Bad day at work?

When you have an 'I Hate My Job' day, try this:

On your way home from work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the thermometer section and purchase a rectal thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson

Be very sure you get this brand.

Change into very comfortable clothing and sit in your favorite chair. Open the package and remove the thermometer. Now, carefully place it on a table or a surface so that it will not become chipped or broken.

Now the fun part begins.

Take out the literature from the box and read it carefully. You will notice that in small print there is a statement:
'Every Rectal Thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson is personally tested and then sanitized. '

Now, close your eyes and repeat out loud five times,'I am so glad I do not work in the thermometer quality control department at Johnson & Johnson.'

HAVE A NICE DAY AND REMEMBER, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE WITH A JOB THAT IS MORE OF A PAIN IN THE ASS THAN YOURS!

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Flat Bed Training Day 2

Today started with a review of what we learned yesterday and than being crammed with the rest of the manual we need to know. Than, while the information was still fresh in our heads, we took a written test.

The biggest thing that happened today is everyone was given driver codes and assigned a mentor. My mentor had actually called me while I was in class before I had even been told so I thought that was pretty cool. That being said, I have no idea when I am going to meet up with him. What I do know is that it will be next week sometime. He was being loaded in PA at the time, than has to stop in Baltimore and continue on to SC where he unloads. So, I am figuring Monday or Tuesday....More to come on that.

The good news about that is that I have some home time that I didn't plan on. When I left last Sunday, Angie and I had prepared for me to be gone 6-7 weeks. However, as soon as we were dismissed today, I got gas and headed south. :) On the way back I had the distinct pleasure of meeting an Illinois State Trooper. I had the cruise set at 75 in a 65 (headed south on I-57) and he came flying past me and didn't even have his lights on. Well as soon as he passed me he started slowing down and than acted like he was going to use one of those turn-arounds and head back North. Instead, he just pulled over until I passed. The radar detector didn't go off once, but I had slowed down to 70 anyway. So, here I am in the granny lane (right lane) and he is staying behind me in the hammer lane (left lane).. See, already speaking the trucker lingo. :) Anywho, I digress.... So, this goes on for about a mile or two. I am thinking what the hell is he doing back there. Well, I am approaching a semi and decide to slow down a bit because I didn't want to cut the trooper off. Would you believe that the trooper slowed down too? At this point I am like, whatever, and turn the ol blinky blink thing on and proceed around the semi. I get in front of the semi and than the trooper gets in behind me and continues to follow me for another couple of miles. Guess what happened??? Yup, he hit the lights. So, I pull over and he comes up to the passenger side window and says he needs to see my license and insurance. I hand it over to him and he asks if I am a veteran (I have a Bronze Star license plate). I said yes sir, I am. Than he tells me that he pulled me over because of my window tint, but is just going to give me a warning and he will be back in a couple of minutes.

When he comes back he has me sign the ticket and I asked him if I could ask what was wrong with my tint. He said that my front two windows aren't allowed to be tinted. Than he asked what I got my Bronze Star for and if I was in Iraq. So I told him and than he said, damn that is cool. Thank you for your service. I said well thank you for your service sir and I hope you have a great weekend. He said you too and have a safe trip... My analysis of the whole thing is that he and his partner were bored, saw my license plate, than needed a reason to talk to me. I have passed or been passed by various entities of law enforcement and not one has ever stopped me for my tint.

I am going to keep this short as I have this beautiful woman that was excited as hell to see me walk through the door and is anxiously awaiting me to join her on the couch. Gotta keep momma happy or no ones happy, ya know. :)

Flat Bed Training Day 1

Did you know that the average person makes 10,000 decisions a day? A flat bed driver makes 10,000 an hour.... That is how our day started today. Mind boggling but as the day progressed it became clearer.

We started with a tour of the yard and being shown the different flat beds we have in our inventory as well as the different securement devices. We were than shown different loads n shown how to properly secure them. Not real in-depth though, as he was just making sure we were speaking the same terminology.

We were given yet another manual that we have a test over tomorrow. The first part of the manual has to do with the FMCSR and the areas that pertain to cargo securement.

The biggest part of the day was spent on load ratings of equipment and weight limits. Basically he would tell us our load is 43 feet long with a weight of 30,000 lbs; how many straps does it take to properly secure your cargo. Now, there are a couple of pieces of info I haven't given you as this covers two separate sections in the FMCSR. The first basically says states that any securement system used must be at least one-half times the weight of the cargo you are securing. 15,000 lbs in my example. The second states that if your cargo is over 10 feet long you need a minimum of two tie downs and 1 additional tie down for every 10 feet, or fraction thereof, beyond the first 10 feet of length. Confused yet?? It's actually fairly simple. The last piece of info you need is that we carry straps that are rated for 5,000 lbs.

So, the load is 43 feet and weighs 30,000 lbs.
Part one: Half of 30,000 lbs is 15,000 lbs. That means 3 of our straps.
Part two: 43 feet.. 4 straps for the 40 feet, than we need an additional one in the first 10 feet, and another for the remaining 3 feet. So that is a total of 6 straps.
The Answer: We need a minimum of 6 straps for the load.. You always take the highest number.

The reason this took up the biggest chunk of time is some people just weren't getting it. Now the other thing we have to worry about is weight limits. Let's say we have to stop at a scale and are overweight. That is a dollar a pound fine for every pound we are over. So we always have to know what our empty weight is. That way we don't take a load that puts us over our gross limit.

Now that I have made you think way more than you wanted to reading this, I will close for today.

One last thing is....we still haven't been coded so have no idea when we will leave with our mentors. We were told they hope to have us coded tomorrow morning.

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Final day of Swift Orientation

Today was pretty much filled with paperwork. The only thing we are waiting on is the drug tests to come back so we can be coded. Once we receive our driver code we will be official employees.

We met our driver managers that will "control" us during our time with our mentor. We found out that we could be out with a mentor for longer than six weeks as we have to have 42 days in the truck. So, if the mentor takes days off, those aren't counted. Now, if the mentor does take time off, it all depends on how far away we live from them that decides whether or not we get home time or will be in a hotel. They are going to make every effort to pair us with a mentor that lives near us so that when he does have home time, he can drop me off at the house.

After the 42 days on the truck we head back to the terminal for 3 days of testing. We have to take another written test over our Driver Manual, a road test, a written test over securement of loads, and than a complete day of securing different loads. All of those are pass or fail. If we fail, we are sent home. Pretty much let go as we are still within the 90 day probation period. Oh, we also have another log book class during those days as well. Once all of that is completed, will we be assigned our own truck.

We also met the Terminal Manager as well. He's an ex-military guy that started driving truck just like us for another company. He's been with Swift for 7 years and is already a Terminal Manager. He pretty much went over everything we have learned the past two days and reinforced the importance. Typical managerial briefs really. LOL

The biggest thing that hit me today is that statistics show that out of the 25 people in orientation... Only 6 will make it in 4 months. Denise (our instructor) told us that the first thing to pull us off the truck will be our significant others. She has beat it in our heads these three days of the importance of making sure our "honeys" are on board n kept informed. This isn't just a job, it's a lifestyle change.

That being said we have already lost one guy. Plus once we were given a flat bed brief today, 5 others changed their mind n went to the van division. I'll go more into what it takes to be a flat bedder tomorrow as we have our first day of flat bed training. What we know so far is that it is dirty work, we are in the elements, and we will use all of the math we never thought we would use when we were in high school. See, we have to figure out how many chains/straps we need to properly secure the load. Not to mention where our tandems have to be in order to make sure our axle weights are correct so we stay legal, etc.

Bottom line is the next two days are going to be pretty intense. We get yet another manual tomorrow and have written test on Friday.

So, more to follow...

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Day two of Swift Orientation

My mind is mush after the day we had so my apologies if this sounds haphazard.

The morning started with us being handed our pocket versions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. This little green book is 720 glorious pages of everything we have to know. For those that are curious to check it out, there is an online version as well. I can't remember the website right now, but just do a search for FMCSR.

We also were given Swift Driver Manuals that have a bunch of Swift policies and procedures ranging from payroll and benefits to the ride-along program. The main chunk of the manual is paperwork that has to be filled out daily when we are with our mentor. For those in the military, it basically looks like OJT records. Once filled out, they will be placed in our driver file that our driver manager (DM) holds. One of the issues I am going to run into being a flat bed driver is that I have to have 28 back-ups. It's not a big deal for van drivers as they back up to the dock everyday, but us flat bedders are loaded by cranes. So the instructor told us we needed to take charge of our training and make sure we get the needed back-ups logged. Even if that means hooking up a van in the yard when we are waiting on a load n backing it up.

The rest of the morning was spent on SAFETY, SAFETY, n more SAFETY. If you haven't figured it out yet, Swift is huge on safety. We are the largest carrier as well as the premier carrier n going for best overall. The theme is if it's not legal and safe, don't do it. We discussed all kinds of things from driver fatigue to road rage and were shown some pretty nasty videos to make sure the message stuck.

One of the hardest hitting scenarios was the instructor had us close our eyes n imagine we were in the truck. We than had to visualize the most important person to us in the vehicle ahead of us, the second most important in the vehicle to the right, the third most important in the vehicle to the left, and the fifth most important in the vehicle behind us. Once we had that mental picture, she had us open our eyes and asked, "NOW, how are you going to drive?". With that example came another little saying.. Drive for 5..

Today pretty much changed my train of thought on driving.. We are 80,000 pounds rollin down the highway at 60 mph and it takes a split second to take our life of someone elses. That's a scary ass thought when you think about it.

So the next time you hear someone tell you that driving a truck is easy, you will know they have no clue what they are talking about. We have to constantly scan our mirrors, watch our tandems, and look at least 15 seconds ahead. It takes a loaded semi approx 749 feet to stop traveling 60 miles an hour. Boggles my mind when I think about it.

Since all of us had a glazed look on our faces after that, after lunch was nothing but filling out paperwork. We filled out state tax forms as well as a new hire form, emergency data card, and a personal information form. Oh, and we were issued our fuel cards too. :). The drug tests will be back later today and sometime tomorrow we should get our driver codes. Once we get that, we are officially hired and our gas cards become active.

That is all for today. Now I am off to read a HAZMAT manual n take n open book test that we need to turn in for tomorrow. Even though I don't have a HAZMAT endorsement, Swift requires all of their drivers to be HAZMAT certified.
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Day one of Swift Orientation

The day started off with my roommate n I not getting up until 6.. The problem with that is the shuttle leaves at 6:15. It was a good thing we showered the night before as we made it to the shuttle just in time.

Once we got to the terminal, we had to take another drug test. Those that didn't go through the Swift Academy had to do the complete physical. Once all of that was completed we had to watch the good 'ol sexual harassment videos and some other company policy videos.

After lunch we covered the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Regulation. The instructor quickly showed us that we can lose a ton of money if we don't know this publication inside and out. A Department of Transportation officer can pull us over at anytime for an inspection. During that inspection, they can ask us questions and if we don't know the answer we get fined. It's not like getting a traffic ticket n going on your merry way either. The DOT will hold you until it's paid. So if you don't have the cash on you, they take a payroll deduction.

We covered a ton of information today and were given a ton of hard hitting examples that showed us if we don't keep our log books true and legal we are only hurting ourselves.

Now with all of that, you have the jack asses in the group that don't agree with something or that it isn't fair. No matter how much the instructor told them they don't have a choice they still argued. This not only frustrates the hell out of me, it takes time away from getting all the other information.

Thinking it over though, I hope they continue to fight the system n bitch, because as they are on the side of the road forking over a couple of grand I will be rollin by.. Lol

It was also interesting to find out that some states such as Ohio are losing Federal Funding for state roads, etc because they are to harsh on truck drivers. However, they don't care because they are making a killing off truckers that are running illegally n lying on their log books.

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Testing

This is just a test post from my BlackBerry to make sure Facebook pulls it from xkegxkillerx@blogspot.com


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Want Your Thoughts/Feedback/Comments

I'm thinking of giving this blogging thing another try. I was sitting her thinking, scary I know, and when I was in Iraq I emailed a weekly update to everyone. (Yes Angie, I remember that I forgot to add you to that). Anyway, since I will be starting with Swift next week and traveling all over the lower 48, I figured others would like to hear about my experiences.

Also, if this is your first time reading my blog, I am sure you have many questions. The one I get most is, "What the hell happened?" The other one is, "Why would you get out of the military with 16 years in and 4 to go until retirement?"

Well, bottom line is.... I fucked up. I had everything going for me and was on the fast track. However, like you can read below, I made some bad choices after returning from Iraq. So, the AF decided they no longer needed me and started the separation paperwork 5 days before my 16 year mark. I met a separation board which is similar to court as it was the government against me. I even had a lawyer. My commander asked for a bad conduct discharge, but thankfully the "jury" took my whole record into account and I received a General Discharge, Under Honorable Conditions. Which isn't bad at all, except for the fact that I was separated for Misconduct, so I can't join the Reserves. My Top Secret Clearance was also pulled.

When I left the Military, I was fortunate to have a part-time job at Lowe's and was moved to a full-time position. However, going from making 70 grand a year to $10.83 an hour just didn't cut it, so I started looking elsewhere. I quickly learned that I wished I had started back to college sooner as everything requires a bachelors with 3-5 years experience. I have also struggled with the adjustment to civilian life. I have found that civilians will bitch about anything and are only out for themselves. Team player isn't even in most of their vocabularies. That led me to the trucking industry. I called all the major carriers and the only one hiring new drivers right now was Swift. They payed for all my training, and I am guaranteed a job with them which I start next week. The only person I will have to answer to is my Driver Manager, and I don't even do that really. The only reason I will talk to him/her, is to find out where to pick up my next load. After that, it is all ME... From planning the trip, the stops, rest breaks, etc... It is ALL up to ME!!! Ahhhh I can't wait.

Anyway, I digress.... Please provide me your feedback on weather or not you want to read the ramblings from my mind.