OMG!!! First 2 Trips Out Solo. Feel Like An Idiot.

Ok. So i tested out and passed everything in Sumner Washington on Friday. My codriver finished before me and flew back to florida to goto dentist. So here i am. Give me a truck and dispatch me to florida. Wellllll. Did not get all done in time but did get the truck so i had somewhere to sleep through the weekend. Monday arives and they finish me up then i wait all day for preplan. Finally comes and i am off.

1. Missed target dc cause it wasnt a target dc. Wind up on no truck road looking at a questionable bridge. Turned into car parking lot to turn around. Very tight and drove on some side walks.

2. Now loaded and heading out of sumner toward Snoqualmie pass. (By the way did i mention they gave me a piece of **** truck) first down grade, 6% no engine brakes. 70k gross. Grab one more gear down watching the tach go up and up. Braking while trying not to over heat them. I think i peed a little. Then right at the bottom they started working. WTF. Been working fine since.

3. Qualcom goes all lame while heading to my t-call. So gotta go from memory here now. Lol. 2 lane country road, no stripes and gravel shoulders. Blind side into this businesses single driveway to turn around? Nope, not enough room. And gravel was hiding mud. Lock diffs and redneck it out. Keep going. Turn in this neiborhood and back out into street? Nope, too tight. Going in anyways. Stop walk a block in and survey. Ok got this. Go in turn left, then straight back through intersection then turn left again, tadah. Then qualcom comes to life. "OUT OF ROUTE" well thanks Sherlock. By the way, i could have made a safe uturn at begining of this road but its against copmany policy, next time i am doing a uturn.

4. This t-call is not at a terminal but at drop yard. Never done that, so on the phone with mentor. He says "dont send any macros, just drop and hook then call terminal and they will do it all and dispatch you" ok, simple enough. No slot for empty so i gotta drop and hook and drop and hook. Get all done, pretrip trailer and call. Sure enough that worked. Get 20 miles down road and realize i am going 250 miles with an empty. They changed my loads so much i started questioning where i was going. So i call and she says "yup, your good and dont forget your appointments at 9:30am" (16 hours away, 250 miles) (now 20 miles into trip) gotta stop somewhere and sleep. So i think to myself, "well its a empty, at least i dont have to lock it............OH ****!!!! MY LOCK IS ON THE OTHER TRAILER" turn around........fixed.

5. Stop for first fuel. card dont work. Took 45 minutes to fix that.

Ok, so now i am done for the night and if i can manage not to set the truck on fire or anything, maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

Ok. So i tested out and passed everything in Sumner Washington on Friday. My codriver finished before me and flew back to florida to goto dentist. So here i am. Give me a truck and dispatch me to florida. Wellllll. Did not get all done in time but did get the truck so i had somewhere to sleep through the weekend. Monday arives and they finish me up then i wait all day for preplan. Finally comes and i am off.

1. Missed target dc cause it wasnt a target dc. Wind up on no truck road looking at a questionable bridge. Turned into car parking lot to turn around. Very tight and drove on some side walks.

2. Now loaded and heading out of sumner toward Snoqualmie pass. (By the way did i mention they gave me a piece of **** truck) first down grade, 6% no engine brakes. 70k gross. Grab one more gear down watching the tach go up and up. Braking while trying not to over heat them. I think i peed a little. Then right at the bottom they started working. WTF. Been working fine since.

3. Qualcom goes all lame while heading to my t-call. So gotta go from memory here now. Lol. 2 lane country road, no stripes and gravel shoulders. Blind side into this businesses single driveway to turn around? Nope, not enough room. And gravel was hiding mud. Lock diffs and redneck it out. Keep going. Turn in this neiborhood and back out into street? Nope, too tight. Going in anyways. Stop walk a block in and survey. Ok got this. Go in turn left, then straight back through intersection then turn left again, tadah. Then qualcom comes to life. "OUT OF ROUTE" well thanks Sherlock. By the way, i could have made a safe uturn at begining of this road but its against copmany policy, next time i am doing a uturn.

4. This t-call is not at a terminal but at drop yard. Never done that, so on the phone with mentor. He says "dont send any macros, just drop and hook then call terminal and they will do it all and dispatch you" ok, simple enough. No slot for empty so i gotta drop and hook and drop and hook. Get all done, pretrip trailer and call. Sure enough that worked. Get 20 miles down road and realize i am going 250 miles with an empty. They changed my loads so much i started questioning where i was going. So i call and she says "yup, your good and dont forget your appointments at 9:30am" (16 hours away, 250 miles) (now 20 miles into trip) gotta stop somewhere and sleep. So i think to myself, "well its a empty, at least i dont have to lock it............OH ****!!!! MY LOCK IS ON THE OTHER TRAILER" turn around........fixed.

5. Stop for first fuel. card dont work. Took 45 minutes to fix that.

Ok, so now i am done for the night and if i can manage not to set the truck on fire or anything, maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

... bottom line is "YOU DID IT!!" Welcome to the world of truckin' ... I would say you had at least a weeks worth of f***-ups your first day, but you powered through it . . . love the turn around scenario . . . I have made so many u-turns I should be dizzy (ain't saying I'm not) . . . one thing to watch out for on those is the wings on the tractor can be damaged by the trailer if you cut it too sharp AND the trailer will actually BACK UP as you make a real tight one so watch out you don't hit something . . . other than that, I'd say you "dun Good!" just like ya should of . . . it doesn't get "easier" really, you just get better at it as you come across situations where you think, "Been there, done that . . ." and you apply what you've learned . . . won't be too terrible long you'll be a grizzled vet handing out advice . . . also, I would recommend you look for opportunities to help out your fellow newbies like at terminals where you see someone could use a bit of a spotter on that blindside, or someone looks lost and you know where they need to go to find the "truck entrance" (which is often a mystic place cause the jerks don't post signs you can see) . . . you know, pay it forward because it makes you FEEL like a million bucks to do so and will come back to pay dividends in the long run . . . you sound like a problem solver and your attitude is just where you want it to be . . . no problems too big, just a bit complicated until you find the solution . . . at the same time, stay humble and don't get over confident . . . I guess you had your share of "puckers" with those brakes, eh? GOD JOB!

Jopa

Ricky, Jopa really said it perfectly. That's truckin...especially when you're new. In a few more weeks you would have done several things differently just from that experience alone. The learning curve is steep and you'll figure out a lot in a very short amount of time. But the golden rule is always the same - don't hit anything! And you didn't. Anytime you go to bed and the truck hasn't been scratched you had a good day. Might not have been a great day, but in trucking we'll take good if we can make it happen.

Keep it up and thanks for sharing that! People really need to understand that when it's their turn to run solo it's going to go the same way for them. You make a lot of mistakes and there's a lot you don't know. It's really tough for a while. You just have to soldier through it and keep a great attitude, and enjoy the fact you're driving a big rig for a living! I mean, how cool is that???

Buddy I have been on my for 5 weeks now and I still go through alot of the stuff you did. It gets better though keep your head up and welcome to trucking.

With in my first 2 weeks I got dispatched to Lawenceville GA... then to Greensville Ga.. well the qualcom said Ga..... The dispatched miles (62) didnt add up right so I called the dispatcher and questioned this... he told me that they dispatch from city limit zip code to city limits zip code . That it will add up in the end .. So I drive 100+ mile headed toward Greensville Ga..

I took it straight though Atlanta Ga..... opps.... **** FYI drivers can not drive a truck through Atlanta Ga *****

Well after my Fleet manager call me and asked me where I was going.... By this time Im in Oaksville...... She tells me I was suppose to head to Greensville Sc....OPPS

You think after 20 minutes of me telling the dispatcher that these miles didnt sound right he would have looked into a little closer.

So my FM dispatched me back up to get where I needed to be... Drove right back through the way I came.... Right back through Atlanta ... *** NOTE : Dont drive through Atlanta !

then reloaded for a stop and then still gave me wrong directions to that stop..

I didnt know the Atlanta rule until after I made it to Laredo.. and was chatting with a few guys that had been driving longer then me.. Not to brag here.. but I feel that luck was one my side both ways I didnt get stopped..

Upside to every story...... I got to practice downshifting

There are going to be dayd, even weeks that will test you hard lol. It gets easier just keep it up and calm down when you start getting mad at truckets, shippers, receivers, office personnel, 4 wheelers, haha this list could go on forever.

This reminds me of my first day out.. I had sooooo many mess ups. I couldnt count...

WELCOME TO TRUCKING!!!!!!

You did it though! Good job. I've had to use a few "creative" turns my self...

Thank you all for your support. Got up this morn picked up a load of potatoes in idaho falls and made to Cheyenne. I am going all the way to florida. Today has gone flawless. I took hwy 28 through the mountains in Wyoming. 100 + miles of snow packed roads. Lol. But some of the most beautiful country i have ever seen. As i am coming into Wyoming i hit a weigh station park on scale and get the yellow light to park and bring in all my paper work. I am like ahhh here we go again. Bottom line there were 4 woman in there running the show. They were as nice as could be. Giving me candy and all. I passed a full inspection and got complemented on my logs and my paper work being all nice neat and in order.

Thank you all for your support. Got up this morn picked up a load of potatoes in idaho falls and made to Cheyenne. I am going all the way to florida. Today has gone flawless. I took hwy 28 through the mountains in Wyoming. 100 + miles of snow packed roads. Lol. But some of the most beautiful country i have ever seen. As i am coming into Wyoming i hit a weigh station park on scale and get the yellow light to park and bring in all my paper work. I am like ahhh here we go again. Bottom line there were 4 woman in there running the show. They were as nice as could be. Giving me candy and all. I passed a full inspection and got complemented on my logs and my paper work being all nice neat and in order.

I've always found the Wyoming DOT to be pretty cool. I got pulled in on the 80 stretch and forgot my permit book. Thought I was in for it, the lady behind the desk said to bring it in if I get pulled in again. Really nice. Didn't get the full inspection, just wanted my bills and make sure I had my ducks In line.

Stay safe sir, enjoy the trip to Florida.

This is my third week solo, and I've already done things others talk about but that I thought would never happen to me, like turning left instead of right out of a parking lot which took me 20 miles out of route (no turnarounds for miles sometimes!), or pi**ing off a security guard at a shipper because I was too eager to get loaded and didn't listen to instructions, or the horror of seeing a chain hook swinging free on the side below the trailer deck on a load of suicide coils as I'm driving.

I have learned a lot from all these things (and others), but I think the main lesson has been to remain humble and count my blessings. Those are always the hardest lessons for me.

I ran 3200 miles my first full week and it about wore me out. I loved the check though. I only ran 1300 miles last week because one shipper turned me away on my initial appointment time so I had to come back the next day (last Friday) which cost me a weekend load since I couldn't get empty in time for a Friday pick up. This week will probably be even worse for pay because the load I got Monday doesn't deliver for a week and is only 800 miles, instead of the sweet 2200 mile run my FM initially told me I'd get. On the other hand, I got home Monday night and don't have to leave until Sunday morning, so I got almost an entire week with my family. It's worth the lower pay, I reckon. Probably won't get another opportunity like this for months.

Anyway, going solo has been tougher than I had imagined, but at least I was warned. There have been some real jerks on the CB and at truck stops, shippers, and receivers, but there have been some really great people as well. One guy volunteered to help me back into the last real parking place when I was exhausted and out of hours one night in San Antonio (it was kind of a tight spot, too). Another guy helped show me how to properly secure a kind of load I'd never done before. I haven't found any great guys on the CB yet, but it has been useful a few times.

I'm glad this site exists. It would be even harder without knowing what to expect beforehand. I have definitely felt like a rookie almost every day, and have made dumb mistakes, but I have to believe that it will get easier and that my skills will continue to improve.