York, PA

Today has been one of those days where nearly every little thing that could go wrong has. About the only things to my credit are that I didn't cause an accident or receive a citation. Frankly, given the number of things that went wrong, I'm rather surprised I didn't.

The day started off reasonably well. I didn't hit much in the way of traffic on the way to where I dropped the load I had in the morning. The problem? They sent me across the street to get an empty, but they didn't have any; there was only one of our trailers and it was still fully loaded. So I went back across to ask if they had any empties on that side and the receiving clerk just went off on me. She started yelling about this and that, essentially telling me that she wasn't going to do the slightest thing to help me; she even refused to search in the computer to see if there were any empties on the yard.

So I called up support shift (one minute before they closed) and she told me to send in a message saying that the customer wouldn't release the trailer. I sent this in. And waited. And waited. An hour later, I tried calling operations, but the routing system was acting up and I couldn't actually get routed to anyone useful. So I sent in another message asking what was going on, then got a message back saying that there were at least three empties there; they gave me the numbers for two of them. So I walked around to look for them, found one of the three and found it to be empty, then immediately hooked up to it and took off. As such, mostly due to the bitch at the receiving counter, I lost two hours there. While I told her "I'm sorry you're having a bad day" as I walked out of the office (and she was still yelling as I closed the door behind me) I had plenty of other choice things I wanted to say.

As such, I was behind schedule the rest of the day. The first place I was going to was just across the NJ/PA state line, not far from downtown Philadelphia. However, the place was on an extremely narrow street requiring a hard right turn. I pulled into the center lane of three to turn right, giving me one extra lane to get over onto this side road... but even that wasn't far enough out. And as such, if I continued forward, I'd have either hit an Acura parked (illegally) on the corner or have taken out a traffic light. A couple other people noticed what was going on, including the security officer from a nearby facility, and collectively helped me back up onto the street I'd tried turning from so I could take up the entire road (including the oncoming side) just to turn into this darn place. Thankfully, I didn't have to back in anywhere; I just parked on the street and they loaded the truck there.

While the loading only took half an hour, I still was behind schedule from dealing with the receiving bitch earlier in the morning. So I was about thirty minutes late for pick up #2. The guy at the gate actually said that it wasn't bad at all that was late by half an hour. Sure enough, they immediately put me into a dock and started loading. The problem here? It took nearly three hours; I was told to plan for two. Also, I made a wrong turn trying to exit the place and nearly drove out the entrance. Minor things, certainly, but it made an already irritating day feel that much worse.

The big problem was pick up #3, where I am right now. The directions I received (written by other drivers) said to take exit 19B. The problem? I needed exit 19A, not B. So instead of going right to this place, as I should have, I ended up going through downtown York, PA. Getting turned around was nearly impossible, as there were no parking lots big enough for me to use and only two truck routes; thankfully, they looped around and let me get back toward the Interstate. But the detour was extremely frustrating; getting lost is one of those things that always scares the heck out of me. This wasn't an entirely unfounded fear, either; there was one intersection where there were no truck signs straight ahead and to the right and a sign that said "trucks: no left turn." Another trucker made the left turn anyway and I followed, for lack of any other route. I got back on the Interstate, turned around at the next exit, then followed the directions for northbound I-83, where exit 19 isn't split into A and B.

Thankfully, this place didn't seem to mind that I missed the appointment either, especially after I explained what happened. I did have to wait for another driver to leave before I could get into a door (which took about an hour), then they immediately loaded me and gave me a place to park. So now I just have to wait out a 10 hour break, do a pre-trip, then hit the road again. The total weight for these three pick ups is about 31,000 pounds, so I'll stop by a CAT scale on my way out of the area. Though this does mean I have an extra 40 miles to drive tomorrow, I should still be able to make Charlotte, NC; I'll just be there a few hours later than I originally had intended. Since I don't have any places at all that I have to stop tomorrow (except the scale), I should just be able to fly straight down the Interstate. I really hope that's the case.