Today was a much longer day than I expected. It started off well enough, though I left Carlisle a couple hours later than I intended. That ended up screwing a few things up further down the line, not that I realized how bad it was going to get at the time. Only when I stopped for lunch in the late afternoon did I realize that I might be in time trouble. I got a work assignment just as I was leaving the truck stop, which made me pull into the next area to check it. It was about 600 miles, straight across I-40; I would have been quite content with that. Of course, I'm writing that in the past tense because, shortly after first shift left for the weekend, support shift took me off the load to assign me something else. That "something else" was based on the assumption I'd left Carlisle early in the morning, not shortly before noon.
Problems never come alone, though. As I approached the Tennessee state line, I felt the truck's handling become increasingly unstable. It felt like it was coming from the back right, so I pulled into a rest area to check it out. Sure enough, one of my trailer tires was just about ready to go; it was badly bulged out. So I called maintenance, updated operations with a message saying I'd be at least two hours late to pick up my newly-assigned load, and sat around to wait. It was only about an hour before someone arrived to replace the bad tire; normally it's two or three hours on a weekend. That still pushed me even further behind schedule, though.
By the time I dropped the load, it was obvious that I'd be at least four hours late to get the trailer loaded, possibly five. I updated them with that and sent in a second message asking them to confirm what my new pick up appointments would be. I got a reply... asking me what time I went on break, even though I was still driving to find a truck stop. I seriously am starting to wonder if support shift even bothers looking at the driver information before sending out half-assed responses like that. At least I found parking; normally stopping at 11PM on a weeknight guarantees that truck stops are going to be jammed full. I called operations when I parked and got told that the trip planners will try to find someone else in the area or, failing that, get the appointments rescheduled. They know when I can leave here (no earlier than 9:15 local time) and are planning around that. Hopefully they won't assign me a different load that requires me to work too late tomorrow; I don't want to have to get lucky and find improbable parking again.
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