The weekend was a bit of a mess, to say the least, but ultimately I just parked in Edwardsville, IL to do laundry and just relax for about half a day. I left there fairly late yesterday afternoon, stopped in Joplin, MO for the night, and left about three hours ago to make it down here for my delivery appointment. They're unloading me now, but once I'm out of here I get to head to Muskogee to pick up my next load and head in the general direction of home. It'll put me in northern Mississippi, about half a day's drive from the place I usually park the truck, so it's conceivable I'll actually get home a day early for a change. Of course that's entirely speculative until I actually get my next work assignment, though I have talked to operations and asked them to get back to me with a plan soon as they can.
I also talked them into reimbursing me for a motel room while the truck was in the shop, fixing a few runs so I get paid for 150 miles worth of extra running around their screw ups caused me to do, and have a vague plan in place to get some personal things done by the end of the year. All of this means that things might at least be slightly less screwed up in the long run and I'm getting reimbursed for the things that go wrong in the short run. Not a bad morning.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Too many palletsW
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Columbus, OH - The who with the where now?
Things have gotten rather interesting with regard to this next load. I started off painfully early this morning (2:30 AM), made a fuel stop, and arrived at the consignee for the previous load about half an hour early. Good thing, too, since it took three attempts to get a valid delivery number, which was erroneously listed as a bill of lading number. You'd think that customer service could at least keep track of what number is good for what. Once out of there, I had another load, this time going to Delaware. There were a few problems with being assigned this, namely that I probably don't have enough hours to go all the way out there in two days (I'd have about 10 on my 70) and I was promised that I'd be kept off the east coast. I was told to pick it up while they looked for alternatives, such as a relay.
So I dropped my now-empty trailer, got the paperwork, found the loaded trailer... and found it to be missing its PM sticker. I called road repair and was told that it was overdue for a PM and that it needed to be done before the load could head toward its destination. So I called ops to tell them what was going on (and to reiterate that we really needed to relay the load) and went to the OC. Upon arriving, I parked the truck and trailer, went into the shop, and found out that the trailer had a PM done back in April; nobody had bothered to update it until now. So I was given the PM sticker, called ops to update it, and was told to just drop the load as a relay to ensure that I didn't get totally screwed over on time.
After taking care of all that, I told ops that I'm interested in taking a 34-hour restart in either Indianapolis or Seville, OH; there aren't even shower facilities here at the Columbus OC so staying here is definitely not an option that I'd like to be stuck with. However, another phone call has revealed that there's no freight that would get me to another operating center and, with my 14 dwindling down, it's looking increasingly unlikely that I'll get something that would get me to an OC. There's still an outside shot of making it to Indianapolis, if something comes up in the next half hour or so, but beyond that I'd have to get either really creative with my logbook or just concede defeat and stay parked here in Columbus for the next two days. I should have a final answer within the next half hour.
So I dropped my now-empty trailer, got the paperwork, found the loaded trailer... and found it to be missing its PM sticker. I called road repair and was told that it was overdue for a PM and that it needed to be done before the load could head toward its destination. So I called ops to tell them what was going on (and to reiterate that we really needed to relay the load) and went to the OC. Upon arriving, I parked the truck and trailer, went into the shop, and found out that the trailer had a PM done back in April; nobody had bothered to update it until now. So I was given the PM sticker, called ops to update it, and was told to just drop the load as a relay to ensure that I didn't get totally screwed over on time.
After taking care of all that, I told ops that I'm interested in taking a 34-hour restart in either Indianapolis or Seville, OH; there aren't even shower facilities here at the Columbus OC so staying here is definitely not an option that I'd like to be stuck with. However, another phone call has revealed that there's no freight that would get me to another operating center and, with my 14 dwindling down, it's looking increasingly unlikely that I'll get something that would get me to an OC. There's still an outside shot of making it to Indianapolis, if something comes up in the next half hour or so, but beyond that I'd have to get either really creative with my logbook or just concede defeat and stay parked here in Columbus for the next two days. I should have a final answer within the next half hour.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Binghamton, NY - A shade of sanity
Another day of madness, but at least I can say with relatively high confidence that things should settle down a bit, at least for tomorrow. I woke up early, grabbed an empty, went to my first pick up stop... only to find out that they didn't have shipping labels for UPS. After about 45 minutes of phone calls and such, the decision was made that I should make what originally was the second stop first, then backtrack, which added about 80 miles of driving around Boston. The second stop was simple enough, though finding it was not: I had to improvise my own route to get there and my choices ended up involving a few 13'6" high overpasses and left me parked quite illegally on a state route as I tried to figure out where the truck entrance was (in the back, down an alley marked clearly "no trucks").
Once loaded I headed back to the first place, got my load there in about an hour, and started making time. A quick food stop and a fuel stop were all I did along the way and I arrived here having exhausted my 14 hours for the day and my 70 hours for the last eight days. Tomorrow leaves me with just six hours available, of which half an hour will be consumed by a pre-trip; I'm still going to try cram over 300 miles in the remaining time so I can make it into Ohio. My delivery is pretty much a non-issue unless I severely oversleep or have some other unforseeable issue arise, since I'll be picking up plenty of hours and only need to go 200 miles to the warehouse. This means I actually can sleep in 'til 4 AM, instead of having to get up at three or earlier, and should be able to get to bed at a reasonable hour instead of having to try sleep in the middle of the afternoon. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Once loaded I headed back to the first place, got my load there in about an hour, and started making time. A quick food stop and a fuel stop were all I did along the way and I arrived here having exhausted my 14 hours for the day and my 70 hours for the last eight days. Tomorrow leaves me with just six hours available, of which half an hour will be consumed by a pre-trip; I'm still going to try cram over 300 miles in the remaining time so I can make it into Ohio. My delivery is pretty much a non-issue unless I severely oversleep or have some other unforseeable issue arise, since I'll be picking up plenty of hours and only need to go 200 miles to the warehouse. This means I actually can sleep in 'til 4 AM, instead of having to get up at three or earlier, and should be able to get to bed at a reasonable hour instead of having to try sleep in the middle of the afternoon. Hopefully that trend will continue.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Westborough, MA - I drove all night
Hoo boy. Sometimes so many things get screwed up in such a short period of time that I'm not even sure where to begin a post like this! My last work assignment looked pretty darned good at first glance: pick up something by 10 PM and deliver it by 2 AM Monday. Things fell apart pretty quickly once I got to the customer at 11 AM though; they told me to go away because I was too early and that the load would not be ready until at least 4 PM. Given the hours of service rules involved, 4 PM just wasn't going to work well, since I'd have to find parking almost immediately after picking it up, then drive 560 miles in one shot, drop the trailer off, and somehow find parking near Boston in the evening. So I called in and tried to get things changed.
Operations, however, didn't want to budge on any of it. The first person I talked to insisted that I have enough hours and, therefore, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to pick up the load and deliver it on time. Never mind the fact that I'd have had to go to sleep immediately and get moving immediately after ten hours. I tried explaining that but he wouldn't listen at all, though he begrudgingly said he'd work on it. On my way to find parking, I got a message saying that the pick up deadline was moved back to 10:30 - just a half hour added - and that I had plenty of time to get it done so I should stop complaining. I called in again ,hoping to get someone else who actually understood what the problem was.
Amazingly, the second person did actually get where I was coming from. He looked around for someone else to cover the load, since he recognized my concerns about falling asleep at the wheel to be valid, but it turns out that I was the only available driver within 200 miles with a hazmat endorsement. So much for that endorsement being a requirement to work for the company. He just said get there when I feel like I can safely get there. So I had lunch, tried to sleep, and managed to get two separate three-hour naps in. I felt pretty decent when I woke up the second time around 9 PM, so I just decided to go run with it anyway.
Pretty much everything went smoothly with regard to picking up the load and driving it to my destination near Boston. It was lighter than expected so I didn't have to scale it out, traffic was a complete non-issue since I was driving at night, all the weigh stations were closed... as such, I arrived up here about an hour ahead of schedule. Good thing, too, because it all went sideways after I got off the freeway. I made a wrong turn due to incredibly confusing signs. Twice. This is a big problem in a semi. The first time I nervously crawled the truck down a residential road to get back onto the main highway, clearing power lines by terrifyingly slim margins, but managed to get it turned around. The second I had to back up a couple feet to make an ambiguously labeled turn, complete with a posted twelve-ton weight limit. Why a trucking facility is behind such a slim limit is beyond me, as the tractor alone weighs nearly that much.
Upon arriving at the consignee, I looked around for someone to sign the bills so I could be rid of the thing, but apparently everyone was home for the weekend. There was a toll-free number to call in that event though, so I called in the load information, got permission to drop the trailer, left the paperwork on the box, and took a look at my next load.
The next load I have is a ... well, I don't have a family-friendly word I can use to describe it. I have to pick up an empty trailer from a drop yard and stop at two separate places near Boston tomorrow morning, then try to head to New York state to get my third pickup by noon Tuesday and make it to Columbus Wednesday morning. This wouldn't be so hard if my 70 hours were nearly up; I have only nine hours for tomorrow and just six rolling off the day after that. As such, I might only be able to get halfway to the third shipper tomorrow, use most of my remaining time getting there Tuesday morning, and have to start obscenely early on Wednesday to make things work out. I don't have things planned out very well, mostly because it all hinges on how much driving time I have left after I pick up the first two-thirds of this load.
Overall, the only good thing is that I have about fifteen hours to try regain my composure and catch up on some sleep. I really wish I were taking a 34-hour restart somewhere instead of being pushed to the limit day after day.
Operations, however, didn't want to budge on any of it. The first person I talked to insisted that I have enough hours and, therefore, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to pick up the load and deliver it on time. Never mind the fact that I'd have had to go to sleep immediately and get moving immediately after ten hours. I tried explaining that but he wouldn't listen at all, though he begrudgingly said he'd work on it. On my way to find parking, I got a message saying that the pick up deadline was moved back to 10:30 - just a half hour added - and that I had plenty of time to get it done so I should stop complaining. I called in again ,hoping to get someone else who actually understood what the problem was.
Amazingly, the second person did actually get where I was coming from. He looked around for someone else to cover the load, since he recognized my concerns about falling asleep at the wheel to be valid, but it turns out that I was the only available driver within 200 miles with a hazmat endorsement. So much for that endorsement being a requirement to work for the company. He just said get there when I feel like I can safely get there. So I had lunch, tried to sleep, and managed to get two separate three-hour naps in. I felt pretty decent when I woke up the second time around 9 PM, so I just decided to go run with it anyway.
Pretty much everything went smoothly with regard to picking up the load and driving it to my destination near Boston. It was lighter than expected so I didn't have to scale it out, traffic was a complete non-issue since I was driving at night, all the weigh stations were closed... as such, I arrived up here about an hour ahead of schedule. Good thing, too, because it all went sideways after I got off the freeway. I made a wrong turn due to incredibly confusing signs. Twice. This is a big problem in a semi. The first time I nervously crawled the truck down a residential road to get back onto the main highway, clearing power lines by terrifyingly slim margins, but managed to get it turned around. The second I had to back up a couple feet to make an ambiguously labeled turn, complete with a posted twelve-ton weight limit. Why a trucking facility is behind such a slim limit is beyond me, as the tractor alone weighs nearly that much.
Upon arriving at the consignee, I looked around for someone to sign the bills so I could be rid of the thing, but apparently everyone was home for the weekend. There was a toll-free number to call in that event though, so I called in the load information, got permission to drop the trailer, left the paperwork on the box, and took a look at my next load.
The next load I have is a ... well, I don't have a family-friendly word I can use to describe it. I have to pick up an empty trailer from a drop yard and stop at two separate places near Boston tomorrow morning, then try to head to New York state to get my third pickup by noon Tuesday and make it to Columbus Wednesday morning. This wouldn't be so hard if my 70 hours were nearly up; I have only nine hours for tomorrow and just six rolling off the day after that. As such, I might only be able to get halfway to the third shipper tomorrow, use most of my remaining time getting there Tuesday morning, and have to start obscenely early on Wednesday to make things work out. I don't have things planned out very well, mostly because it all hinges on how much driving time I have left after I pick up the first two-thirds of this load.
Overall, the only good thing is that I have about fifteen hours to try regain my composure and catch up on some sleep. I really wish I were taking a 34-hour restart somewhere instead of being pushed to the limit day after day.
Friday, August 21, 2009
New Castle, PA - Must I do everything myself?
Another day, another long series of frustrations. At least this time, though, most of them were resolved!
The morning started off with, unsurprisingly, no information at all from operations. I started moving east, stopped for fuel at an operating center, then called in to see if anyone had done anything. This was just after six, so while people were in at first shift, the person I normally talk to hadn't arrived yet. So I continued on - mostly due to his insistence - with the intention of calling in after seven to get the usual guy. I found a rest area, called in, and only then did someone bother calling the consignee. I ended up on hold for an hour, but we eventually did get confirmation that they'd wait up for me and unload me immediately upon arrival. It only took me calling in five times to get them to do it; I could have saved at least an hour by not having to wait on information like that.
I arrived at the customer around 11:30, got unloaded in considerably more time than expected, then started heading through Pittsburgh to get to my next pick up. Just driving there was a disaster; I had two sets of directions and both were illegal so I had to try improvise. It didn't go very well either, as I had to make a few changes to the route and use an exit on the Interstate to get turned around to head the right way. Once I found the industrial park, things didn't get any better, as a train had somehow gotten stuck on the tracks in the middle of the road and they were routing people through the industrial park at random. I had to get turned around twice, including one dubious maneuver through a gravel lot, before I gave up and called the shipper to ask where they were. Perhaps ironically, I was actually directly in front of their building when I called; I drove right past their docks while following the detour the police were enforcing.
The live load also took longer than expected, not least of which due to the fifteen minutes I was lost in the industrial park. So it went from being an outside shot of making delivery before my hours ran out to, quite simply, having no chance in hell of doing it. I called to inform operations of this and was assured I'd have an answer by the end of the day (doesn't that line sound familiar?) so I went to the nearest truck stop to scale the load and park for my break. I had to call again once I got here since I'd never gotten an answer, but this time someone actually had bothered calling the customer the first time and we had the delivery rescheduled for tomorrow morning between 6 and 7 AM. Given that I'm a little over 150 miles away from their warehouse, that means I have to get moving at an obnoxiously early hour; this makes three days in a row that I'll have had to wake up before 4 AM.
I already have my next work assignment, but I don't like it at all; I have to go into the New England states. There's almost never any freight up there, especially on the weekend, and parking is impossible to come by. If I don't have another load lined up by the time I deliver this one, I'm pretty much screwed. But I'll cross that metaphorical bridge when I come to it, as that won't be for at least 36 hours and I have more pressing things to take care of in the meantime.
The morning started off with, unsurprisingly, no information at all from operations. I started moving east, stopped for fuel at an operating center, then called in to see if anyone had done anything. This was just after six, so while people were in at first shift, the person I normally talk to hadn't arrived yet. So I continued on - mostly due to his insistence - with the intention of calling in after seven to get the usual guy. I found a rest area, called in, and only then did someone bother calling the consignee. I ended up on hold for an hour, but we eventually did get confirmation that they'd wait up for me and unload me immediately upon arrival. It only took me calling in five times to get them to do it; I could have saved at least an hour by not having to wait on information like that.
I arrived at the customer around 11:30, got unloaded in considerably more time than expected, then started heading through Pittsburgh to get to my next pick up. Just driving there was a disaster; I had two sets of directions and both were illegal so I had to try improvise. It didn't go very well either, as I had to make a few changes to the route and use an exit on the Interstate to get turned around to head the right way. Once I found the industrial park, things didn't get any better, as a train had somehow gotten stuck on the tracks in the middle of the road and they were routing people through the industrial park at random. I had to get turned around twice, including one dubious maneuver through a gravel lot, before I gave up and called the shipper to ask where they were. Perhaps ironically, I was actually directly in front of their building when I called; I drove right past their docks while following the detour the police were enforcing.
The live load also took longer than expected, not least of which due to the fifteen minutes I was lost in the industrial park. So it went from being an outside shot of making delivery before my hours ran out to, quite simply, having no chance in hell of doing it. I called to inform operations of this and was assured I'd have an answer by the end of the day (doesn't that line sound familiar?) so I went to the nearest truck stop to scale the load and park for my break. I had to call again once I got here since I'd never gotten an answer, but this time someone actually had bothered calling the customer the first time and we had the delivery rescheduled for tomorrow morning between 6 and 7 AM. Given that I'm a little over 150 miles away from their warehouse, that means I have to get moving at an obnoxiously early hour; this makes three days in a row that I'll have had to wake up before 4 AM.
I already have my next work assignment, but I don't like it at all; I have to go into the New England states. There's almost never any freight up there, especially on the weekend, and parking is impossible to come by. If I don't have another load lined up by the time I deliver this one, I'm pretty much screwed. But I'll cross that metaphorical bridge when I come to it, as that won't be for at least 36 hours and I have more pressing things to take care of in the meantime.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Beaverdam, OH - Pumpkin Ping Pong
Things have been quite stressful and I have to get in bed shortly, due to a 3:45 AM alarm clock, but I wanted to write a short update of what happened today. The day started off simply enough: I woke up at 3:45 to get to the consignee on time, stopped for nothing but fuel, and made it with about 45 minutes to spare. Along the way I got my next work assignment. The first red flag was the estimated delivery time; even the trip planning computer didn't see any way I could get there less than half an hour late and this was reflected on the assignment I received. Adding to the confusion was the complete lack of a bill of lading or pickup number.
Along the way to the shipper, as I desperately tried to make up time, I started playing Qualcomm tag with the customer service department. I eventually was let in on a particularly odd piece of information. The load is a "blind" load, in that the shipper is not supposed to know where the load is actually going to. Think about that for just a moment: I'm hauling twenty tons of stuff and we're lying to the company who is paying us to haul it about where it's actually going. If that makes any sense to you whatsoever, then please explain it to me. After thus ruling out every piece of information I'd received about the load, the customer service department finally sent me a PO number, which was all I needed to get the load.
Once I arrived at the shipper, I saw one of our guys trying to pull a trailer out of the building. I figured he was leaving with it, but no, we weren't about to be so lucky. Turns out that this place requires drivers to put an empty trailer in the dock they take their load from. That may sound simple in principle, but it adds a substantial amount of work: we have to drop the empty trailer, grab the loaded trailer and move it out of the way, drop the loaded trailer, pick up the empty and try back it into the dock, drop the empty, get the paperwork from the shipping office, and only then can we grab the loaded trailer and leave. Compounding the issue, there was perhaps 25 feet between the front of the trailers and the cars parked directly opposite the dock doors. Even worse, because of the way things were configured, every other driver who needed to use the facility ended up blocking me in while they did what they needed to do, including two of our own guys. I had to help both of them, but neither one of them would offer any help to me at all, the good for nothing @#*$(@s...
In any event, what should have just been a half-hour drop and hook turned into a two hour ordeal. This made my delivery appointment for 7:30 AM - which looked unlikely enough from the beginning - into a complete physical impossibility. I conveyed this to operations and was told to call back in once I scaled the load and had a firm estimate of when I could deliver the load. So I went about ten miles the other direction since that was the nearest scale (I later discovered, much to my dismay, that there were other scales along the way), ensured that the load was legal, and called back in to operations with a firm estimate of 12 noon. I explained why, sent in the appropriate Qualcomm messages, and was assured that we'd "have an answer by the end of the day" with regard to a changed delivery appointment. So I started driving and... unsurprisingly, never got an answer. Go figure, right?
By the time I shut down for the night, I still hadn't gotten an answer about the delivery appointment. So I called support shift about it and was told that nobody had actually done any work on trying to get the delivery appointment changed. Apparently there wasn't even a note showing up in the system that someone needed to work on it, or anything other than my message saying that I wasn't going to be able to make it until noon. So I was put on hold for two minutes while he checked with customer service and told someone would send me a message when and if anything changes but, unless I hear otherwise, to proceed and try make it there as soon as possible. I plan on stopping somewhere along the way to call and get confirmation of what's going on, since this has gone beyond merely being ridiculous and into behavior I can only describe as malicious.
Regardless of what happens at this point, my alarm is still set for 3:45 and I plan on getting moving unless I'm told otherwise. If they move the delivery back more than a day, I'll ask about relaying the thing in Akron, OH. If they still haven't sent me some sort of confirmation about the new time, I'll be stopping before I make it into Pennsylvania for fuel and asking for verification of things before I get onto the turnpike. I'll be pleasantly surprised to hear anything at all, though.
Along the way to the shipper, as I desperately tried to make up time, I started playing Qualcomm tag with the customer service department. I eventually was let in on a particularly odd piece of information. The load is a "blind" load, in that the shipper is not supposed to know where the load is actually going to. Think about that for just a moment: I'm hauling twenty tons of stuff and we're lying to the company who is paying us to haul it about where it's actually going. If that makes any sense to you whatsoever, then please explain it to me. After thus ruling out every piece of information I'd received about the load, the customer service department finally sent me a PO number, which was all I needed to get the load.
Once I arrived at the shipper, I saw one of our guys trying to pull a trailer out of the building. I figured he was leaving with it, but no, we weren't about to be so lucky. Turns out that this place requires drivers to put an empty trailer in the dock they take their load from. That may sound simple in principle, but it adds a substantial amount of work: we have to drop the empty trailer, grab the loaded trailer and move it out of the way, drop the loaded trailer, pick up the empty and try back it into the dock, drop the empty, get the paperwork from the shipping office, and only then can we grab the loaded trailer and leave. Compounding the issue, there was perhaps 25 feet between the front of the trailers and the cars parked directly opposite the dock doors. Even worse, because of the way things were configured, every other driver who needed to use the facility ended up blocking me in while they did what they needed to do, including two of our own guys. I had to help both of them, but neither one of them would offer any help to me at all, the good for nothing @#*$(@s...
In any event, what should have just been a half-hour drop and hook turned into a two hour ordeal. This made my delivery appointment for 7:30 AM - which looked unlikely enough from the beginning - into a complete physical impossibility. I conveyed this to operations and was told to call back in once I scaled the load and had a firm estimate of when I could deliver the load. So I went about ten miles the other direction since that was the nearest scale (I later discovered, much to my dismay, that there were other scales along the way), ensured that the load was legal, and called back in to operations with a firm estimate of 12 noon. I explained why, sent in the appropriate Qualcomm messages, and was assured that we'd "have an answer by the end of the day" with regard to a changed delivery appointment. So I started driving and... unsurprisingly, never got an answer. Go figure, right?
By the time I shut down for the night, I still hadn't gotten an answer about the delivery appointment. So I called support shift about it and was told that nobody had actually done any work on trying to get the delivery appointment changed. Apparently there wasn't even a note showing up in the system that someone needed to work on it, or anything other than my message saying that I wasn't going to be able to make it until noon. So I was put on hold for two minutes while he checked with customer service and told someone would send me a message when and if anything changes but, unless I hear otherwise, to proceed and try make it there as soon as possible. I plan on stopping somewhere along the way to call and get confirmation of what's going on, since this has gone beyond merely being ridiculous and into behavior I can only describe as malicious.
Regardless of what happens at this point, my alarm is still set for 3:45 and I plan on getting moving unless I'm told otherwise. If they move the delivery back more than a day, I'll ask about relaying the thing in Akron, OH. If they still haven't sent me some sort of confirmation about the new time, I'll be stopping before I make it into Pennsylvania for fuel and asking for verification of things before I get onto the turnpike. I'll be pleasantly surprised to hear anything at all, though.
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