Profile
Name:
Tom
Channel Views:
8,013
Total Upload Views:
54,002
Age:
46
Joined:
Dec 23, 2007
Latest Activity:
1 week ago
Subscribers:
104
About Me:
A little story of how I got the trucking job:
When I was a kid, my dad told me how he got his first driving job at The Lucky Hereford Ranch. He told the boss that he could drive their truck and then worried about his lack of a Class 1 license later (things were more relaxed back in the late'40's). His plan was to take a load up to Oakland, then while up there, go to the DMV and take the test and come back with a license. About 15 miles north of Gilroy he was stopped at the Coyote scales. The officer said, "you're over loaded, let me see your license and registration." The Lucky Hereford Ranch dispatched a driver to get the truck, make the delivery and bring my dad back for a little talk. They liked his "go for it" attitude enough that they offered to get him a license and he drove for them for the next two years.
I applied that life lesson when I got my driving job. I had gotten my license in 1987, but because I wasn't 25 yet, trucking companies told me to come back and apply when I got old enough for their insurance policy. I never ended up using the license until 2005, when I decided to renewed it in hopes of switching from a heavy equipment apprentice mechanic job, to a truck driving job. Since I had previously held a class A license, I found out I only needed to take the written test and not the driving test. After getting it renewed, I asked the company drivers, Jim and Verne, if I could go riding with them in the low bed trucks and hopefully get a chance to drive. Up to this point I had only driven empty bottom dump trucks. Verne was a sink or swim guy, so he loaded a CAT 335 excavator onto the trailer and told me I was going to drive. So, my first loaded truck driving experience was with an over-sized, over-weight permit load down the crowded freeways of San Jose CA. It was really fun when we got into the construction zones and I was getting squeezed between K-rail barriers to one side and cars on the other with the excavator tracks hanging off the edges of the trailer. These runs probably netted me around 12 hours of drive time over a few weekends. This plus the approximately 6 hours of drive time in 1987, gave me a total of about 18 hours life experience driving a truck.
Here's where my dad's story and mine link up. I didn't want my job application to end up at the bottom of a pile in a corporate office, so I drove straight to the quarry and right into the transportation managers office. I told him that I had a clean driving record, had spent my childhood driving past this quarry on the way to my grandmothers farm and that I want to be employed in the town that I was born and raised in. The manager looked at me like, jeez where the hell did this guy come from? He told me to continue talking, after which I was invited to an interview. Later I was called up for a second interview. I walked in and no one was there but the manager. He told me, "Tom, I just called you in here to let you know that the job is yours if you want it." As in my dad's circumstance, what got me a job was all in how I sold myself, not in the amount of experience I had. The company is about putting together a good team of people, not experienced people with bad habits or lack of people skills. If you display the work ethic that they are looking for, they will train. If my dad was still alive I think he would have approved.
In late 2007, I stumbled upon a 1962 351 model (needle nose) Peterbilt with a 335 Cummins, 13 spd and 4 spd brownie. I'm going to restore it to vintage style specs and take it to truck shows. The 13 speed will be replaced with a 5 or 6 speed, so I can preserve the art of driving with a set of sticks and pass that down to the next generation. I showed my dad a truck model in the new Kmart store in Capitola CA, around 1969. He said, "that is a Peterbilt, which is one of the nicest trucks on the road." I can still remember him telling me that, all these years later and me standing there wide eyed staring at the picture on the box. I've wanted one ever since.
Hometown:
Watsonville/Santa Cruz
Country:
United States
Occupation:
Truck Driver
Companies:
Rock Quarry
Interests:
History - Preservation and restoration of historic places. buildings, planes, trains, cars, trucks and anything else constructed before the era of Made In China - WW2 history - Bicycle racing - Weight lifting - Camping on the South Fork Yuba River near Nevada City - Vintage auto racing (particularly the Historic Trans Am event)
Recent Activity
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AggregateDood favorited a video
German war footage from WW2. I didnt make this video. Music is, Hanz Zimmer - Do you think im saxon
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AggregateDood favorited a video
http://www.romanoarchives.tk
The beach in the days After D-day Recently declassified color footage of the D-day. Part 3 of 3 Editing by ROMANO-ARCHIVE... more |
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AggregateDood commented on First move with Cummins Big Cam 400 power
"You need a roof mounted ventilator on your garage, like on railroad locomotive shops, lol."
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Subscribers
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Subscriptions
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Channel Comments
and as for as a peterbult goes im for them my self
See You Next Time .....
Jack.
Maybe in my next life, I will be a musician so that I can create all of my videos solely from content of my own making