Sunday, June 29, 2008

Indianapolis, IN

Don't you love it when you have one of those days that goes exactly according to plan? I kinda wish I had a few of those. :)

Joking aside, though, it went pretty close to plan compared to how things have gone lately. I started a little later than I intended, but I made up almost an hour on the road, which negated that loss. When I got to the operating center, apparently the hole in the roof was too large for a simple plug and needed a full-size patch welded on, among lots of other repairs, which would have cost me at least six hours. However, I called operations and they assigned me a different empty, which meant I was out of there even faster than I expected. I lost most of that time dealing with the shipper, though; the female at the guard shack was exceptionally rude and the facility was difficult to maneuver. I made a quick stop for a snack on the way here and ended up arriving here at the operating center more or less on schedule.

I'm currently waiting in line to get a couple of tires replaced on the trailer, then going to take my 10 hour break here. I'm not sure when I'll leave in the morning yet, but it will probably be fairly early. I'll drive into Pennsylvania, take a break at whatever truck stop I come across when I'm running out of hours. That will leave me anywhere between one and four hours to go in the morning and presumably just enough time to make it to the Carlisle OC.

There's just one problem left that I can't get repaired here in Indianapolis: my air conditioning. It broke yesterday morning and now blows exceptionally hot no matter what I set the temperature dial to. But if I put it in the shop here at Indy it would be at least Wednesday before they got to it and it's unlikely I'd get paid for the downtime. If I get routed to Carlisle, I might be able to get paid (and reimbursed for a hotel), but I don't know anyone there so it would be a very boring 34+ hours. And in both cases, I'll delay getting home, though I might need a 34 hour break anyway. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Oak Grove, IA

Another day, another round of frustration and annoyances. Apparently Kansas drivers not only understand the concept of a "speed limit" but they take it a little too far; I was stuck behind someone doing at least 10 under the limit more times than I'm willing to count. I also had an instance where I made a wrong turn. How I can be going west and make a right turn to go south is entirely beyond me. On the flip side, though, I don't even know which direction I was driving on that road; it was simultaneously east 160, west 400, and north 69. I'll post a photo of the sign later.

At least I have a decent work assignment for someone other than Kimberly Clark; I'm picking up at a place in the same industrial park as our Edwardsville, IL operating center, so I might be able to kill a bit of time there in the morning before the load is ready, presumably at 8AM. From there, I'll probably go to Indianapolis and make it a slightly short day, then leave from there and drive my full 11 hours to get into northern PA. If all goes according to plan, that will leave me a little under 50 miles to go on the run, which will be trivially easy to finish on Tuesday morning. That leaves me about 1,080 miles from the drop yard I use as my "home" location, which is a decent two days of driving. There's obviously no way of telling whether or not they're going to route me straight home or not, but I would be surprised if they didn't start sending me that way. Of course, I've been wrong before.

Friday, June 27, 2008

North Little Rock, AR

June 27, 9PM

Today was... well, entirely uneventful. I left the operating center, made a quick stop for lunch, then drove down to the Petro truck stop here. I've about 20 miles left to deliver this load, then I'm picking up another trailer from the same facility and taking it 375 miles for another delivery. I'll have no problem doing them both tomorrow, though I hope that they'll have something a little better for me once I finish it; I should make the delivery by 3:30 or so, leaving me two and a half hours to run.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Edwardsville, IL - Up and Down

Today was a rather frustrating day, if nothing else. I put a trailer in for a PM last night and told them that I needed it done by 5AM. I checked at 6AM and got told that it was in the shop, but it had never even been written up as a PM. Even more amazing is that, despite not marking it as a PM to be done, it took them another two hours to finish what they were doing. I have no idea what they did, but the trailer was in worse shape when they were done; the ABS was no longer working and I'd swear the brakes were way out of adjustment. In any case, I was already two and a half hours behind schedule, so I didn't care enough to complain.

So I arrived the shipper and had a rare bit of good news: my load was on a pre-loaded trailer, instead of it being a live load. Whee! I just had to drop the one I had, hooked up to the one I needed, picked up the paperwork, and resumed driving in less than half an hour. Things were going well until I got to a truck stop to fuel and had to wait about ten minutes just to get to a fuel pump, in part because another driver deliberately blocked me from pulling up to the fuel island. I wanted to stop there for food, too, but I couldn't get into a parking space because - once again - other trucks kept getting in my way as I tried to maneuver into a parking space. Even once I gave up on it I had to wait several minutes for someone to stop blocking the exit so I could leave.

Those complaints aside, the day was pretty uneventful. I just wish that stuff like that would stop happening; I'm finding myself becoming increasingly impatient with such things. I guess that it's just as well that I will be home in about a week, if all goes well; I'm supposed to be back in Pensacola on Friday, July 4. Granted, knowing how my time at home usually goes, I'll be lucky to even be home over that weekend, but at last I have some time coming up.

One other thing: I managed to break my cell phone. Apparently I stepped on it or something, but it won't turn on. So unless I'm at an operating center or otherwise find wi-fi, this might be the last update until I get home. I'll type them up and post them later, but there probably won't be regular updates this week.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Green Bay ,WI

The freight I had in the trailer fell over, so I had the "pleasure" of restacking a pallet's worth of boxes. At least it was only one pallet and toilet paper doesn't weigh a lot. Of the 30 boxes, though, eight were wet and five were damaged, which is generally a bad thing... amazingly, though, these guys didn't care at all. And rather than having to unload the whole thing by hand, once I fixed that one pallet, they took care of the rest themselves. So I decided to come up to Green Bay to get a few repairs done; I had a nonessential light that was damaged and dangling by a wire, a tire that had something stuck in it, and a trailer due for its annual inspection. They're done with that, so now I'm just waiting on laundry to finish up while typing this.

I'll hopefully be down near St. Louis again tomorrow night, if all goes well, though that's entirely dependent on how long it
takes for them to load the trailer. If they finish in under 2 1/2 hours, I'll have that much time to spare; if they take more than that long, I'll have to either find somewhere else to park or make up some time on the road. I really hope it doesn't come down to that...

Sheboygan, WI

The drive up here was fairly uneventful, aside from the occasional rain shower that got people to actually drive the speed limit. For a little while, anyway. It got more interesting when I arrived at the consignee and saw I had a work assignment... that was for both pick up and delivery in the same town. So, as a a result, I would get paid zero miles. I was going to call and complain about that after I'd gotten backed into a dock, but they took me off the load; apparently it was something meant as part of a dedicated account. So I got another assignment instead, also going to the same town, but instead delivering about 700 miles away. As a bonus, it's a "by" delivery, so I can get there pretty much any time that I want, as long as it's no later than midnight on Saturday, though there's no reason I won't be able to deliver it by Friday afternoon.

In short, I've gotta some halfway decent miles and I intend to move as fast as I can with it.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Walcott, IA

After playing tag over the satellite system for a little while, requiring me to stop at three rest areas in a row, I found out that I couldn't get the load relayed and, at first, couldn't get the appointment moved up. Then, apparently, the consignee had a cancellation and my appointment got bumped up to 2:30PM, subtracting several hours from my wait. So now I get to wake up at 7AM, start driving at 8 or so, and arrive there (ideally) about half an hour before my scheduled time. I'm sure that it's going to take me more than the "average" three hours to unload this truck, since I'm not in particularly good shape; I'm almost hoping they require me to hire a lumper instead of doing it myself, since that would be faster. At least, if I have to do it myself, I get an extra $50.

Kearney, MO

You know that you've gotten a lousy work assignment when you call up the trip planner and even she comments about how horrible your utilization is. :)

I have an assignment... not Wal-Mart, like I was told it was going to be, though. It also was an open pick up window, so I slept in a little bit, and it doesn't deliver until tomorrow night at 8PM. The problem is that I could get there at 11AM very easily, and even that's assuming I average just 50mph, take the Interstate the whole way (there's a roughly 35 mile shortcut I could take), and take an extra half-hour worth of breaks along the way. So I'm on hold right now trying to either get the load relayed or the appointment moved up. Failing that, I might at least see if I can get hotel reimbursement for having to lose most of a day.

... and, apparently, she's on lunch so I got someone else. I'm going to have to keep driving with it in the meantime, but I need to stop for fuel at one of our drop yards anyway and I should have an answer by then. I wouldn't mind if they let me drop it there and allowed me to get on break, since I could then be up and running at 3 or 4 in the morning, as I should have been today.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Spring Hill, KS

After taking a day off yesterday, just to enjoy having another day off on a weekend, I drove the 280 miles from St. Louis out here. I'm getting unloaded right now; soon as the trailer is empty, I will probably be driving about five miles up the road to a truck stop and going on an unexpectedly early break. Why? While I was driving here, I got a message telling me to be ready to go at 4AM since they'll have a load ready for me, but that load apparently isn't ready and they don't have the information for it. I'm trying to see if I can find out where exactly I'm supposed to pick up the freight at and whether or not they'll let me park there. If so, it'll save me an extra half hour in the morning; if not, at least I have one place that I can stop near here.

2:20PM: Okay, this is more than a little frustrating. I was on hold for 15 minutes waiting  to talk to operations to find out what I need to do tonight, asked what I should do, then was put back on hold while they made a few phone calls and tried to find out. While I was on hold, my cell phone dropped the call. So I had to call back, wait another 15 minutes, and got someone else who wouldn't even look it up for me after I repeatedly asked her to. She wasted more time explaining to me why I should just park at the nearest truck stop then it would have taken her to look up the information I needed. So because nobody can confirm parking for me, I have to park here, leaving me 30 miles to drive at 3:30 in the morning. I really would have liked to get an extra half hour of sleep; apparently that's just not an option now.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Monee, IL

I decided on taking a short day today since I'd worked 32 hours in the last three days. It worked out rather well, too, since my next assignment actually took me toward the truck stop I planned on stopping at anyway. So instead of taking it as out of route, I got paid for it. Whee! So I had a nice, steak and shrimp dinner at the Iron Skillet up here and now I'm just winding down before bed. I have a live load to get at 9AM tomorrow... up in Chicago. I'm going to plan my route out tonight and expect to average about 25 mph going through Chicago; morning traffic is usually horrible, especially on the routes I'm likely going to need to take. I'm only dropping this as a relay over in Gary, but at least that leaves me enough time to go somewhere else. Hopefully I'll get another really nice run once I drop this relay off.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Pharr, TX - Miscommunication and sleep deprivation

This is definitely going to be "one of those nights." I had trouble enough falling asleep, but then, just a few minutes ago, I had a security guard start banging on the side of the truck. I tried to figure out what was going on, which was not easy since the guard spoke only minimal English, but apparently he thinks that this drop yard is closed and, as such, I shouldn't be parked here. Never mind that the guard on the previous shift, the manager at the shipper, and the people at customer service all have given me information saying that I can park here. He's gone away, for now, but both the operations people and I are worried that he's called the police, a tow truck, or done something similar.

Edit (10 minutes later): He came back and handed me a cell phone with someone back at the warehouse on the line. They apparently wanted me to move back over there and park against one of their docks, which contradicts what I was told earlier (specifically, that I could if I wanted to but it was not necessary). I explained this and that I wouldn't be leaving until at least 7 o'clock since I had a tire that needed to be replaced and that the tire bank won't be open until 8. So, after they explained all that to the guard, he just told me that they wouldn't open the gate until 6 (more than an hour before I need to leave) and is now letting me go back to sleep.  I'm not going to have nearly as much time to sleep now as I'd like, but at least I can be reasonably certain that I won't be disturbed again.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Pharr, TX - How low can I go?

Today was a very long... waiting game. I made the delivery at about 9 o'clock this morning, then drove back to a truck stop less than a mile away. While I was making that delivery, I got a message asking me about directions for the next load... but then I never got the rest of my work assignment. So I waited about an hour before I sent in a message asking what was going on. I got a response nearly an hour after that explaining that they had a load ready for me but they couldn't find any empty trailers, so they would have to wait until some empties were available. So I waited. And waited. Then waited some more. I finally got tired of waiting and sent in asking them to update me with some new information; they finally told me to just bobtail down there and that customer service would work out all the details.

So, I proceeded down there. However, there's one thing that I hadn't accounted for: batshit crazy Mexican drivers. Of the people on US 83, about a third were driving reasonably, a third were doing at least 10 under the speed limit, and a third seemed intent on trying to cause accidents. I counted three separate times where someone passed over a double yellow line, two of those three nearly resulting in a head-on collision. I tried to pass one of the slowpokes, only to have him speed up, then slow down once I slowed down to try and get back into the right lane, all while another rig approached. Ultimately, I had to force the idiot onto the shoulder of the road to avoid a collision; I know that wasn't necessarily the best solution, but at least nobody was hit.

At least I made it down here. The place I picked up the load from handed me the paperwork, told me to go across the street to get the trailer, and said they had no problem with me taking my break here. So I get here, do my pre-trip... and find that one tire is just about shot. It's badly bulged out and definitely wouldn't pass a DOT inspection. I called maintenance and found out that we do have a tire bank we use down here... one that only is open 8-5. So I have to wait a couple of extra hours in the morning before I take off; I was originally planning on hitting the road by 6. On the bright side, this is directly along the way, so I won't be adding to my out of route. And this load is the second in a row that I've had of over 1,500 miles, so I have to show some love to the trip planner. Now I just have to catch up on sleep!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Laredo, TX

Another day, another several hundred miles. I had several more people decide to cut me off today, one of whom ended up on the shoulder of the road after I had to make a sudden move to get away from a mechanic working on a broken-down rig. I would rather get someone like that off the highway than take out a mechanic. Also, I had to make up a route around San Antonio since it seemed like traffic was at a standstill everywhere except going around the east side of I-410; traffic.com listed delays of several hours on I-10, I-35, and the west side of I-410.

In any case, the place I'm delivering to isn't open until 9AM tomorrow, meaning I have enough time to sleep in ('til about 7) get a shower, and still make the delivery at a reasonably early hour. I don't plan on working a full day tomorrow - I think I'll put myself as available for about nine hours - so I should be able to get back onto pattern of early morning hours if the freight allows it. Hopefully that will work out for me.

Colbert, OK - Window of Opportunity

I called maintenance to get that window fixed... and the tech pointed out that I'm less than two hours from Dallas, TX, where we have an operating center. It would be trivial for me to get it fixed there. So I ended up wasting 45 minutes for something that I should have thought of myself. Oops. At least this is more amusing than all the problems that happened yesterday.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Colbert, OK - Drivers are not OK

It seems like, after taking the day off yesterday, everything that could possibly have gotten on my nerves decided to come up. I had three separate people cut me off as they "merged" into traffic, including one dolt who insisted on doing 45 mph on the Oklahoma Turnpike, which has a speed limit of 75 and a posted minimum of 50. My truck was ready for me when I got back to the operating center, but they also managed to break at least one thing that wasn't broken before. Namely, my driver's side window switch. I was able to lower the window a couple times, but now it seems there's nothing left for it to make contact with. This, of course, after I put in a window screen, meaning I now have this screen stuck in my window unless I can somehow get the switch to work.

In any case, I'm tired, frustrated, and have to be up at 6AM to be on the road by 6:30. There's almost no chance that I'll be able to deliver this thing tomorrow, since it's still about 500 miles away, I have to get the trailer inspected at the nearby operating center, and they close at 4PM. Thankfully, I should be able to drop the load Tuesday morning, though that won't be until 7AM (when they open), meaning I'm going to lose a few hours. But to do any of that, I really need to get some sleep; this is going to be enough of a pain in the rear if I'm well rested and doubly so if I'm tired.

Edwardsville, IL - Restarted

I'm currently enjoying the tail end of a 34 hour break here, though I am going to have to sleep shortly, so this is going to be a similarly short post.

Ultimately, I did find my way around and picked up the load. Ultimately, I had to take US 12 all the way. I was in and out of the place in record time, too; I dropped, hooked, inspected, and left in 27 minutes. I stopped for fuel on the way down, since I didn't have enough to make it all the way down here, though even that went rather quickly. So in the morning, I have to get out of here as early as possible, do my pre-trip inspection and all that, then try to make as many miles as possible before it gets too late in the day. I'm hoping to make at least 550, though obviously that plan could change if anything unusual happens.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Relationships

Is it just me, or is the only thing that comes from being mated is having someone to nag you and tell you what not to do with your life? And not just telling you not to do something stupid, either, but insisting that you not do things that you'd happily do and enjoy if you didn't have "that special someone" telling you no. It seems that the overwhelming majority of people in relationships have no business being in them as they become, quite simply, worse people for it. There are a few that can make it work, I will concede that; I'm simply referring to a majority that become less enjoyable company simply because they are so busy worrying about someone else to actually enjoy themselves.

Yes, I'm ticked off about this because, despite it being so early this morning, I've already had tow people pull that card. Seriously, what the fuck?

Edwardsville, IL - Too tired to write

Today was far, far too long for its own good. I'm exhausted, though, so I'll have to write a full post in the morning after I've gotten some rest.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Mauston, WI

I-90 eastbound is closed. I need to take this route to Madison, where I'm picking up my load. There's no posted detour, either, unless I just can't find it via Google; the state's road information site simply says "travel in the area is not advised." So now what? Does anyone out there know something I don't? Please comment if you have any road information.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Durand, WI

After getting those loads, it was quite a quick drive to where I'm delivering to. I dropped the empty, picked up a second empty, took that to the new location, picked up my load, and hurried over here in record-setting time. I parked here, walked to the office... to see a sign that said "open 8-5, Monday-Friday." But, wait a second, I have a 7AM appointment! As I'm turning around, someone comes out from another exit and asks me what's going on. I explain. He then tells me to back up in front of the dock and just park; they'll have someone wake me up when it's time for my appointment. So I walked to a McDonald's a couple blocks away, got dinner, and now am just winding down for the night. Tomorrow's going to be several hundred miles of Interstate goodness; I hope I can make it to a decent park location by sundown.

Stevens Point, WI - Underappreciation week

I really, really would like to strangle the trip planner right about now. After waiting six hours for a work assignment, I finally got one that consists of a total of 140 miles and doesn't take me anywhere near an operating center. This means that I don't get to participate in any of the "appreciation week" stuff they have going on, don't get enough miles to really be anything other than happy, and have to drive through shitty back roads to get there. To add insult, the load is an appointment at 7AM tomorrow, so I have to park at this place overnight and simply wait until morning and hope that the next load I get sucks at least slightly less hard than this.

So, to summarize: dear trip planner, thanks for absolutely nothing, jackass. Insincerely, me.

Edit (3:21PM): Either the trip planner reads my blog or he just feels sorry for having kept me waiting so long. I've gotten 1500 miles to play with over the weekend at a place that I should be able to get to first thing on Monday morning. I'll also be running a bit low on hours, so there's a chance that I'll need to take a restart somewhere. Hopefully it'll be somewhere decent.

Stevens Point, WI

It's a full on waiting game today. I got a message this morning saying they had a load for me but were waiting for me. This was five hours ago. I'm still waiting...

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Stevens Point, WI

They're done unloading but apparently their computer is screwed up. I have to be out of here within the next 20 minutes. I really hope they get it figured out by then.

Stevens Point, WI - Quick, to the pumpkin!

Today actually was a day worth writing about! It started off smoothly enough, though the weather got steadily worse as I drove north until it became a raging downpour near Des Moines, IA. I stopped for fuel there, quickly ran inside to the restroom, then continued north through the tempest. About half a mile before the I-35/I-80 split, though, I had a problem. Namely, my driver's side windshield wiper snapped off. I don't just mean that the blade came off, either; the arm itself broke. The wiper first started going further and further off to the side, then finally went a little too far, the wiper motor acted up, and it just snapped off against the hood. Amazingly, it's still dangling in place, but it definitely is a trouble item if the weather continues to act up. The rain stopped shortly after it broke, but it was extremely difficult (and, frankly, dangerous) driving with such poor visibility.

For the most part, the rest of the drive was uneventful. There were a few crazy drivers on the road, as always, including one who passed me around a blind curve on a two-lane highway. There's no way he could have seen an oncoming car, much less avoided one, but thankfully the road was clear. I don't see why he needed to do that, either, seeing as the road became a four-lane in just another mile and he'd been tailgating me for at least the last ten.

In any case, I'm currently waiting on a lumper service to unload the trailer. I had been told on my work assignment that it would require no work from me, but when I arrived at the receiving office, they said I either had to pull the 30 pallets off and restack them onto 38 pallets or pay $180 for the lumpers to do it. Needless to say, I was ticked, so I went out and called operations. At first they were trying to convince me to do it, though once I told them that it would require a restack (something else that wasn't listed on the work assignment), they went ahead and approved the lumper service. I'll have to call the first shift tomorrow to get an authorization number; without that, I'd have the $180 deducted from my paycheck. It's a pain in the rear, which is why I hate dealing with lumpers when they do come up. Doesn't anyone else see a problem with a company charging you to have their own freight unloaded?

I also have to worry about time here: my fourteen hour day runs out at 10PM, about an hour and a half from now. This place doesn't allow driver parking - at least according to my work assignment - and I really don't want to have to ask them to make an exception for me. There's a place roughly eight miles down the Interstate that looked to have plenty of parking (though that was about two hours ago); I'll be trying to get there if I have any time left. If I'm out of time and they won't let me stay here... well, then I'm pretty much screwed and have to just hope I don't get pulled over. I'll still have to explain it to regulatory at some point. I really hope I don't have to deal with all that crap and they get me out of here within the next hour or less.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Kearny, MO

Another 500+ mile day. I'm really starting to like these, especially since that puts me on track to need a restart over the weekend. It would be particularly great if that put me at an operating center, since I could then put the truck in for a PM and get paid for the time I'm off the road. I'm going to have a particularly long day tomorrow, though: 550 miles to where I'm delivering, with a 7PM appointment that's expected to take four hours. This means there's a fairly significant chance that I'll run out of time while they're unloading. Since they don't allow driver parking, I have to hope they get done much faster than expected. I also have to leave here somewhat later than I otherwise would for that delivery; the earlier I get there, the more time I have to wait and the less time I'll have to leave. Here's hoping it works out well!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Dallas, TX

Another day, another couple hundred miles. Really not a lot happened today, aside from yet another incident in which a work assignment didn't come through the first time they sent it to me. I called in to complain... then apparently every copy they'd sent to me arrived at once, giving me four copies of the assignment. So now I'm at the operating center, nibbling on dinner, figuring out my trip plan for tomorrow, and getting ready to go to bed. I'll be up early enough to get a shower in the morning, do a pre-trip inspection, and be out of here as early as possible. I just need to make sure it's all ready to go.

Houston, TX

I managed to use up every moment of my 11 and 14 hour days yesterday, and even that required a bit of rounding in my favor. In reality, I did 676 miles, which is impossible to do in a truck that only does 60. In any case, the drive itself went rather well, so there's really not much to type about here. When I made the delivery, I got a bit flustered as I tried to back the trailer in, mostly because I was somewhat sleep deprived and knew I didn't have a lot of time to work with. I went to bed almost immediately after parking the truck and slept for about nine hours. Even so, I still felt lousy when I woke up; I need a couple more full nights of sleep.

In any case, I picked up the trailer I needed, found one tire that was low on air, but didn't feel like waiting an hour (or more) for the shop to get around to inflating it. So I'm waiting at the customer to get unloaded. I have a work assignment... sort of. They sent me the first message of it, but I've yet to get any pick up or delivery information. I asked them to re-send it but haven't gotten anything yet.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Houston, TX

Way, way too long a day today. I'm going to pass out and update during a live unload in the morning.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Lagrange, GA

The last two days have gone so smoothly, there was nothing worth posting about. So since I'm posting, you just know something went wrong. :)

In this case, I woke up about 3AM to make sure I had the time to get a shower before I had to hit the road. I turned the key on to activate the Qualcomm (message system) and saw that I had a pair of delivery messages ... but I didn't have any pick up messages to go with them. As I was looking at that and trying to figure out what was going on, the truck started beeping. At first I figured it was just the low air warning - my truck has a strange tendency to lose about half the air in its tanks some nights while not losing any on others - but I looked under the curtain to see "WARNING: LOW COOLANT LEVEL" flashing brightly on the display.

So, I did what any rational person would do. I wigged out.

Once I finished saying "oh shit," "damn it," and "fuck" about ten times each, I climbed out and tried to see anything I could. There was (and still is) a rather large pool of fluid under the truck, which at least suggests that it was a problem that didn't exist until I got here. However, as there was so much fluid - the truck's cooling system holds fourteen gallons - I had no idea where it could have come from. So I called maintenance and was told to pour water into the tank to see where the leak was. They said it would take several gallons and I'd probably have to go back and forth; I joked about it being such a big leak that it would be empty by the time I got back there. Unfortunately, that joke turned out to be a lot closer to reality than they anticipated.

Even as I was pouring the water into the system, I heard it splashing on the ground. At first I just thought I had missed the tank, but I then noticed it was flowing freely out of a hose connected to the bottom of the coolant reservoir. So, having established what the problem was, I called back to get them to send someone out. They said it would be about an hour to 90 minutes... and that was nearly two hours ago. I'll be calling them back as soon as I post this to find out what the problem is.

It gets even more frustrating, though. While I was waiting, I sent a message to overnight operations explaining the situation and asking them to resend the pick up information. They asked me whether or not I could take the load; I told them I needed the pick up info first before I could give them an answer. They then told me it needed to be done by 9AM... in a message that didn't include any other relevant load information. So, for a third time, I asked for pick up information, only to receive a message telling me I'd been taken off the load entirely due to the break down. Now, if this place is within a hundred miles and service gets here within the next hour, I could still have made it easily; they wouldn't even give me the information I needed to make a decision. I'm going to be making a very angry phone call to operations as soon as first shift comes in asking why the overnight people completely refused to give me the rest of my work assignment. Because of this crap, I lost at least 784 miles, since that's the distance to wherever I was supposed to pick up the load to the place it was to be delivered. If I don't get a new assignment with at least that many miles, I'm going to remain pissed off; the focus of that will simply expand to first shift as well.

At least, on the bright side, I didn't make the mistake of starting the engine to run the air conditioning or to recharge the batteries. That would not have ended well.

Update (5:30AM): I just got off the phone with maintenance and found out that they sent a message out explaining the problem ... to the wrong truck. In any case, I found out that they called six different vendors but nobody would even answer the phone. As the guy in maintenance put it, he called everyone within forty miles and couldn't even get someone to tell him no. This isn't the first time they've had a problem even getting an answer, either, according to the person on the phone. So, as such, I'm slowly losing time for the day because there's absolutely nobody who can get this truck fixed. I guess I would have had to get pulled off that load anyway at this rate.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Katy, TX

You know, I seem to be writing a lot of negative things here lately. But, let's face it: good days are boring. I can't imagine many of you want to hear about me simply putting it in gear and driving 600 miles down the highway; there's just not much to put there.

So, on to today's round of bullshit! This is brought to you by the wonderful folks at a distribution center. As I pulled in, I stopped to the side, near the gate, so as not to block traffic. Some guy on a golf cart with a heavy Mexican accent told me to move to door 25. Never mind that I hadn't checked in and he had no clue what I was picking up; he just told me to move. He never got out of the way, though, weaving his golf cart back and forth like a moron, before gesturing at another door. I stopped the truck, got out, and asked what the heck he was doing; he said he wanted me in 28. That was very, very obviously not what he'd said before; I told him as much, then had to wait once again for him to get out of the way before I could put the truck in the door.

After that, I went to check in... only to get told that my pick up number was wrong. She didn't even double check it; she said it was wrong immediately and told me to call dispatch. So, I did, getting increasingly irritated by the situation. Dispatch confirmed that the number I had was correct. I went back to the office, told them this, and they continued to insist that the number I had couldn't possibly be right. So they called over a supervisor of some sort and she told them to load the truck anyway despite my number being wrong. I saw them write the "correct" number down... which started with 1509, where my number started with 1407. If it were just one digit off, I could just chalk it up to a typo, but I don't see how they could get two numbers wrong without someone deliberately providing the wrong information.

In any case, right now, I'm in the truck, waiting to get told which dock I actually need to be in. So far, I've been waiting for 35 minutes. My appointment was for 1:45, but obviously they've missed that, even though I pulled onto the property at exactly 1:15 and finished up all the crap at the office before that deadline. I don't expect them to actually get me out of here within two hours, as expected, so I don't know where I'm going to end up parking for the evening. I just know that this is really, really getting on my nerves.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Houston, TX

I arrived exactly half an hour late for the delivery, but it seems like the consignee didn't care; they just put me in line and unloaded me in order. I got a rather crummy load next, though: a relay from the operating center here that I'm taking just 50 miles. Frustratingly, the trailer I'm picking up had a bad tire - it's not round - so I am currently waiting in line at the OC's shop to get that fixed. After that, I hit the road, drive 49 miles, deliver this thing, then potentially still have a few hours left with which to start on yet another load.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Carthage, TX

Today was yet another one of those long and frustrating days that I'm glad is over. I woke up at 3AM, got a shower, and hit the road. Dropping the loaded trailer off was the easy part, but the first trailer I was told to pick up was part of a dedicated account's fleet, so I couldn't take it. Operations assigned me a different number; unsurprisingly, that one wasn't there. I needed to go back to the office to clarify a few things anyway; they assigned me another trailer and I went on my merry way.

Only after arriving at the next place did another problem arise: the trailer I picked up had a hole in the roof. This isn't something that I could likely have seen; it was still dark when I picked it up, so there wouldn't have been any light shining into the trailer to give it away. But it did mean that I had to wait on hold for 20 minutes to get someone on the line. Ultimately, after an increasingly frustrating series of phone transfers - and well after my trailer was actually loaded, despite me asking the shipper to wait - I was told to take it to a repair shop on the way and hope it doesn't rain on the way there.

Thankfully, no rain was involved, but I did have to spend an hour and a half at the shop waiting on the repair. As such, I had just over two hours left on my 14-hour day, leaving me enough time to drive roughly 130 miles. I ended up using every minute of it, too; the truck stop I'd originally planned on going to apparently doesn't exist anymore, but I did find another one just as the clock rolled over to 6PM, the fourteen-hour mark. So I parked, ate dinner, and now am relaxing before bed. The only problem is that I won't be able to leave until 4:30AM (figuring in a 30-minute pretrip, as usual) and I'm 200 miles away; there's a nearly-zero chance I can make my 8AM appointment tomorrow. I've sent in a message telling operations this; hopefully the customer will accept it if I'm 30 minutes late or customer service can get it pushed back an hour or two.