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.