Stone Transport - Saginaw,MI

I'm starting orientation with them on monday.They seem to be pretty good people with a lot of work,and treat you fair....but this is all coming from somebody who first learned about them a week ago.Does anybody know what kind of reputation they have? they pull double gravel trains with red trucks.

 

For those of you who were wondering about this company in case you see them run in the midwest,I'll be putting up a regular journal about how well things are going on a weekly basis for a few weeks or so until I get regular paychecks....today was orientation.

First impression - Clean,relaxed atmosphere where everybody seemed to be generally happy with their job.

Orientation consisted of two people - me and my roommate,the manager had told us that out of the 5 or so applications only two of us had made it through the road tests and drug screen.They made you sit down for about 4.5 hours or so to take an online safety course about csa 2010 truck inspections winter weather/night driving etc.Afer that was done they released us for a half hour lunch.

We came back and started on our paperwork,had a short and sweet chat meeting with the log auditor,then the HR representative came in .....and was pretty much just a laugh riot the whole way through,he was friendly in answering all questions we had about what to sign and fill out,once we were done with that it was going on about 4:30 our dispatcher was out on a vacation for the holidays we met the dispatch manager instead,asked us what times during the day we were planning on running and getting speech as to exactly what to expect during a normal workday routine,and one thing i really loved to hear was that they hardly ever set up specific delivery windows per say,it's more or less as long as that load gets there before the scale closes that day and you get set up for another one it's mostly ok with them.

We met our trainers for the whopping two or three days worth of training that we're going out there with them,who seemed very happy to meet us and just asked us a few general background questions and didn't seem to belittle us for being new to the game,we took a tour of the shop which had a garage of about 5 or 6 bays and only one truck pulled into it,and the mechanics seemed pretty happy themselves.

This was overall a very relaxed atmosphere,the drivers work monday through friday and my buddy already got offered local work driving 2pm to 2am almost right off the bat.I'm working regional due to me wanting to make even more money.They're paying us based on 19% of the load(increasing as years go by up to 27% after 13 years),we're pulling double gravel trains with 11 axles.Affordable health insurance after 90 days(the most expensive option for single was about $42 a week) blue cross blue shield plan,a 401k with a company match,1 week vacation and if you DON'T take it they pay you $500 for it and it only increases up to $750 max after 10 years...and you can take about 2 weeks vacation after 5 years and 3 weeks vacation after 10 years.$100 for passing an inspection,$10 an hour for breakdown.

referral bonuses -

$1,000 for a sleeper driver(mon through fri)
$500 for a day cab
$200 for an in plant switcher(yard dog)

all in all this company gave a GREAT first impression,while that was just my orientation something tells me i'm going to like my new job,not JUST for the pay,but for the satisfaction of completing something new to me in the trucking industry as well and advancing my skills.If you have any more questions that I didn't cover feel free to post them here.

 

Day 1 - The trainer turns out was a supertrucker not a very easy man to please and a bit of a spaz....from what I'm to understand not very uncommon on this side of the industry,I got to finally feel what 165k lbs actually feels like.....I almost crapped myself.Mentally,I'm stressed like hell....his last words for me before I left were "if you're going to quit could you at least call me first so I don't have to stop by the terminal?" I replied..."Why the hell would I QUIT!?!?!"

His response - "Because the last 3 I tried training quit on me...one of them a month later,the other two days after I got him off the truck and the 3rd one quit before I even finished with him!"

I politely told him I had no intentions of doing so and that if I were going to leave this truck he would basically have to throw me out of the drivers seat while going down the road...which I think probably surprised him...I politely thanked him for his time and volunteering knowledge to me shook his hand(which seemed to have surprised him even more) and said ...I'll see you tomorrow 8:45.

onward to the next day....

 

Day 2 - It was a little rough,he was just as hard on me as the day before.Only at the end of the day he had the balls to actually call me retarded in front of the lead dispatcher.That's alright with me though as I now have off from thanksgiving and don't have to report back in until monday,and I won't be on his truck that next week due to him having something else to do (one of the bigger jobs - something about a boat? no idea....) oh well,i made it through wednesday and I'm going to enjoy my 4 days off.We'll see how monday goes with this other guy.

 

Sorry for the lack of updates..due to a combination of my internet being on the fritz and a heavy work schedule(friday being the longest) I haven't really been able to get to it.
So,time to make an update for the week starting with monday -

Monday - Met the new trainer.Hell of a nice guy and was very particular about how clean his truck was...which somewhat subjected him to a few jokes from the other drivers about how he goes about the job.I suppose it's not considered to be a very normal thing amongst dump drivers to have their truck as clean as his was (almost like it just came out of the factory line).The only thing you really had to worry about to not piss him off was not get his truck dirty.You had to not scuff the tank,step over the chrome plate near the door and land your foot directly on the mat's he had laid down on the floor.The only particular about this guy that got on my nerves was he was pushing for me to climb up and down the ladder on the side of the truck quicker to make up for the loss of time moving through the yard at 5 mph because he didn't want to splash up his rims.With the way some of these scrap and rock yards and covered in mud and rust water was making it somewhat more difficult than it had to be,but other than that...hell of a great guy.

 

Tuesday - Same runs back and forth from delta,oh at the valero down to the scrap plant in defiance.I got introduced to winter weather driving with double trailers,which I don't think I did so bad with them being loaded but I didn't get a chance to drive them while they were empty.I felt very comfortable with him(same guy as Monday) being behind the wheel.He has about 37 years of experience so it's not his first trip around the block.We had ourselves a bit of a long day(about 13 hours total before I even made it back to the terminal) but I learned a valuable lesson from him about using the jake in the snow.

 

Wednesday - Still the same consistent steady work.I got to drive most of the day and had a little bit more backing practice than the other days.He actually tried showing me how to back into an angled spot with doubles but it was a little bit passed my current level of backing and as a result,he told me he wasn't going to sign me off to get my own truck on friday because of the backing and the "problem" I was having with and not being able to climb the ladder of the side of the truck "fast" enough,I would like to state for the record that both of those criteria that he has set for his students were not a part of the training curriculum set by the company,after having a chat with management and their lead trainer everything is already set in motion for me to continue on with the training(he was still new at the training game).He was going to take me on for the rest of the week but dispatch decided to send him on a canada run and I couldn't follow because my enhanced still hadn't come in the mail yet.

 

Thursday - showed up to work after trying to tell my roommate(he works at this job as well) that they didn't have a trainer for me today...he brought me into work anyway and we both went out with his trainer to avoid me having to take a day off during training.The day went well,we all got along and my roommate got to get on his own truck in friday....but I have to stay out another week with a trainer.

 

Friday - The day went just as normal as any other day of training.At the end of the day the mechanics made my buddy a pin hammer with his cb handle welded into it as an "initiation right' into the group.I got introduced to a "B train" that was sitting in the shop getting work done to it ....up until this point I've been hauling "A trains".I'll post pictures of the two different kinds of trailers once I get a chance to.I had off saturday and sunday and was getting ready for a 5am start on monday.