous place to sleep because it is a dead end road and they are located at the end of the road, which means little or no traffic will be in there through the night.

My plan was to get up at 5:30, roll my truck around to the back at 5:45 and block off all four loading docks with my truck and trailer parked perpendicular with the doors so that no early dry van drivers could block me out from my unloading area. I did that, and not five minutes after I was in place a tuck pulls up behind me and the driver steps up to my door asking me to move so he could back into a door and wait to get unloaded. "Sorry, Pal they told me to park here so they could unload me first and get me out of the way" - well, that wasn't exactly the truth, but it was enough to call his bluff and send him stomping back into the cab of his truck to wait behind me. Before the forklift operator showed up I had six angry truck drivers parked behind me! It all worked out and they got me on my way. What was critical about this is that I could not afford to start my electronic logs going that early and still get everything accomplished. I had to end my day down in Cressona, Pennsylvania by dropping my empty trailer and securing my pre-loaded trailer while off the electronic clock. It was a long day - started at 5:45 a.m., ended at 10:30 p.m., but I got done what I planned, and that is how you make the "big bucks" in this business.

I love it when a plan comes together, and your dispatcher will be amazed with you when they realize how much more work you get done than the other drivers on their board - they may not understand how you do it, but they know they can count on you in a pinch, and they will.

Sorry Pat, my explanation kind of got away with me!

LOL...

There is an old saying... Those that fail to plan, plan to fail. This is a good one.

Maintain situational awareness.

I can relate to this one. Not only for your personal safety but also for the safety of those around you. A few weeks ago when I was running the belly dump I had to turn around on a 2 lane road so I pulled into a driveway and backed out onto the road to turn around. Well as I was backing up the next truck that had passed me when I pulled into the driveway had turned around and came barreling past me again as I was backing up. If I had not seen him it would have gotten nasty. (more for him than me) He did get an ass chewing when I caught up to him. He had been doing stupid stuff all week and almost caused several accidents.

In another situation, I had taken my oldest son with me on a trip to New Mexico. We had unloaded in Utah and were at a truck stop. When I came out from buying some drinks for us he was standing between my truck and the one parked next to me. As I walked past I noticed that he did not notice me walking by so I thought what a great time to teach him a lesson. I walked all the way around my truck and came up behind him. Now keep in mind I was pulling a 53' stepdeck that was EMPTY. I got 3' from him before he noticed me and about jumped out of his skin.

Whether driving or stopped for the night, be aware of what is going on around you.

Mine would be:

Roll with it

Don't get all flustered and upset every time something happens that isn't what you expected. You have weather, traffic, breakdowns, schedule changes, software glitches, personnel changes, business cycles, and a million other variables that are often times out of your control. The only thing you can count on is change. So don't get your mind set on anything being a certain way. Get your mind set on dealing with the challenges that lie immediately in front of you and do all you can to keep a positive attitude and get through them. You can worry, argue, and complain all day long if you like and a ton of people do that. Or you can count your blessings, face the challenges head on, and try to enjoy every moment of your day. That's a choice we all make continuously in our lives. When you have the right attitude and perspective you'll tend to have a lot more fun and perform a lot better.

Routine.

Routine pretty much defines my trucking job, since I'm a linehaul driver. It is also something I thrive on, something that comforts me, something that I utilize and comes naturally for me. Routine is huge for doing pre-trip inspections, i.e. making sure you don't forget something important. Routine helps promote safety.

Some thoughts on what others have said.

Planning and letting it roll. Both are important. By nature, I'm a thinker and planner, so for me it's more of a challenge to practice "rolling with it." Patience is also key, as is situational awareness.

Since I'm only a couple months in, I still have a lot to learn. But I'd like to reiterate what Brett said. That, for me, is probably the most important point made so far, and patience is a part of it. For some folks, what Old School said comes naturally, and so they might have to work on what Brett said. That's me. For others that are more care-free and spontaneous, perhaps planning is more of a challenge. If there's one constant I've seen so far, it's the unexpected, it's change. Even for me, running linehaul, the unexpected will come up.

Because I don't necessarily welcome change and I enjoy routine, I chose to run linehaul instead of OTR. I thrive on routine and do not get bored with it. I go to the same places every day, or at least, the same places I've already been to at least once. There are only so many company terminals and driver meet points in the north east, and there's only a handful of places I haven't been to yet, so normally I don't even need directions from day to day. Protocol is the same no matter where I go, so I'm not always having to learn how one customer likes things done compared with another customer. I know where are the fuel stops are, and rarely have to fuel outside of my home terminal since I only will run up to 530 miles a day. I drive the same roads, over and over again. I come home every night.

Still, I have to deal with the unexpected. Weather and equipment malfunctions or breakdowns are my two biggest unknowns. Traffic and construction can cause a damper on the day's plans, especially when running close to being out of hours. Some of our linehaul runs only leave an hour to spare out of 11 hours of drive time - and that's without any hiccups. Sometimes I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it back to my home terminal because of a shortage of my drive time or on-duty time. The shortage not a result of poor planning or time management on my part, but rather the unexpected like traffic, weather, waiting on another driver at a meet point, etc. If i'm out of hours, I don't crawl in the back of a sleeper - I'm in a day cab. I have to find a hotel, or make a phone call to get picked up. That is stressful for me. If I knew I wasn't supposed to come home every day, or if I had a sleeper, it probably wouldn't be as stressful.

I've heard Brett mention learning to accept change and rolling with it on more than one occasion, and I've remembered it since the beginning of going solo and have tried to apply it on a regular basis. If I start my day without any expectations, and just focus on the present, then I am more relaxed and can welcome challenges better. This helps me enjoy my job more. Routine for me is important, and is a large part of my trucking job, but learning to roll with change is a huge counterpart to routine - both are necessary for balance and success.