After the way things started Friday morning, I was not expecting anything to go well at all for the next couple of days. I got a work assignment overnight Thursday, but there was some key information missing: specifically, we didn't have in-house (confirmed) directions for any part of my run, nor did we even have an address for the consignee! As such, there was no way for me to get directions; once you ask for any kind of directions, you can't send another message in, even if there are no directions to get. Support shift, as usual, was being completely unhelpful. First I got a message giving me the same incomplete addresses I already had, then I got a message telling me to use the automatic direction messages (the ones I'd already tried), then finally got a message saying I should call if I needed help finding the place. Instead, I decided to wait until first shift came in. As useless as my DBL has been lately, I figured I'd at least have someone to hold responsible when things fell apart.
So, while waiting for the normal crew to come in, I delivered my previous load. I was supposed to get an empty from the facility, but since numerous drivers had come in to pick up empties (a big no-no for that customer), they didn't have any to release. I sent that message in, fought with the trailer tandems (and lost), dropped the trailer, then called in to try and resolve some of the outstanding mess. As expected, my DBL was of little help directly, though he did find a load that needed to be saved. I still needed an empty trailer to swap with the driver I was picking the relay up from, though, and I was sent a message saying to pick one up from yet another place; this one had an invalid address (the street doesn't exist) and no in-house directions either. I was told to call back in half an hour.
Sure enough, when I called back, my DBL was nowhere to be found. The person I talked to was actually helpful, though; we found another facility with empties available and valid directions. I went there, got approval from the guard to grab an empty, then got chewed out by the shipping office for taking one. :p But I was allowed to leave with it anyway, went down a few questionable roads trying to get to the place I was picking the relay up from, swapped trailers, and went on my merry way. The route I needed to take was mostly US highways, which didn't help me make any time, but I arrived at the consignee less than ten minutes before they closed for the weekend.
While the trailer was getting unloaded, I looked at the next assignment I'd received: picking up Saturday at a facility just a few miles away, then delivering in Florida on Tuesday. I was getting unloaded much faster than expected, though, so I called the weekend shift to find out if we could get the appointment moved up. A few minutes on hold later, I was told that the shipper is generally extremely flexible on loads and that it wouldn't be a problem if I went up there after I was unloaded. So I ended up getting to the shipper 22 hours early, told that I "probably" could get loaded tonight... and, amazingly, actually was loaded and ready to leave just two hours later. The weight is extremely far forward - with my tandems all the way up I still have 33,000 on the trailer axles - but it was legal from the beginning.
So I parked at a truck stop, slept, woke up half an hour later than expected, then took two hours convincing myself to actually start driving. It doesn't matter too much, but it does mean I need to make decent time tomorrow, since I don't have a whole lot of time to spare. I'm going to have to leave here sometime around midnight tomorrow night (or Monday morning, if you prefer), which is less than ideal, given that it's too warm to sleep during the day. But if all goes well, I'll be in south Georgia Monday afternoon, then leave around midnight to make my delivery on Tuesday. There's obviously no telling what will happen after that, given that it's still more than two days away, but hopefully they'll either find some decent freight or, at the very least, confirm that there's nothing and let me catch up on sleep.
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