Hi gang…

This tour started out with a nice surprise… two extra nights at home!

On Tuesday I attended Spring Training at 10am at the Charlotte OC.  It was mostly a review of safety practices and policies followed by a quick check ride with one of the instructors.

At 1pm I was to meet with another training instructor for a backing remedial, which is the result of the incident I had a little while back.  I walked in to the OC cafeteria about 3 minutes before 1 and sat down to wait to be paged (standard procedure).  A number of instructors went to the fuel desk and paged other drivers, and after waiting about 20 minutes there was a “last call” page for me to come back to the training room.

At this point I am going to censor myself.  I had wirtten several paragraphs describing the remedial, but let me just say that I still have a lot of respect for the training staff in Charlotte in spite of my experience.  With regard to the particular instructor who worked with me, I can only wonder how that buffoon became a member of an otherwise competent team.  But in Schneider’s defense at least I never saw him during my initial training.

After finishing with that I walked in to the office to report to my STL, and was informed that I had been randomly selected for a drug screening.  I was to proceed immediately to the clinic (a few blocks away) to provide the required product, and asked to call in with the related secret code number when finished.  Since I had just visited the men’s room before receiving this assignment I decided to stop by the Coke machine on the way out, hoping that I could adequately resupply in the 15 minutes it would take to drive to the clinic.

But alas a pitiful dribble is all I could muster at the critical moment, and it did not constitute a suficient quantity to satisfy the “milk maid” that administered the test.  Therefore I spent the next two hours sitting in the clinic waiting room making regular visits to the water fountain.

The fourth time the receptionist shouted ”Mr. Jordan, are you ready yet?” across the room I decided that indeed I was ready and finally ended this last ordeal of the day.  On a positive note, this extra little task exhausted all the remaining time I had for the day and therefore allowed me to head straight home.

There was a much nicer surprise awaiting me the next morning when I was offered a chance to step in for an ill driver on the load listed immediately below.  And of course it resulted in yet another night at home.

And by the way, there was yet another great surprist this week.  During a conversation with Adam he congratulated me on meeting all of my first quarter bonus criteria.  So in spite of being told earlier in the year that I wouldn’t receive my bonus it was in Friday’s paycheck.   Woohoo…

• Date(s): 4/18
• From/To: Charlotte, NC to Greenville, NC to Charlotte, NC
• Mileage: 446
• Cargo:  Auto Parts

Another driver was out sick today so I got to take his place on the Ford dedicated account.  His daily run is from Charlotte (relay PU) to Greenville (live unload / reload) and back to Charlotte (drop relay).  He drives almost 500 miles a day and is home every night.  Sweet gig; hope I can luck up on something like that soon.

• Date(s): 4/19 to 4/20
• From/To: Salisbury, NC to Bensalem, PA
• Mileage: 522
• Cargo:  Bulk Rubber Mulch

After 5 nights at home the spell was broken and I was headed back to the northeast.  This was a decent load with no particular surprises, although it was the first time I hauled a bulk product loaded and unloaded (both live) with a front end loader (more like a bobcat actually).  The operator at the delivery was even nice enough to sweep out the trailer after unloading.

• Date(s): 4/20 to 4/21
• From/To: Levittown, PA to Indianapolis, IN
• Mileage: 653
• Cargo:  Paper towel dispensers

This was a live load with a relay drop at the Indy OC.  Good mileage and a pleasant drive on Saturday.