Preparing for my new job

I have worked at the local YMCA for the last 2 years.  I was the executive assistant for 1.5 years, then my boss left to find greener pastures.  That left me with no real boss and no real filter for the assholes at the top of the organization.  I have seen my hours go from 35 per week to 10.  My job title has changed and now I'm  only the Afterschool bus driver.  I have known that a new job would be imminent since October.

I got my CDL in May of 2008.  At that time I had been unemployed for 8 months and thought truck driving was the answer to unemployment.  The first company I went with was Colonial Freight Systems out of Knoxville, TN.  The trainer I got sent out with I would consider a typical female trucker.  She was big, not too pretty, smoked like a chimney and redneck.  The first day we drove to Oklahoma City and she left me in the truck stop for about 24 hours while she went to visit her family.  I didn't really appreciate that but thought that she must have a trashy house and the truck probably was a better option so I didn't complain.  The next morning however, she started driving while I was still sleeping on the top bunk.  I thought that this was a big no no.  I complained, but she said that she didn't want me to lay on her bed on the bottom.  In my mind I thought "well I'm a lot cleaner than you." But instead of getting in an argument I just called the company and got out of the truck in Amarillo, TX.  Some nice guy who worked for the same company picked me up on his way back to Tennessee and that was the end for that company.

The next company I tried was PTL out of Murray, KY.  They have this great idea for training.  Just put 2 trainees together and they can teach each other.  You are out for 25,000 miles together.  I got put with a 48 year old lady (we'll call her lady luck because she liked casinos) and we actually got along great. Lady Luck had 8,000 miles already because she had ditched her previous training partner.  So she was "experienced".  PTL has their student trainees sitting and waiting a WHOLE lot many times for days.  We sat and waited in PA, MO, TX, AZ.  We did get miles every now and then.  I went east to west twice that I remember.  On our first trip to LA she took out a light post making a right hand turn.  A kind bystander called it in to the company and we got a message on the qualcomm to call and tell about our accident. Lady Luck called and said "I don't know what they're talking about, I didn't hit anything."  There was no damage to the trailer so she got away with this one.

The next day I made the mistake of trying to turn around in a residential neighborhood in San Francisco.  I thought, "oh no, I'm gonna have to call the police and get these cars out of the way and then get a ticket for being in a forbidden area."  She goes, "I can get out of here". She got in the drivers seat and it only took a minute to hear CRUNCH.  Lady Luck had crunched the front corner panel of a car parked on the street.  No one was around and amazingly she was able to make it out with just inches on both sides of the truck.

As a side note I heard through the grapevine that Lady Luck's luck had run out on getting away with hit and run accidents.   The next company she drove for she had a more serious hit and run accident and got fired for it.  

A couple weeks later we picked up a load in PA going to Memphis.  There were 2 pickups and she did them both.  She drove her 11 hours and then suddenly pulled over on the side of the road before the weigh station and said, "I'm out of hours, it's your turn to drive."  She neglected to tell me that she didn't weigh the load.  I go through and get a $619 ticket.  Of course I was livid.  The company said that because I was driving I was the one responsible.  After a few days of haggling they agreed with me and said that she should at least pay half the ticket.  After she found out she had to pay $300 of that ticket she was finished being nice to me.  Everything was a conflict.  Many times I heard, "I don't need you anymore, I've already got my miles, get out of my truck."

The final straw came when I missed my exit in LA.  It is not so easy to turn around with 6 lanes of traffic zipping around you.  I asked Lady Luck for help, she refused and called me a selfish bitch.  I had never been called a name with such conviction.  It took me 30 minutes to get back to the right exit and park.  We had a day to wait to deliver the load.  I called up my good friend in LA and said, "Please, Please, come and get me."  He picked me up and we had a great day at Disneyland. It was such a relief to see a good friend when you've been in a stressful situation alone. When I got back to the truck that night, she was even more angry that I didn't take her with me that day.  The verbal abuse got even worse.   It became unbearable by the time we made it to Houston.  I met a nice trucker in the shower line who was going straight through my hometown and I packed up my stuff, went with him and quit.

My experience trucking in 2008 was not a good one.  Part of me now wishes that I had just stuck it out with Lady Luck because I only had 3,000 miles to go before I finished my training and then could have been out on my own.  But you can't turn back time and I did have a great job with the YMCA for 2009 and half of 2010.  I got to use my education and write budgets for grants.  I wrote 150K in new program grants while I was there.  I really saw the positive impact on the community.  And now, I've been pushed aside by the new executive and seen as expendable.  I'm going to give trucking a brand new try.  I begin orientation on Tuesday in Atlanta and then will go out with a trainer.  I'm very determined to make it through training and get my own truck and I've decided to write a blog for my friends and family.  I hope you enjoy my first blog post of many.