First two days on the new account

After two days on the new account, I can come to a couple of conclusions: it's going to be an improvement over working system by a very wide margin and that I'm likely to be quite tired after a long day's work. I've learned how to handle the new equipment fairly quickly; I'm still fairly slow getting things done but at least I can do them. I also had a first glimpse at the new routes that I might be on starting the second week of June. The new routes have tentatively been moved back to a Monday through Friday schedule (though the "Friday" routes all return early Saturday morning), though they're still awaiting final approval from higher ups. Each route has three trips per week, two of which are guaranteed to take me two days to complete, so I'll be out at least two nights a week. Since the places I'm delivering are only open 8 AM to 5 PM, I'll be able to get plenty of rest on the nights I have to sleep in the truck. Ironically, I might get more sleep during a run than between trips.

So far, aside from the rather hectic sleep schedule I've been on due to erratic routing and trying to cover holiday deliveries, I haven't found any real downside to this account compared to running as a system driver. The trip on Thursday was definitely illegal - we started at 5 AM and didn't get back until 4 AM - but the driver who is showing me what to do let me sleep most of the day so I didn't doze off on the drive home. Unloading the trailer at each stop has taken anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, as the amount of freight varies from just three items to about eight, plus one to six things that need to go onto the truck and returned to the shipper. The routes between customers vary rather considerably, but it seems a majority of them will require me to stick to back roads for the trip. The distance between stops is usually under 100 miles, but the trip to the first stop and return trip at the end of the route are both considerably longer. It's nothing I can't handle, though I may need a couple weeks to get the schedule hammered out.

I have Monday off due to Memorial Day, so my next day of work is Tuesday. The driver wants to start around 6 AM and estimates that we'll be back relatively early, around 4:30 PM. Thursday's run is the long one as it's the only one on this route that normally requires a layover. If we team-drive as we did this past week, we should be back before midnight, leaving Friday as an additional day off. Thus, on Friday, we might be able to take the guy's truck in for air-conditioning repairs and do a training course for the new in-truck computers that I'll likely have to deal with in the near future. That's all ff in the future, now; for the moment I just want to enjoy a three-day weekend.