Trying To Be The Best You Can Be

Last night I arrived at the terminal in Gulfport, Mississippi.  After spending the night in my truck, I awoke and worked on doing my laundry inside the terminal.  It is nice doing my laundry at a terminal because it is free.  I guess I sound like a cheapskate, but everything seems to cost so much out here on the road that it is always pleasant to find a good value here and there.  I tried an unfamiliar, but nearby restaurant for lunch today (The Rusty Pelican) and was pleasantly surprised that although it is a Seafood Restaurant, they also had some Asian foods on the menu.  Apparently it is owned and operated by an Asian family.  I tried their Pho, and it was deliciously satisfying.  The diet that I am trying to keep myself on involves eating a very limited caloric intake for breakfast and supper but allowing myself to eat whatever I wish for lunch.  It seems to be working, albeit very slowly.  The thing about it is that it is something that I can maintain with relative ease out here on the road. Sometimes my schedule is so crazy that I get messed up, but I don't try to be excessively rigid about it.

Since I am in the SAPA division, a limited group of specialized drivers exclusively for the SAPA account, we do not make it to the terminal in Gulfport very often.  All the other drivers from this terminal have their dispatchers working right here at the terminal - ours is located at the SAPA plant in Delhi, Louisiana.  So we often don't even hear any of the internal news, or even see the company newsletter that is always posted on the wall in the drivers lounge area with all types of other pertinent information that the drivers may need to know.  I was surprised to see my name as the top driver for fuel mileage during the second quarter of this year.  No one had mentioned it to me, so it was a surprise.  The surprise was dampened some by the fact that I shared that honor with my friend Paul Anderson, whose numbers were identical to mine.  Paul is a great friend and a great competitor in this business.  I tell people all the time how this job is competitive, but many of the drivers don't really understand that.  Those who can stay at the top of the lists of drivers that management is studying will continue to be the drivers who are awarded the best loads and treated with the most respect when something comes up that they may need some special consideration on.  Paul and I got to know each other through the Trucking Truth website, and it is he who initially invited me to come over and try working for Knight on this special flat-bed account.  Here is the chart showing our mileage numbers - this chart shows the top ten persons from this terminal.

It is worth noting here that the SAPA drivers are notoriously absent from any of these measurements that make a driver stand out in the crowd.  Howard, our Safety director has continually asked Paul and I what it is that we are doing so that he can try to teach some of the other drivers in our group how to improve their performance.  Also note that the top fuel mileage was 7.29 miles per gallon.  Doesn't sound like much does it?  That is actually very good for these big trucks, and even though it pales to what you can get in a modern day car, it is still the most economical way to move goods across the country.  We have to practice certain strategies when driving to get our numbers up that high.  The problem with most drivers is that they just don't care, or are in too big a hurry to think about the smaller details that can make them more successful.  Paul and I were two out of only four drivers who received a recent increase in our pay.  Pay raises do not come around just because of your years of service in this business, but are based strictly on your performance as a profitable member of the team.

It's not easy to maintain a position at the top, and the next quarter you may not see any of the same names that are on this list on the next one.  There are some variables that are beyond our control, such as the average weight of your loads for that quarter, or perhaps where you were driving.  Mountainous terrain will definitely decrease your mileage.  I was fortunate to keep up with Paul, because he typically runs in a much flatter part of the country than I do.  He volunteered to take my run up into Connecticut last month one time, and afterwards he told Jason, our dispatcher, to remind him the next time he agreed to do that to "slap him," so that he would be reminded of just how difficult it is.