Charlotte, NC - Ping pong

After a rather lengthy and mostly uneventful night, I arrived in Charlotte around 1 o'clock this afternoon. I went to the shop and found out that it would be tomorrow before they could get my tractor in for maintenance, which is fine by me; I could use a day off to try and sort my sleep pattern out. However, there's one problem: I have a delivery to make at 6 AM tomorrow. So my options were roughly as follows:

• Put the truck in the shop now and relay the load.
• Put the truck in the shop now and get a loaner to deliver it myself.
• Put the truck in the shop tomorrow, after delivering the load, at risk of having an extra day's wait.
• Forget about it and worry about getting it done at another OC sometime next month.

Given those options in mind, I tried calling operations to get something worked out. I was hoping for #1 or #3, since they would most likely result in me getting to rest and recover a bit from being up most of the last 36 hours. However, the first call was completely inconclusive: I got a hold of someone other than my normal contact in operations, then got told to call back in half an hour in the hopes that I'd get the usual guy in the office. I got lunch, which took about an hour, before trying to call back.

Once again, I got someone else, though this time I explicitly asked to be transfered to my usual guy. I was placed on hold, waited several minutes... only to get yet another someone else. Exasperated, I asked why I couldn't talk to the guy I wanted to talk with, only to be told that he still wasn't at his desk. Seriously, what the heck is he doing up there? I never had this many problems getting a hold of someone on my old board! After a short discussion, summarizing the above, I was told to put my truck in the shop immediately and that I'd be assigned a loaner. He gave me the loaner truck's number, but told me it might be a few minutes while he sorted a few things out in the computer.

As I walked to the shop to write my truck's inspection up, I found the truck that I was supposed to take. The driver who dropped it off left the headlights on. As such, the battery was significantly drained; there was no chance of this thing starting under its own power. I tried to open the door to turn the lights off, but found it locked tight. Figuring it was probably too late to matter anyway, I talked to the estimator and finished submitting my truck's work order, then went back inside to call operations back. I got the same person as before, and he'd finished setting everything up; I was told to just pick up a key from the fuel desk.

Of course, not even that worked out; they had keys for perhaps fifteen trucks, but not the one I needed. However, the loaner was written up for repairs, so I had to walk back to the shop once again and find out what was going on. Turns out that it was written up for a jump start. Why they didn't just turn the lights off or jump it right away is beyond me, since it takes a few minutes to actually put a work order in the computer. But the shop didn't have the key either. They sent me back to the fuel desk once again so I could have a new key made from scratch.

A few more minutes of walking, and I had the key to get into the truck. I opened it, found that the other keys were simply left in the ignition, and that the voltmeter read a mere 11.7; the truck needs at least 12 to even have a chance of starting under its own power. I went to the shop once more and they sent someone out to give it a jump start. It took just a few minutes, though they suggested I let it idle for at least two hours so the batteries could recharge. That's running now.

Before I go to bed tonight, I have to still park my truck in the maintenance row, take the loaner and hook it up to my load, and ensure that I have a copy of the work assignment sent to the loaner truck so I can tell operations when I've arrived and departed the consignee for the load. Though the shop claims they'll have the work on my tractor done by 10 AM, I saw that they have at least ten other trucks in front of mine. I'll be surprised if it's even in the shop by that time and completely shocked if the repairs are completed before I get back to the OC. It's all a matter of time, though, and above all, I just hope I have enough time to get a decent night's sleep.