End of this line

While I'll likely write a much longer post on this later today or tomorrow, the short version is this: Thanks to a complaint from one store that falls somewhere between exaggeration and fabrication, I no longer am welcome at that store and, therefore, no longer eligible to run the account I've been on for the last six months. I intend on sending a complaint of my own to corporate to try set the record straight and appealing it to the two people within my own company who are capable of overturning that decision, but it's extremely unlikely that it's going to go anywhere. Unless something miraculous happens, effective Friday I'm off the account.

I've been "offered" a chance to transfer to regional or over-the-road, but neither of those is a very appealing option. Under regional services I'd likely take a pay cut and be home only weekly, plus would give up any certainty at all to my schedule and might not even be home on weekends consistently; my days off could fall mid-week when there's nothing to do and nobody to do it with. Over-the-road would be even more depressing: home no more than every other weekend. And of course, both of those options would leave me dealing with random people on the phone and all the problems that come up when dealing with an ever-changing mix of contacts within and without the company.

Given that this is all coming about because of a complaint that isn't even truthful, I'm seriously reconsidering dealing with the company at all. If someone can just make something up and create this much drama, I have little reason to believe that it wouldn't happen again even if I somehow dodge this bullet.

Hard Brakes

No, that isn't a typo. It's what might get me fired, though.

According to our company policy, decelerating at least 9 mph in one second counts as a hard braking incident. Three within thirty days is termination. I've had one of those weeks where I racked up three of those incidents just since Tuesday. Allow me to recap:

1. Tuesday afternoon, while on US 31 just south of Kokomo, the semi in front of me stomped on his brakes hard enough that they immediately started smoking. I had little choice but to do the same, despite maintaining an adequate following distance. The reason for the braking? Far as I could tell, a cop pulled someone over into the median and said person pulled into traffic without looking, nearly causing a six-vehicle pile up. There was a guy towing a small recreational trailer at a 60 degree angle to the road everyone came to a full stop. Of course, the cop didn't do anything about it.
2. Friday morning, on US 31 in Carmel. The road conditions were improving as I went south and I know that 31 is a top priority through that area. I was accelerating from 45 to 55 as the speed limit increased. There's a stop light at the end of a wide, sweeping curve in the road. The light changed to yellow; I hit the brakes and started sliding on the only patch of ice they missed. I had to get off the brakes, correct my trajectory, then decelerate. Somewhere during that I triggered the fault. I stopped right on the line, though.
3. Today, about 4 PM, on I-70/65 in downtown Indianapolis. I was in the middle lane trying to pass two people doing 25. One of those people - without signalling - moved into my lane. I pressed the brakes and started to skid. The speedometer dropped sharply from 40 to 25; the hard braking alert went off once again. I am almost certain that my actual speed went from 40 to 30 over several seconds, not near-instantaneously. But, as far as the computer is concerned, I somehow screwed up again.

Except for perhaps the second incident - in which I might have been travelling slightly too fast - I don't see anything but quick reactions in defensive driving situations. Had I not done what I did, I would have blown through a light, rear ended someone else, or worse. Trying to keep other people safe by reacting quickly and decisively, apparently, is very likely to get me fired when the account manager sees all this data Monday morning.

I'm worried sick about this right now. It doesn't help that the trailer I'm trying to pick up has frozen brakes - hence why I had time to write out this blog post - which gives them yet another reason to fire me: for being unable to deliver a load on time. When I called the manager to explain the problem, he seemed angry that I'd even considered trying to get Monday's load early to ensure we wouldn't be screwed on time for Tuesday's run. I've been waiting over an hour for a wrecker service to come out here and try get me out of this quagmire, but they still haven't contacted me or the breakdown department. There's now no way at all I can do anything about this and yet, if I don't somehow do at all myself, I'm done.

We'll see, I suppose. Eventually.

A few notes on "attitude"

While I lack the time to write a full blog post on the matter, suffice to say that I had a confrontation with the account manager again today. Among other unprofessional comments he made, he said he didn't like my attitude yet could only point to one incident in which my attitude was remotely a factor. Also, because I didn't magically figure out what the facility's policies were, heading to the guard shack "cast a really guilty light on [my] behavior" because I didn't know that the loss prevention people wanted to look at my truck in the back of the warehouse and not on the way out. That last comment is - in my opinion - an inexcusable and baseless accusation.

While I'm not going to pretend that I have a cheerful disposition, I don't give any guff to our customers and I get my job done. I'll complain about extra work from time to time and try to reason my way into trading off extra stuff now for a break later, but I'll get the job done even as I'm complaining about it. If he wants to complain about my attitude again I'm going to simply tell him to put his complaints in writing while I do the same, then we'll both submit our grievances to the higher ups in the company. While I'm sure they'll kiss his ass before they even read anything I write solely because he's been there for 20 years and I've only had three years experience, I do want it documented that this guy cares more about his ego and goes on power trips on a regular basis. His attitude is no better than mine. And if I somehow end up losing my spot on the account or with the company over my "attitude" when he can't back up his complaints, I hope that they have the sense to see he needs to lose his position as well.

Second thoughts about dedicated

I wish I could say things were going well with the new account, but they're generally not. The times I've not gotten standby have generally become intolerable. Last week I had to cover a load for someone who ran out of hours, thus forcing me to cancel plans for the evening. On Tuesday I was given a run that was so long I couldn't get back in time, forcing me to sleep in the truck in 95° heat; I didn't get home until almost 6 AM this morning and was so tired I had to go straight back to bed. I was trying to make plans for the evening and my plans for yesterday had been canceled due to work, only to get a call saying that I was being forced to cover yet another run, this time on top of the route I'd already been assigned for the night. They expected me to get on the road no later than 10 PM (not counting time to drive there, which means I'd be leaving home before 9), even after I told them I had made plans for the evening that would have me out until at least 10:30 and that I'd expected time to - you know - sleep before starting another nine-hour shift.

At this point it's seriously tempting to go back to running system, in which I'm going everywhere all the time and only get home every other week. At least there they didn't pretend to care.

First two days on the new account

After two days on the new account, I can come to a couple of conclusions: it's going to be an improvement over working system by a very wide margin and that I'm likely to be quite tired after a long day's work. I've learned how to handle the new equipment fairly quickly; I'm still fairly slow getting things done but at least I can do them. I also had a first glimpse at the new routes that I might be on starting the second week of June. The new routes have tentatively been moved back to a Monday through Friday schedule (though the "Friday" routes all return early Saturday morning), though they're still awaiting final approval from higher ups. Each route has three trips per week, two of which are guaranteed to take me two days to complete, so I'll be out at least two nights a week. Since the places I'm delivering are only open 8 AM to 5 PM, I'll be able to get plenty of rest on the nights I have to sleep in the truck. Ironically, I might get more sleep during a run than between trips.

So far, aside from the rather hectic sleep schedule I've been on due to erratic routing and trying to cover holiday deliveries, I haven't found any real downside to this account compared to running as a system driver. The trip on Thursday was definitely illegal - we started at 5 AM and didn't get back until 4 AM - but the driver who is showing me what to do let me sleep most of the day so I didn't doze off on the drive home. Unloading the trailer at each stop has taken anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, as the amount of freight varies from just three items to about eight, plus one to six things that need to go onto the truck and returned to the shipper. The routes between customers vary rather considerably, but it seems a majority of them will require me to stick to back roads for the trip. The distance between stops is usually under 100 miles, but the trip to the first stop and return trip at the end of the route are both considerably longer. It's nothing I can't handle, though I may need a couple weeks to get the schedule hammered out.

I have Monday off due to Memorial Day, so my next day of work is Tuesday. The driver wants to start around 6 AM and estimates that we'll be back relatively early, around 4:30 PM. Thursday's run is the long one as it's the only one on this route that normally requires a layover. If we team-drive as we did this past week, we should be back before midnight, leaving Friday as an additional day off. Thus, on Friday, we might be able to take the guy's truck in for air-conditioning repairs and do a training course for the new in-truck computers that I'll likely have to deal with in the near future. That's all ff in the future, now; for the moment I just want to enjoy a three-day weekend.

Day two of dedicated

Today was a somewhat more strenuous day than yesterday. While I had almost two hours less of driving, the unload took almost two hours longer given the way that it was set up. My arms are still sore from all that extra work. I'm also rather tired from having to get up around midnight for a second day in a row; I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever truly get used to it. Being home before noon was a nice perk though.

I also got some news regarding the account that I'll be working on most of the time: I start training for that account tomorrow. At 5 AM I'm supposed to meet another driver at that facility; I'll be working with him for about a week and a half to learn the new equipment and other quirks and perks of the account. I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but I hope the guy I'll be working with is a decent person. I'm not exactly looking forward to being cooped up in a truck with someone I don't know, even if it only for a few hours a day. But I'll have more information on that after it happens I suppose.

Further details on the dedicated account

I had a meeting with the account manager today. It went quite well, so I'm hugely relieved in that regard. The discussion today answered all the questions I could think of, plus I finally checked out the truck that I'll be using for now. Some of the news was great, some of it was less-than-thrilling, but overall I'm still going to be in a much more stable work environment and making considerably more than I was pulling in over the road. I also received my first work assignment for the account, one that will require me to drive about 160 miles before 6 AM tomorrow.

Now, allow me to address some of the questions that people have asked me since I posted the previous entry.

1. What is a dedicated account? It's an account on which I'll be consistently pulling freight for the same customer. I still work for Schneider; I'm just consistently taking loads for one company instead of anyone with a box full of stuff. Usually dedicated accounts come with higher pay, better mileage, more consistent routes, and/or additional home time.
2. Who am I pulling things for? I can't answer that publicly. If you know me personally, though, shoot me a message and I'll discuss it.
3. What sort of work schedule will I have? This week is somewhat uncertain, as I'm still technically in training for the account. After that, however, I'll actually have a fixed route each week. I'll be making the same trips to the same places week in and week out. I won't be home every night, as I originally thought, but I will be home two nights a week and have a consistent two-and-a-half day weekend. That weekend may or may not be Saturday and Sunday though; I might end up with Tuesday and Wednesday or some other combination.

If anyone else can think of a relevant question, just poke me about it and I'll update this entry.

Dedicated Account Acquired

As I was trying to resume work, I also put my name in for a couple of dedicated accounts. Apparently I've accrued some good karma somewhere, because last Thursday morning I got a call about one of those applications. Fast forward to this week, and on Thursday I was able to talk with everyone that needed to sign off on the transfer... which actually went through pretty quickly. Friday, I actually talked with the account manager and found out some more of the specifics about the run. I'll actually be earning a fixed salary on this run, making as much as I did while over the road, and get home every day and have weekends off. There are a couple of downsides: I'd have a roughly 30-minute commute each way, my shifts would likely start between 1 and 5 AM, and I have to use a pallet jack to unload the trailer myself. Still, this will allow me to enjoy most of the social functions in the area, while still maintaining a job as a driver and getting to see the country. This is really about as good as it could have gotten for me.

I start training for the new position tomorrow and it's supposed to last a week. I'll likely have further updates tomorrow.

Return to work this Wednesday?

After an almost embarrassingly long leave of absence, I finally have a return to work form filled out by a new doctor. I have a driving test scheduled for late Wednesday morning and, if that goes well, I could conceivably resume work Wednesday afternoon or early Thursday morning. I haven't gotten any new information or leads on any local, regional, or dedicated work, nor have I anything new to write about with regards to a possible office job. Perhaps next Monday I will find something new out.

Indianapolis, IN - Still waiting on occupational health

That title is right: I'm still waiting to return to work. Occupational health apparently "hasn't reviewed the paperwork yet" and thus I'm not cleared to resume driving. I faxed it in Wednesday afternoon - admittedly, I probably should have done it Monday - but there really isn't that much information that needs to be reviewed. The paperwork in question, relating to the FMLA and the company's own return to work form, is quite formulaic and the doctor filled out everything in as much detail as could reasonably be expected. I can't fathom a reason why it would take them more than a day to go through it, considering how few drivers are likely out on medical leave at any given time. In any event, this means I'm still out of work for the weekend and the next update I'll get on my status will be Monday.

Indianapolis, IN - Out for a week?

I sprained my shoulder this past Wednesday night. At the time, I was on a "critical" run going to western Ohio, with the understanding that I'd be sent home for the weekend after its delivery. Instead, I went to the ER, was checked out, and told to follow up with my normal doctor as soon as possible. Thursday, I had to talk to occupational health and the safety department to ensure them that I was in a condition good enough to drive home. I did, though the safety department insisted that I not come back to work until I've had the doctor ensure that it wasn't going to become a long-term, chronic issue. I was ultimately given a run picking up from a northwest suburb of Chicago and dropping off at a place 50 miles south of Indy so I could go home after I delivered it. That work assignment arrived at the truck around 5 PM.

Due to my assigned empty trailer being misplaced, it took me almost 45 minutes to find the thing. I knew it was going to be late for the pick up at this point and ops was already aware that I was likely to miss it, so I decided to get a quick bite to go from the cafeteria. I was inside about twenty minutes (from 5:50 to 6:10) and, when I returned to the truck, saw a message saying I'd been pulled to cover a more critical run and had a new assignment going to Bowling Green, KY for delivery at 10:30 AM Friday morning. That, in short, wasn't going to work; I was being sent home directly for medical reasons and had other obligations for Friday night already. I called support shift to explain to them why I had been assigned my previous run and why I was not, under any circumstances, going to Kentucky. The subhuman creature on the other end of the phone insisted that I could be sent straight back to Indianapolis and claimed to speak with people who had left the office more than an hour ago. I, in turn, called her everything short of a compulsive liar and repeated myself for a total of about 35 minutes until I was finally put back on my previous load and told to follow up with my board in the morning.

The shipper really didn't seem to mind that I was running late when I arrived an hour after that, around 8:15 central time. I was loaded in about an hour and drove nonstop to my delivery. A quick drop later, I was headed back north to Indianapolis. I arrived there at somewhere around three or four in the morning. I went to sleep, woke up, and found a primary care doctor who could get me into her office Tuesday morning. I sent that information off to ops via Qualcomm, sent the various other messages that have to be sent before I go home, and went on my way.

Yesterday, the doctor's appointment went reasonably well. I did, however, get a prescription for something that lists drowsiness and dizziness as potential side effects, which disqualifies me from driving until I've finished the course of medication on Monday. I called into work around 1:30 PM Eastern to tell them that; the guy I spoke with seemed unhappy that I had to be taken off a load and such but was reasonably understanding about it. I offered to fax a copy of the doctor's note if they wanted any sort of documentation about it but he said that wasn't necessary.

Today I decided to go to the truck and get the rest of my clothing out of it, plus a few other things... only to find out that my truck wasn't there. I know I hadn't written it up for maintenance so I knew that wasn't where it was. So I went inside to the fuel desk, asked where it was, and found out that it was in Kentucky and heading south. Uh. So I tried calling operations to complain about the situation, but they turned the phones off at 3 PM Central instead of 4 like they're supposed to; I called at 4:09 PM eastern and was directed to support shift. It turns out that my stuff was thrown (yes, thrown) into bags by someone else and I was basically told to take those and leave. Someone claimed they called me this morning to give me the chance to do it myself, but this was a single phone call from an unlisted, unrecognized number at 10:53 AM. The time stamp on the paperwork attached to my bags was from around 11:30. Even if I had answered the phone, 30 minutes would not have been adequate time to get up there and do anything, especially with an injured shoulder.

Some people have already decided to speculate that I've been fired but, so far as I know, that is not the case. The company policy is that, if a driver is out of work more than five days, the driver is supposed to clean out the truck so it can be reassigned. I was not, however, informed at any time that said policy would be invoked over my present medical leave, and I intend on filing a grievance over the situation as soon as I can find out where it needs to be directed. Assuming the medication I'm on works I'll be able to resume work Monday morning. If not I will be out on an even longer absence due to MRIs and things of that nature. As a result of a potentially extended absence this blog will probably not be updated much for the foreseeable future.

Chester, PA - Night shift into neutral

The last few days have gone remarkably well with work, which is why I haven't had anything to write about. It's far more interesting writing about conflict than merely saying "everything's wonderful" all the time after all. I've been getting plenty of miles, not had any completely unreasonable work assignments, and so on. I was less than thrilled about being sent to Delaware on a run, but it turned out the route there (US 30 and PA 41) was in better shape than the Pennsylvania turnpike; the roads were almost completely clear of snow and traffic was far less of an issue.

Tonight's about the first time that something hasn't gone so well in the last few nights. I picked up the only empty trailer from the last facility I was at, did a rather thorough pre-trip since it's one of our older trailers, and found nothing wrong. Fast forward an hour, to where I had to open the doors to drop it, and I found a  significant leak in a ceiling crack. I'd shone the flashlight directly upon that and didn't see anything like that, nor was there any water or snow in the back of the trailer; I just got extremely unlucky. apparently, though the guard didn't seem to notice as I drove by with the doors open.

The other part of my current misfortune is that this load won't be ready early. I'd sent a message off saying that I really, really needed them to find out if I could get this early or not since there was essentially nowhere to park between the consignee for the last load and the shipper for this one. I didn't get anything in response, however, not even the usual form message telling me that I need to call in to get approval for it. So I just decided to go for it, fingers crossed, and got unlucky. I was lucky enough to find a parking space on the side of the street, so I'm not going to have to leave, but it does mean that I'm not going to be able to make any progress at all on this run 'til late morning. I might have to make a significant detour to ensure I end up somewhere that will have truck parking at night (probably Indy OC) but that'll be operations problem, not mine. For now, though, I just need to rest up since tomorrow's likely to be another very long day.

Dublin, GA - Smooth sailing

Just to prove that my job doesn't suck all the time, allow me to state for the record that today was one of those rather rare days where everything went swimmingly. I made it to the consignee on time, was unloaded ahead of schedule, then headed to the shipper for my next load. I arrived more than an hour early and they still assigned me a dock, loaded me, and let me get on my way promptly. I scaled out and found I was just barely legal on the first try, drove another two hours, and proceeded to a truck stop that has exactly five parking spaces. Against all odds one of those spaces was open; I claimed it and have been parked here since lunchtime. I've an early afternoon appointment in Savannah, GA for my delivery, so I might have to get a slightly earlier meal than I might otherwise like, but the facility is only 120 miles from here and is located just off a major route so it should be trivial to find. Hopefully this trend of good days of driving will continue.

Charlotte, NC - Coolant leak? THAT coolant leak!

I fully expected to find problems with the coolant again after the issues getting it "fixed" in West Virginia, but I didn't expect the problem to manifest quite so quickly. I checked the coolant before I left for the day and found that it was about an inch above the "minimum" line on the coolant tank. However, when I stopped at a rest area about a hundred miles down the road, the level was just below minimum while the engine was hot. I sent a message to road repair asking for advice; they said I needed to get that to an OC for repairs as soon as possible. Fast forward another hundred miles, when I arrived at the consignee, and the coolant level was noticeably below the minimum.

Going to Charlotte for repair was obviously necessary as there's no way my truck would have made it to my destination in New Jersey or, failing that, to any other operating center we have. Support shift, however, refused to acknowledge that there was a problem with this situation. They knew that I was having mechanical problems with the truck and still put me on a service critical load then refused to take me off it when I told them that my truck wasn't going to make it or when I told them that repairs wouldn't be finished until Monday evening. Instead, they said there weren't any drivers capable of taking that as a relay - claiming that the weather was a factor even though it had stopped snowing two days ago - and demanded that I take a loaner truck up there. After significant complaining about it I told them that I'd only be willing to do that if they found me a load to get me back to Charlotte immediately; they found one and I was pretty much stuck.

The only good news is that the trip to and from New Jersey was, if not uneventful, at least safe. The only significant delays on the road were due to construction in Richmond, VA. The consignee for that load going to Jersey nearly refused to accept my paper, temporary license until I told them that they'd either have to take it or I'd have to tell ops they were refusing the load. When I was trying to get an empty, I spent a few minutes arguing with support shift about whether a trailer was for a dedicated account or not; that argument was settled quickly when the box planners put the thing on me, overriding the decision. Trying to get to the shipper for the next load I made a wrong turn and ended up taking a residential road a couple miles until I made a tight buttonhook turn to return to US 9 and head in the right direction. I picked it up, scaled it out, and drove straight back here without any further stops.

My current load delivers at a place roughly 300 miles away at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so I decided to take a bit of time to eat a decent breakfast for a change. I'll be heading out of here shortly, driving that direction, and parking at a truck stop perhaps ten miles away from the facility. While I'm hoping they'll find me another decent run I don't like my chances; we already have 20 drivers waiting on loads in the area so I may be sitting for several hours.

Beckley, WV - Coolant leak? What coolant leak?

I'd hoped that after yesterday's debacle today would turn out better. Silly me!

The morning started off rather roughly when I tried to back the truck out of the bobtail parking, only to find myself hung up on some ice. After several attempts and a few curses at the steering wheel, one of the snow plow drivers helped me out and extricated the tractor from that mess. I found the loaded trailer, updated my paperwork, then hit the road.

Conditions in Indiana were significantly worse than I expected. The snow had slowed to mere flurries by the time I hit the road, but 15 mph winds were enough to blow things everywhere. As such, the left lane was quite heavily covered in snow and ice while the right was jammed with vehicles doing about 25 in a 70. It was quite hard to even tell where one lane ended and the other lane began but I muddled through to Eaton, OH, where I tried to make a quick stop for breakfast.

The quick stop turned out to be not so quick: what should have taken only twenty minutes ended up taking most of an hour. The off-ramp was temporarily blocked due to an accident. The entrance to the truck stop was alsoblocked by a truck caught on a snow drift. Those two incidents combined to cost me at least a half hour. Once I got into the truck stop I scaled out quickly (and, thankfully, was legal weight on the first try), grabbed some breakfast, then tried to hit the road again. This time the exit was blocked by the line of trucks trying to get around, a situation that took nearly ten minutes to remedy itself. Only then could I get back on the highway.

From there, conditions improved dramatically, particularly once I got on US 35 east of Dayton, OH. I averaged nearly 55 on that leg of the trip and quickly made it to the West Virginia turnpike. Twenty miles down the turnpike, though, the low coolant warning came on and I barely made it onto the "shoulder" - little more than a drainage ditch - before the engine shut off. I took a moment to regain my composure, put out my warning triangles, then opened the hood... only to discover nothing useful at all. That's right: aside from the coolant reservoir being far below the "min" line there was no indivation at all as to where the problem was.

I called breakdown and played the waiting game. They said that, due to the weather, they were severely backed up and that it would probably be an hour before they could even call for a tow truck. As always, they said that they'd call me as soon as they had anything useful to say. Rather than getting a call, though, I was awakened from my nap by a knock on the truck door about an hour and twenty minutes later by someone who claimed to be with the towing company that the breakdown department called. The person got increasingly angry as I insisted that I wanted to call to verify that they were, in fact, the right company. Upon getting confirmation of that, the tow guy made a remark about never doubting a wrecker driver and continued to talk with extreme condescension toward me throughout the effort.

Rather than towing my truck, though, the company just put two gallons of water into the cooling system and told me to drive it to the next exit about two miles away. I was stunned, to say the least; we were paying them to tow the truck after all. The rig made it there without incident, to my pleasant surprise, at which point I unhooked the trailer and bobtailed to the repair facility. The place wasn't in Charleston as I'd been told though; it was in a remote small town about twenty miles from there. I was rather worried as the place did not look like the sort of facility we would normally use. I called breakdown to verify that I was in the right place and shouldn't be afraid of banjo music, just in case.

To keep this already long post from getting even longer: several hours of testing later, including idling the truck at 1,800 RPM for 30 minutes, revealed nothing. The mechanics blamed me for not checking to make sure there was enough coolant in the thing in the first place and sent me on my way. All told I lost a good four hours due to the incident and had to rely on yet another set of convenient rounding errors to keep me from logging a violation.

I'm now going to be almost half a day late on a service critical load and, since the shop couldn't actually find a problem, there's a chance that they'll blame me for failing to deliver it on time. Granted, with the weather being such a wild card, there's a pretty good chance I wouldn't have made it anyway, but there was still that glimmer of hope that I'd have been successful. Oh well, nothing can be done about it now.

Indianapolis, IN - Four hours to go nowhere.

Though the title says it all, allow me to elaborate on just how badly the day went. It started off around 9AM, when I called in to ask if I had a load and, if so, what the details were. I was told that I had a relay to pick up from the Indy OC, delivering 550 miles away by midnight Saturday night. I then asked, as confirmation, if I needed to do anything today or if I could just go back to sleep. I was told no, I could wait, if I felt the weather would be better later. With that settled, I took a nap.

When I woke up four hours later, I found that I had several messages from operations asking me why I wasn't at the shipper and why I missed an 11 AM appointment. I called back in to find out what on earth they were smoking and discovered that, while I was already on the phone, customer service quietly put a load save on me that hadn't shown up at the time. They pressed me on it and - against my better judgment - I ultimately agreed to try take the thing.

The road conditions going up to the operating center were lousy, at best; I was significantly delayed just due to accidents blocking travel lanes. The normally half-hour trip to the OC turned into nearly an hour and a quarter. By the time I'd loaded a few things into the truck (such as my gloves and a couple basic tools) it was almost 3 PM. I was told to pick up a trailer from the OC, then told that the trailer wasn't there after all. I received another trailer number, only to find it in the maintenance line, a month overdue for its annual inspection. Finally I received instructions to go to another facility three miles down the road to get a trailer; I found it and was on the way within fifteen minutes.

As a result of all this, it was already nearly 4 PM by the time I had a trailer. I'd originally been told to try get there at three and had received a warning that the customer was closing early. Because the facility was located in such an awkward area - only the exit from I-70 east could get me there - it took almost 45 minutes just to figure out how to get there. And, of course, the place was already closed up by the time I arrived. There wasn't even a car in the parking lot. I called ops just before 4 PM, sat on hold for ten minutes, then was transferred to support shift for no reason. At least support shift proved helpful; they looked into it and asked me to wait half an hour while they tried to contact the company paying for the load. Half an hour passed and I was told to take the still-empty trailer back to the OC for lack of anything else to do.

I arrived at the OC around 6:30 PM and experienced minimal delay due to the weather on the trip there. I dropped the trailer off and just parked the truck, making no effort to even find the next load. I figured that, having wasted almost five and a half hours on a wild goose chase, the least I was owed was a good night of sleep while the worst of the storm blew over. I certainly hoped that the first load after my vacation would go more smoothly.

Indianapolis, IN - Hang up

Things the last couple of days have gone reasonably well - hence the lack of anything to post about - but something happened shortly after my arrival here at the Indy OC that drove me up the wall. I was assigned another load (yes, more than a day before I'm delivering this one) that has a rather strict time window and required I call in to assure everyone involved I could deliver it on time. After a brief glance, it looks like I can just make the pick up tomorrow and head to the nearby Carlisle, PA operating center to take my break. The problem, however, is that I only have 12:15 left out of my 70 and will likely use all of that up tomorrow trying to get things moved around. I'm picking up 5:30 for Wednesday, of which I'll need about half of that just to get to where I'm delivering, 100 miles away to a small town south of Baltimore. That leaves me - in the absolute best case scenario - just three hours with which to get another load and/or find a legal place to park.

I tried to convey my concerns about this while on the conference call, but neither my DBL nor the person from customer service would even listen to that; they both refused to even consider anything other than the implications of my upcoming assignment. After we had things more or less sorted out on that run, the customer service person thanked me for my time and hung up. I tried then bringing up the concerns I had about the situation to my DBL, but she also hung up before I could even finish a sentence. And, of course, it was exactly 4 o'clock when she hung up; when I tried calling back my call was immediately routed to the night shift, who wouldn't know the situation or have the authority to do anything about it.

About the only thing that I can do at this point is to call in sometime tomorrow, likely before I head to pick the load up at all. I've no intention of even taking the load if they can't assure me that I won't be stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere and forced into taking a 34 hour break at a place without facilities. I've had it happen before; I'm not going to let it happen again. The only other thing I can take some solace in is the simple fact that, in six days, I'll be going on my vacation and transferring to another OC, ensuring I won't have to deal with any of these people in the future.

West Memphis, AR - What the truck?

After the frustrations of dealing with Minnesota and the surrounding states recently, I'm glad I've finally gotten far enough south to see temperatures that are near freezing, as opposed to dealing with things well below zero. Just getting started this morning was a pain in the butt though, as my front-left trailer brakes were stuck. Thankfully the tires just slid on the ice harmlessly before I noticed it. It then took a good twenty minutes of hammering away at the thing to get them to free up before I went on my way. Today's drive was mercifully uneventful. The snow had stopped before I took off late this morning, so I just saw the aftermath, including two semis and lots of cars stuck in the median in Iowa. Road conditions were about what I expected; left lane mostly covered in snow, right lane partially cleared. Once I got out of Iowa things improved somewhat, and by St. Louis the roads were basically dry.

Upon arriving in West Memphis I tried to get those DOT things taken care of. The estimator, though, wanted none of it. He started shouting at me, explaining why he wouldn't write up a repair on the inspection report (the steer horn) and that he refused to even sign my logbook stating that it was not something that needed repair under any circumstances. I called road repair to try get a second opinion, for lack of anyone else to talk to, only to watch the estimator walk out about two minutes later, apologize, and say he'd already written everything up for repair. I'm in the shop now waiting for someone to get started; soon as they get done I'm going to bed and hoping I don't have to withstand someone's temper tomorrow. :p

Update (12:45 AM): Repairs are finally done. The headlight issue took only about five minutes. The horn, however, took three mechanics over an hour to fix. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing as they climbed around trying to figure out why the infernal thing wouldn't work. But they fixed it all, signed off on the repairs, and I'm legal to get moving in the morning.

South St. Paul, MN - Breakdowns

It has been one thing after another the last couple of days. After spending the entire weekend idling at the Iowa 80, I went to pick up a load and noticed that my truck was struggling up hill. That might be normal if I were hauling a heavy load, but I was bobtailing and still had very little power. I sent a message off to operations asking them when I'd be by an OC, hoping that I could get away with running it in that condition... no dice. My load turned out to be 45,000 pounds (not the 15,000 my work assignment listed), condemning me to limping along I-380 at dangerously low speeds. I took some water out of the fuel filter when I stopped to scale the load and the truck ran slightly better for a couple of miles, but it just wasn't enough. I averaged less than 35 mph along the Interstate until I made my next stop.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the truck stop and found they had a shop on site. I called the breakdown line to explain the situation and that I was 99.9% sure I just needed a fuel filter. They said that the existing filter should be on just hand tight and that, even though I had no tools at all to remove it, I should be able to take care of it myself. So I struggled with it while the truck filled up...no dice. I tried buying a filter wrench from the fuel desk, but it was too small. So I called breakdown again... turns out they'd closed out the work order, for some obnoxious reason, so I had to explain everything in exacting detail once again to a female who was quite condescending about it. They refused to deal with the shop on site, for reasons that were never elaborated upon; I had to wait almost 45 minutes for a road service guy to come out. The only solace I had was that, even with a filter wrench, he struggled to get the old filter off. So who hand-tightened the filter, Donkey Kong? Once they put the new filter on, the rest of the evening passed without further incident. I dropped my load, found parking, and took my break.

My current load has not been any better though. It started off easily enough, but things started going downhill very quickly once I crossed into Minnesota on I-94. I was pulled into the scale and given a level two DOT Inspection, which consists of walking around the truck and checking for anything immediately obvious. The headlight short became an issue, as did my non-functioning city horn (which I'd been told the shop doesn't fix, ever). The biggest pain in the butt, though, was that one of my trailer tires had gone flat. The officer "did me a favor" by only marking it down as underinflated, which isn't an out of service violation and doesn't immediately result in a fine, but he also insisted that I put air in that or get it replaced before I made this delivery.

I needed to make a fuel stop here in South St. Paul. While the truck stop didn't have an air hose, the Peterbilt dealership just across the street did and they directed me to pull up to a door so they could air up the tire. While trying to turn around, though, I heard a pop and a loud hissing noise, followed quickly by my trailer brakes locking up and groaning in protest as I tried to move the thing. At this point I knew I was pretty much fucked, so I called the breakdown line once again. I pointed out that I was already at a place that does repairs, but once again they wouldn't let me get it fixed at the obvious place. At least they provided a reason this time: the shop was swamped and they wouldn't get to me for at least three to four hours. However, since I could unhook from the trailer, I could take it to another shop where they could get it fixed. I bobtailed eight miles down the road, got both air lines replaced, and returned to grab my trailer.

Since it was pretty obvious I couldn't get the trailer around to where I had to get air - and with that violation looming over all this - I called breakdown once more to ask about getting the offending tire replaced. I could see the big, blue Goodyear sign glowing off in the distance and was "lucky" enough that they do commercial tire replacements. They're only open during bankers' hours, though, so I'm still waiting for a technician to get here for an after-hours call. I was told that it'd be only an hour - as opposed to two to three for a road call - but that still leaves me way behind on this run.

While originally I was going to just barely make on time delivery for this run, I'll now be fortunate if I'm only four hours late. Customer service is freaking out, even though none of this is my fault; the load's a service critical, just-in-time delivery that could leave the consignee unable to do business if I can't get it there on time. They've advised me to call in once I park for the night to see about setting up a relay. It's not a good situation for anyone, since it'd leave the driver picking up the load very few miles (I'll be within 50 of the consignee) and there's probably little freight around here to get me moving again tomorrow. But there's absolutely nothing anybody can do with this load until the trailer gets fixed.

Walcott, IA - Six below

It seems like this is becoming a trend: I end up stuck in Iowa during a period where the temperature drops to -5°F or colder. This time, though, I'm parked at the Iowa 80 truck stop for the weekend. Apparently every shipper we work with between Des Moines and Chicago has closed for the weekend, as there are a grand total of four loads in the entire region until Monday. I was "lucky" enough to get one of those: a load picking up anytime after 9 PM Sunday and going 250 miles due north into western Wisconsin. I just have to get it there sometime on the fourth, so I may just wait until the following morning to fetch it. Beyond that, there's really no telling what I'll be doing next, but I definitely need to get the truck by a shop to get it looked at.

The hardest part about getting here to Iowa was simply leaving Indianapolis. I'd taken a 34 hour break there for New Year's, then tried starting the truck after having it parked for a day and a half. It was very slow to crank, though it caught after turning over twice. That's about when things started to go badly. A large plume of white smoke came up the stack. The cab started shaking, which got even worse as time progressed. Ultimately I turned the engine off for fear that something was going to shake itself loose and I'd be stuck. I waited about half an hour before trying again, during which time I looked under the hood for anything out of the ordinary, but found nothing: all the fluids were normal and there was no visible damage to components.

I tried starting the truck a second time, which worked... for about half a minute. It then died out completely. With the third attempt, I got nothing. It would almost start, but then fall back to just being turned over by the starter. At this point the battery was down to only 11.7 volts, well below the normal 12.2 volt cutoff, as something is slowly draining power from the batteries while my rig is parked. I walked to the shop, explained the situation; they sent someone over expecting to change the fuel filter and/or give the rig a jump start. Before anything, though, the guy sprayed ether into intake, which was enough to help the engine start up. The first time it died out after about twenty seconds, but the second attempt was successful, as long as I kept my foot to the floor. Another problem then arose though: the check engine light suddenly came on and the engine refused to rev past 1400, far below the normal limit of 1800. Due to a problem with the replaced brake switch, we had no way of reading the long diagnostic code, but shutting the engine off let us read a blinking light code: vehicle speed sensor fault. Neither I nor the mechanic could figure out why the vehicle speed sensor would have anything to do with the engine speed though; he suggested I go through express bay and hope that a fuel filter fixed the problem.

During all this, I called operations several times to explain what was going on and look for a solution. They had lined up a loaner truck for me, as there was no time to find someone to relay the load I had (it was due for delivery 375 miles away in nine hours). I'd left the truck idling during all this; the temperature was finally up to around 140 and the voltmeter had reached the usual 14 volts. So I shut the truck off to tell the shop estimator what we'd decided to do and make sure the loaner truck I'd been assigned was ready to go. Everything checked out, so I went back to my cab, started it up.. and everything worked. The check engine light went out. I could rev the thing to 1800. The speedometer - which previously failed to work due to that sensor fault - was reading corectly. I once again went inside and told the mechanic what happened; he hypothesized that the sensor was acting up because there wasn't enough voltage going to it when the truck started up.

Net result of all this? I delivered that load before I came here to the Iowa 80. I'm supposed to go through an OC - most likely Gary - to get this looked at as soon as practical, but the load I'm hauling next doesn't take me anywhere near a shop. The mechanics advised me to keep the engine running if I'm parked for anything more than a ten hour break, just to ensure the voltage doesn't drop off again, but in this cold I have to keep the engine on just to keep fluids from freezing up. If I weren't worried about having the thing break down on the road due to the combination of faults, I'd just leave everything until I go for vacation in two weeks. Having a break down before that trip, though, would be a disaster.

Indianapolis, IN - Four long days

The days since I returned to work after Christmas have been so busy that I've not had the chance to do any blogging. In short, I had 45 hours logged in four days, going all over the darn place, and culminating in my arrival in Indianapolis at 1 AM on New Year's Eve. Among other misadventures I had to deliberately break something on a trailer to get it legal, made deliveries on such short notice that even ops was surprised I saved the load, relayed things with absurd time requirements, had various minor repairs done, and did almost nothing but work, eat, and sleep.

As for it being 2010, all I'll say is that I'm not going to miss 2009.