I'm trying to be as patient as I can with things, but I'm finding that patience to be running extremely thin right now. I don't think they had a single piece of information right about this load. Originally it was supposed to be picked up yesterday but I never had enough time to get there and find a place to park; I had to get them to reschedule it. The delivery was supposed to be a drop at 4 PM, which then was bumped up to 2:30 after I called and said I could make it earlier; instead, nobody ever bothered contacting the consignee and - on top of that - this was a live unload and not a drop. As a result of that, I might not have enough hours left to pick up the next load and get to a truck stop, which is the same problem I ran into yesterday, only this time the nearest truck stop is about fifteen miles away. It doesn't help that I was berated by another driver for blocking the only trailer drop slot in the yard; I parked there because it was the only place that I could park the truck while I tried to figure out why none of the information I was given about this load was correct.
My hours run out at 6:30 - two and a half hours from now - and as I figure it there's no way I can get everything done before 6:15. Even that assumes that I get in the dock exactly at 4 o'clock, per the original appointment, get out of here within a half hour, get everything done at the next shipper (drop and hook) in less than an hour, then find no traffic problems at all as I drive through the middle of St. Louis at rush hour. Even then, it'll be a hell of a squeeze to try and get the delivery done tomorrow; I'll have roughly 400 miles to go and seven hours to do it in, which doesn't even leave me enough time to stop for a bathroom break. If I can somehow save even fifteen minutes somewhere, that will help immensely, though I seriously doubt anything is going to go in my favor at this point. It's now 4:10 and I just backed into the dock; they haven't even turned on the dock lock to let me know that they're ready to work on it. It's a small wonder I was even able to get it in here, though, due to another driver taking up most of the area I needed to maneuver. At least I'm not the first person who has had to cut across the grass to try and make this work.
I'd be really, really happy to just get assigned a simple drop and hook somewhere at this point. A load going to Wal-Mart would be wonderful; those are always easy to work with and generally have extra time in case something goes wrong. They've just started unloading my trailer (finally), so I'm going to post this and hope I can get out of here within the next ten minutes.
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