Green Bay, WI - Exercises in futility

Though the facility I spent the night at last night was allegedly open 8 AM to 4 PM, there was still nobody at the shipping office when I rang the bell at eight in the morning. Twenty minutes of ringing and a frustrated call to support shift later, I ultimately wandered through an open door of the warehouse and flagged down somebody manning a printing press; he sent someone to the shipping area to meet me. Unfortunately, the weekend people are just there to man the presses and know absolutely nothing about the shipping and receiving department. After a series of phone calls we found out that I was just picking up a preloaded trailer but the paperwork for said trailer didn't exist. The guy there just made up some stuff, asked me to provide a fax number for the consignee, and sent me on my way.

The trip through the snowy midwest was relatively uneventful. The snow plows in Iowa seemed to focus entirely on the right lane, which led to lengthy lines of cars behind every plow and a precarious mess in the left lane for those trying to pass. I skated by several groups without losing significant speed as I tried to make it to Green Bay as quickly as practical. That went mostly well and I arrived here a good hour earlier than expected. However, the place I'm delivering to is open 24/7 except when they aren't. I went to the gate clearly marked as shipping and receiving, pulled onto the scale... and got nothing at all. Nobody at the receiving department was paying any attention.

Between the mess there and the next load I was assigned - one that I couldn't conceivably deliver on time - I'd had quite enough. I called support shift, told them that I was dropping this load at the Green Bay OC, and called it a night. I'll be chewing out first shift in the morning and telling them that they really need to find some practical way of getting me home soon, because I'm seriously doubting their ability to get me anywhere productive right now. But as nobody who is capable of helping me will be in for another eight and a half hours, that sounds like a good reason to get eight and a half hours rest.

Carroll, IA - Freezing my @#*( off

After getting that air leak fixed in Chicago, I was given a couple of local assignments. First I picked up my load from the OC and delivered that as a live unload, then I received another assignment in Chicagoland. I didn't even get on the Interstate for it; I went straight up one of the state routes to the facility, got the trailer loaded, and started heading toward a logistics yard to drop off the relay. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have even bothered getting on I-55, as traffic was starting to back up around 3 PM. The end result is that it took me over an hour and a half to go just 30 miles. The guy who was bringing in my next load as a relay was even more backed up and didn't arrive until after I'd run out of hours for the day.

Since I couldn't go anywhere last night with the relay, I had to get started around 2 AM this morning. I found the relay trailer quickly enough, but just scaling the load out turned into a significant problem; I had to take a detour to avoid various DOT scales, then came to a Pilot only to find that their scale was out of service. I tried a TA next and discovered that they didn't even have a CAT scale. It was another thirty miles to a Love's that actually had a working CAT scale; I had to pay the $9 out of pocket but found that I was legal weight wise and continued on my way.

Upon arriving at my delivery point, I checked in at the guard house, then proceeded to the receiving office and was told that I was only dropping the load, not waiting on a live unload. Fantastic, I thought, as drop and hook deals are generally much faster. I dropped off the trailer, grabbed the empty I was assigned ... and discovered that I could move it absolutely nowhere. In the process of doing my pre-trip inspection I'd managed to pack the snow down into nothing but ice, making it impossible to move that trailer at all. At the suggestion of the shipping office I unhooked and managed to somehow wiggle my way out from under the trailer. They assigned me another empty; I grabbed it and worried about doing my inspection after I got it off the ice. Everything checked out, so I called ops about a load, but they only said they were working on something.

While I waited to get a work assignment I went and grabbed lunch from a diner. After food I found I had a load that I can't get until tomorrow morning, but it's at a place that allows overnight parking. I had just enough time on my 14 to get there today so I just got behind the wheel and got moving. Finding the place was a challenge, though, as none of the warehouses on this block have street addresses visible and the facility's name on the street doesn't match what was on my work assignment or their voice mail. But I'm in the right place now, there's nobody here in the shipping office, and I'm far enough out of the way that I can't imagine they'll complain about me being here until they officially open at eight in the morning.

Once I get this load, I have the pleasure of going 470 miles to Green Bay, WI. Of that, none of the route is on the Interstate, though portions in Wisconsin have been built up to Interstate standards and much of the route in Iowa is a four-lane divided highway. I'm just hoping that I don't run into any inclement weather and that the roads are clear and dry, as I'd prefer to have enough time to go somewhere else after I deliver the load. In the best-case scenario, I'll have at least two hours to run and can get somewhere south of Milwaukee. At worst, I'll have to shut down early and deliver it Monday instead. Kinda hard to say, though, until I actually get on the road and assess things. 

Gary, IN - Air leaks

Yesterday was a pretty simple day, though it again reaffirmed my dislike for a particular corporation. I drove straight there from Evergreen, pulled up to the gate, told them I was there to drop a trailer... and told that I was not dropping it but instead had to wait on a live unload and that I'd have to go to a facility a good 10 minute drive away to do it. They assured me that it would take fifteen minutes tops; in reality, I wasted over an hour to that crap. While I was being unloaded I called in to ops to find out about another load and got assigned something out of the same facility. So after being unloaded I headed back over them, gave them my information... and once again was told to go somewhere else, to a third warehouse this time. The load wasn't supposed to be ready for me to get live loaded until the next morning, but they'd actually preloaded a trailer and had the paperwork ready. Once that was done, I went to the nearest truck stop and called it a day.

This morning started off early enough; I was on the road before 3 AM and just ran straight through except for a brief stop in Indianapolis to check on a tire. Aside from that, I continued to Gary and arrived here around 12:15 this afternoon. Upon arriving I pulled straight to the shop as the trailer's within its inspection window and I apparently damaged an air line in the dash during my pre-trip inspection yesterday. Rather than writing it up there, they sent me directly over to the express bay, which certainly didn't help my mood; Gary has the slowest "express" shop in the entire company. I was waiting in line almost 45 minutes before they even got me in here, then had to spend several minutes explaining to the tech why an annual inspection sticker that says "due 1/10" means the trailer's within its maintenance window right now.

It's going on 1:30 now and I still am waiting inside the shop for them to finish repairs. After the guy finished the trailer job, he was ready for me to leave until I said my truck's still out of service. They identified the problem quickly enough, but it's going to take an hour to fix it and they're not even going to start working on the thing until they get another truck out of the way first. I still haven't eaten or showered yet today, so I'm really losing my patience for this stuff. At this point I wish they had just written it up so I could get out of the darn truck!

Evergreen, AL - Come hell or high water...

My first day back on the road after a weekend off got off to a particularly rough start. Not because of anything in the truck, mind you, but because it was nigh impossible to even make it to the pumpkin! As a result of major flooding in southern Alabama, I had to go about a hundred miles out of the way to make it here, more than doubling the distance. This led to me being nearly five hours late getting to the truck and left me little time to do anything other than grab an empty trailer and head to pick up my first load.

The trip to the shipper was pretty easy: a straight shot west on US 84. It took roughly 45 minutes to make the trip, leaving me just 45 minutes to spare on the pick up window. Once there, things went incredibly fast. I was in and out of the facility in under twenty minutes. Rather than take back roads through rural Alabama, I decided to just come right back here and call it a day early. I just didn't want to chance running across any other flooding, nor brave unfamiliar roads at night, nor do much of anything on relatively little sleep. Tomorrow's another day after all.

Gary, IN - Inside the winter storm

The weather around here has taken a serious turn for the worst in the last eight hours. This afternoon was quite pleasant, if overcast, with temps in the low 40s. Then a hailstorm rolled through, followed by freezing rain, which has left an inch-deep slush across the entire lot here. My next assignment came across during that time: pick up a load from a place 50 miles west of here and take it down to Indianapolis. If the weather and traffic conditions were more favorable, I could have probably picked that up and either came back here or driven all the way down to Indy. Instead, I'll be trying to leave from here around one in the morning, pick up the load, then drive straight down to deliver it. On top of that, my work assignment says this is a full driver unload; I'll be spending two or more hours manually taking down boxes and rearranging things at this place. Once that's done I have to head over to the Indy OC to get my windshield fixed; they replaced it during my PM, but the thing leaks profusely all over my dash so they'll probably have to redo the whole job. I'm supposed to somehow make it home for the weekend, but I'm starting to doubt that's even possible due to all these unforeseeable delays.

New London, WI - Uncluefulness

While waiting at the consignee for the last load, I received another assignment, this time to pick up a load from here and take it to a place just north of Chicago. It's not due for delivery until Monday, so I asked if they were intending for me to go to Gary for my truck PM. I instead got back a message saying that I was supposed to wait on the load after I got it, deliver it Monday, then go get the maintenance done. That would not only keep me from doing anything useful over the weekend, but it would leave me stuck in Gary for a day or two after that, pretty much guaranteeing that I'd accomplish nothing useful. I asked for confirmation of that, pointing out the lengthy wait if they expected me to follow that plan, but didn't get a reply before I left the facility.

An hour later I arrived here at the shipper, only to find the guard shack unoccupied. They had a snowed-over sign instructing drivers to call security on the CB, which I did... they had no idea where the security guard went, so they had to send someone else out there. Ten minutes later someone showed up, grumbling about the guy who was supposed to be there, and checked me in. I finally made my way to the shipping office to get my load, but there was just one problem. They have no more loads for us tonight as another driver picked up the last of our freight earlier today.

To try and get things sorted out, I called ops. After ten minutes on hold, I got someone, gave them my driver number, and was hung up on after a brief pause. Then I called back, had to wait another five minutes, explained the situation, got put on hold for ten minutes, then was told that the shipper must be the one that made the mistake and that all we really need is a trailer number. They repeated this information despite me pointing out that there's no more loads at all for us. None. They have no freight for us. And yet I'm still expected to wait here half an hour while they figure out why because the person paying for the load is supposedly going to get right back to us. This is not cool; it's freezing cold.

Random Lake, WI - First Frost

The last few days have been quite ... something, to say the least. It started off simply enough, with a delivery near Scranton, PA late Monday night. Then, Tuesday morning, I found that I still hadn't received a work assignment, so I called in to ask about it. They ended up assigning me something that I could have easily picked up six hours ago, driven most of the way to the consignee, taken a break, then delivered at my 3 AM appointment. Instead, since they took so long to give it to me, I had to drive through the night Tuesday and arrived in Maine around 2:30 AM Wednesday. They assigned me a dock immediately and told me it would be "a couple hours, at least" so I backed in and promptly took a nap.

It was around 9 AM when they finished and brought the paperwork out. Things weren't so hot; three problems were found with the load. Two were just between the consignee and the vendor - I just had to acknowledge that we were aware of it - but the third was a delivery of 40 cases of a product that the customer doesn't even carry and that they placed back on the truck. They gave me permission to wait as long as necessary to get things sorted out, so I called cargo claims to explain the situation, got instructions to take it to another facility a few miles away, and went back to sleep for a couple more hours until my break was up.

Upon arriving at the LTL facility, I checked in, opened the trailer, backed in, felt a forklift... then double-checked my presumably empty trailer only to find that the pallet was spilled all over the floor. They blamed me for it in a completely unprofessional and condescending manner; I made another angry phone call to claims because I knew the product hadn't been like that when I backed in. Ultimately, I was assured that the staff there would "assist" in restacking the pallets, but they told me off again when I asked. Adding to the frustration was that there weren't 40 cases; there were 61 and there was no way it was going to fit on one pallet. I ended up having to restack it onto two, made yet another phone call asking for a correction to be made on the load information, then ultimately just had the facility scratch out the old number and write in the new. What should have been just a simple, 15 minute stop ultimately became an hour and a half ordeal. The net result of all this was that I was still a good three hours ahead of schedule. Good thing, too, since that meant I could afford to average "only" 56 mph on the run instead of needing to do at least 60 the whole way. The rest of things that day went pretty smoothly, even if I did have to drive considerably later than I'd have liked; I shut down in Lamar, PA around 2:30 AM.

Ultimately, though, it proved obvious that there was no way that I could get this delivered on time without sticking to the Interstate and, unfortunately, the toll roads in Ohio and Indiana. Normally we're not authorized to take those, but after a short phone call explaining the situation, I got it approved. I left the moment my break was up, made a single fuel stop, and arrived in Zion, IL just after midnight this morning. The end result? I did over 750 miles yesterday, all legally, easily setting a new record. I also provided myself about a half-hour cushion on the delivery, while I'd otherwise have had to relay the load off in Gary, IN for lack of time to deliver. I arrived here perhaps half an hour ago, backed in to a door, and typed all this while they're unloading me. It sounds like they're just about done now; I have one more stop to make on this run, then probably will be routed to Gary, IN for routine maintenance. I'll be posting another update from there at the end of the night.

Pittston, PA - Here we go again

After getting significantly more time off for Thanksgiving than originally planned, I'm out on the road again. Things have started off easily enough, at least for the most part. I picked up a load in Mobile, stopped in Charlotte Sunday night... then had the displeasure of arguing with the mechanics there as they flagged my trailer as being out of service for a tire issue that they outright refused to identify. That's right: they refused to let me leave but wouldn't tell me why. I lost over an hour due to that crap, leaving me just enough time to drive 580 miles with a single stop for dinner.

Upon arriving around 10:30 PM last night, I dropped the loaded trailer, called operations, and found out that they didn't have anything up here. A short drive later, I parked at a truck stop for the night. Now, almost fourteen hours later, I'm still sitting here and waiting for something from ops. I just called them once more and was told I should have something "in five to ten minutes." I'll double-check the Qualcomm shortly, but I'm hoping they give me something that takes me over toward Indianapolis or Chicago; my truck's due for maintenance in a couple days and it'd be nice to get it done at one of our better shops.

Dalton, GA - An exercise in frustration

Today has been one of those days in which even Murphy's Law just doesn't seem to go far enough. I ended up getting to the consignee later than expected due to traffic. The consignee didn't have an empty trailer. The Atlanta OC didn't have an empty available. Ops felt like making up excuses relating to policies I was already following instead of trying to actually fix the problem; it's the first time I've ever hung up on someone after they escalated a shouting match. I arrived at the shipper fifteen minutes late and was accepted, only to find myself at the back of a line seven trucks long. The scale at the shipper was on the fritz so I still have no idea if this load is actually legal or not. I had to go fifteen minutes over my 14 hour limit just to get to the nearest truck stop after that.

All told, I'm a full three hours behind schedule now. I need a small miracle tomorrow - namely, going at least 600 miles without any delays or issues whatsoever - just to have a small chance of getting to the consignee at the time I'm currently expected to be there. Failing that my odds are completely nonexistent and I'll be losing time on Friday. I'm really not expecting much of anything good at this point, though. The only even slightly favorable thing is that I plan on calling my DBL's boss at some point later in the week, explaining what happened, and asking to be moved to a different board. Today was very much the last straw in dealing with that.

Wilmington, OH - South for the winter

After spending a considerable amount of time in New England, I'm
finally getting a run that takes me toward the center of the country.
In this case, my destination is Kentucky and my estimated time of
arrival is about 10 o'clock tomorrow. I'm not sure what's going to
come after that, as usual, but ops said there was no freight down
there and thus no reason for me to try press on and make it there any
earlier than I'm already going to arrive. Hopefully something will
come available by the time I reach the facility since rural Kentucky
is definitely not an area that provides much hope of finding freight.

Things recently have been rather steady, though. It seems like I could
be running as many miles as I want, as there's rarely a shortage of
freight. Yesterday was the first day in nearly three weeks that they
just couldn't find a load for me, regardless of where I was; I had to
kill most of a day in western Ohio waiting to pick something up this
morning. Once I had the load, though, I had to make a couple of
detours. First I had to get a damaged tire replaced to ensure the
trailer was safe to haul, then I had to detour around a DOT scale
since there was no way of ensuring my weight was legal before I'd have
crossed it. It's a good thing I took the side trip; I was 750 pounds
overweight on the trailer tandems. Beyond that, it was just a straight
shot down I-71 to get here. The McDonald's at this exit has twice as
much parking as the truck stop, so I parked here instead since the
truc stop was already full.

In the morning I just need to get up, get fuel, get food, and get
moving. There's really not much else to this run now that I have the
weight legal and a decent trip plan in place. The only concern now is
hoping that ops finds a run for me to get me back out of there,
preferably in the direction of a city actually worth being in.

Westborough, MA - Two long weeks

I apologize for not updating this more often, but the last two weeks have been utterly insane; I completely ran out my 70 hours in my first seven days on the road. In the eight days since then, I've logged another 67 hours. I've had time to do little more than work, eat, and sleep. If we're still in a recession, it's clearly not affecting any of the customers that I've been hauling freight for. There have been a few minor hiccups, but overall things are going pretty darn well out here. I'll try to update more often in the future, but there's just too much to write about retroactively.

Beaverdam, OH - Out of the frozen tundra

Though things here in the midwest aren't nearly as bad as they are out in the Rockies - it's above freezing and there's no risk of snow - the weather has been unseasonably cold over the last few days. It's brushing rather close to freezing, but nothing going below that mark. Things have cooled off quite a bit with work as well. While I had been running close to that seventy hour limit last week, that came to a very sudden halt when I arrived in Seville on Saturday and found that there was no freight whatsoever for me to take if I relayed my current load. As such I was left taking an unwanted 34-hour restart; the only positive things are that I get a day of layover and accomplished some personal errands.

Things today were about as simple as they get: an early morning start to drive straight to a consignee. I stopped for breakfast and a short nap along the way, but the trip itself was dreadfully uneventful. I was unloaded in about one-fourth the time I was told to expect, though, so I made a phone call to find out whether or not I'd be getting another load any time soon. Ops originally said that there was nothing around but, upon finding out that the area planner was doing dispatch, they also informed me that they'd lined up a 750 mile run to Georgia. I stopped briefly for lunch on the way since I needed to kill about 45 minutes before I could arrive at the consignee. Upon arriving there, I found out that they were in the process of loading another one of our trailers, rather than live loading the one I brought with me. They took their sweet time with it, but I ended up getting out of there about 20 minutes earlier than expected. After one final stop to scale the load, I came down here for my break.

Tomorrow is going to be dead simple: straight down I-75 as far as I feel like going. I'll probably stop about 30 miles north of I-285, since there are two truck stops at an exit in that area and no other ones beyond that point. Then it's an early morning on Wednesday to get the load delivered on time, but nothing like the 2 AM trips I had to make last week. What happens beyond that is anyone's guess, but ops has about two days to figure something out for me.

Keeney, PA - EPIC FAIL

I'm not sure if it's possible for an entire department to be maliciously stupid, but that seems to be the only thing that fully encompasses just how utterly asinine things have become when our customer service department gets involved. Things started off simply enough this morning: the consignee will accept the load as soon as I can get it there. With that knowledge in mind, I started as soon as my break was up and went to scale the load out. After getting the scale ticket, I came back to the truck to find a message waiting for me: appointment scheduled for 11 PM. This conflict wasn't just a contradiction: it presented an impossibility, as my hours for the day were going to run out at 11:15 PM and the consignee doesn't allow parking.

I called in immediately after seeing that mess on the Qualcomm and explained the problem to ops; my DBL agreed that it was not cool that customer service was screwing things up this badly yet again. He said he was going to work on something, probably a relay, and that I should just head to the Carlisle OC. If I didn't hear anything by the time I arrived, I was to call back in and see what the updates were.

Nothing arrived, of course, so I was left to call in. Once again my DBL said that he was working on something and that he had a likely candidate for a relay, but that nothing was confirmed. I ended up calling back in after another hour and found that I was still stuck trying to deliver the thing at 11 PM, but that two people in customer service had talked to two people at the consignee and both said that I could park for the night in a lot they had on the facility. I said that was fine, albeit questionable, but at least I had the names of the people involved this time rather than a faceless case of "customer service talked to the consignee" as so often happens. So I got dinner, waited a couple hours, then hit the road yet again.

Upon arriving at the consignee around 10:15, I found out that everything I had been told about the load was wrong. No, I couldn't have gotten there as early as 9 PM and been worked in. No, there isn't anywhere on their property to take a break even if I don't have enough hours. No, I can't drop my trailer in a dock door and leave to take my break. I called ops again and got the first reasonable, straightforward answer I'd had in quite some time: get out of there and find a legal place for my break while I still had time. I didn't ask twice about that, but I did stop by the receiving office to explain the situation and make one last appeal for an alternative. In the process, I found out that even my work assignment was wrong; it originally said to get there between 7 AM and noon today, but that all unloads have to be confirmed appointments, scheduled in advance, and that absolutely no trucks are handled on a first come first served basis. So, in short, this load wasn't just doomed to fail from the beginning; we never even had a time set up for it. So much for it being a service critical/line shutdown load, right?

One of the few good things happened after I left: I actually found a legal parking place just as my 14 ran out. I called operations yet again, explained the situation, gave an estimated time of delivery, explained that I didn't have a Qualcomm signal, then was asked to send in a message over the Qualcomm with my estimated time of delivery. After facepalming, I explained yet again that I had no signal and repeated that the best I can do now is 11 AM. Ops then tried to tell me to just go back in there as soon as possible to get the load delivered; I told them that I'll go in there when and if I get an appointment and, according to the receiving office, they're already booked solid for tomorrow.

Regardless of what happens overnight, I'll be calling in to first shift when I wake up and trying to get some actual answers from the people who screwed this thing up in the first place. I really hope I get to relay the load, just so it turns into somebody else's problem, as I'm quite tired of feeling like I'm doing the work of almost every department we have in Green Bay. Seriously, is it that hard for anybody up there to just get this stuff right the first time?

Watkins Glen, NY - Operations and irresponsibility

This isn't the first time that ops has completely ignored my mac 18 (the message that tells them when I'm available and for how long), but it is the first time that they've left me in this much of a clusterfuck because of it. I'd originally sent in that I want to park for the day by 6 PM since, past that, it's increasingly difficult to find truck parking. I was done with my previous load around 1 PM local time, went to a nearby truck stop, and parked there to wait for a load. When the Qualcomm beeped just before 5 PM eastern, I figured that it was something for me to pick up tomorrow morning. Instead, it was something that had to be done by 10 PM tonight, with a delivery 250 miles away by noon tomorrow.

Even if I left immediately, it was pretty unlikely that I was going to get it there on time, so I tried calling operations to find out who put me on the load and why I was given a load that was just setting me up to fail. Of course, first shift shut the phones off early again, so I was whisked away to support shift, who can never actually answer anything. I was just told to pick the load up anyway, despite my protests and my complaints that I was going to be short on hours, and to update once I had the trailer loaded with information about my estimated delivery time.

Arguing clearly wasn't going to go anywhere so I growled in protest as I left the truck stop to head here to pick up the load. It took two hours to get here, as expected, but the trip itself was quite stressful. I missed a turn at one point and then ended up stuck behind someone doing 45 in a 55 with no way of passing him for at least 25 miles; he kept accelerating to 60 as soon as I had enough clear road to get around. I found the facility without further incident, though, and checked in only to find there was a considerable line of trucks ahead of me (I counted seven). The facility is first come, first serve as well, so despite the issues with my hours of service and the fact this is a just-in-time, service critical load for a major corporation, I'm stuck at the back of the line waiting for a dock to come available. Even now, more than an hour and a half later, there's still at least two trucks ahead of me, plus the ones in the facility's three docks.

Once it became obvious that I wasn't even going to have enough hours to get to a safe and legal parking spot for my DOT break - the nearest truck stop is about 45 miles away - I called in to ops to protest again. That went absolutely nowhere, despite being on the phone for just over an hour and explaining, repeatedly, when I started, how many hours I used, when my 14 hours for the day expires, that there's no way at all for me to deliver this on time, that I need to relay the load, that customer service needs to talk to regulatory if they think I can do this, and pretty much every other protest that is laid out in the above text. And, despite all that, I'm still on the load and customer service won't take me off of it for any reason short of the truck catching fire.

The only thing I can do at this point is wait to get loaded, go the 45 miles to that truck stop (regardless of how many hours I actually have left), scale it out, and hope that there's somehow a parking space available. There are two rest areas along the way, which improves my odds just slightly, but I'm not at all confident that I'll be able to get a parking space at midnight, which is about when I'll be arriving. I'm supposed to give another update to customer service once I'm parked for the night and have a better ETA, but based on the information I have now, I'm going to be at least three hours late.

In the morning I plan on having a long discussion with operations about this load. There is no excuse for any of this happening, at all, and I'm not going to let people just get away with this crap this time.

Charlotte, NC - Time for a tranny

I ended up delivering a load to Marietta, GA, then found out that I was being held for another customer. Given that nobody could assure me that I was going to be sent back to Charlotte for my truck, I wasn't about to accept that for an answer. A couple phone calls and a bit of firm discussion later, I was assigned two loads: one to save, and a 1,000+ mile run that would take me back through Charlotte. I agreed, though I had my doubts about being able to make the load save in the first place.

My fears proved to be well founded: the journey was significantly longer than the paid miles and, coupled with a delay due to road construction on I-20, I ended up being a solid twenty minutes late for my delivery. This put me on standby, pushed me behind the 10 PM appointments, and turned a 30-minute live unload into a two-hour waiting game. If things went well, I could have just made it back here last night; these delays ensured that the best I could do was Atlanta, since the handful of truck stops along I-85 would likely be full.

Delays didn't end with that live unload, either. The next load was a preloaded trailer pickup from a facility that was listed having 24/7 access to trailers. Turns out that it wasn't; the guard was on an hour-long lunch break when I arrived and I lost nearly 45 minutes more as a result. I called operations to complain; their suggestion was that I just take my break somewhere else and pick the load up in the morning. In hindsight, that might have been a better idea, but I stubbornly sat there, waited, and left with the trailer around 12:30 AM.

Upon arriving at the Atlanta OC, I didn't know what to expect for parking; it's one of our smaller yards and it tends to fill up quickly. I was fortunate enough to get parking in the very front row, in one of the few spaces reserved for transient combination parking. I promptly went to bed, slept for nine hours, got food with the remaining time, and hit the road. There were no further delays on the way to Charlotte, as I was leaving Atlanta around noon and arrived here before rush hour settled in.

My first stop was to head to the shop and find out whether or not my truck was done. Turns it it wasn't; the issues I was having were linked to the truck's entire transmission failing, a seven-hour repair job. As such, the estimated completion time was pushed back from 10 AM this morning to 4 PM tomorrow. I called ops to find out what they wanted to do and, ultimately, they decided to keep me on the load in the hopes that my truck is ready earlier than 4 PM since that would leave me perilously close to being late on delivering this load. I'm going to be getting in touch with the shop in the morning to find out if there's any chance at all of them speeding things up, since being able to leave here earlier would greatly help my chances of getting the load there with time to spare. If they're late, though, I may be stuck handing the load off to someone else and losing about 700 miles and another day out on the road. Only time will tell.

Charlotte, NC - Ops, we have a problem

Things with the truck have been kinda sketchy for a while, but today they went over the edge. I was finding it very difficult to get the truck into gear and - as the evening went on - it became increasingly difficult just to keep it in gear. This would have been bad enough on its own, but I also lost the high side of the engine brake, which made descending the various long grades in Virginia far more nerve-wracking than they needed to be. Attempting to go down a seven-mile long 6% downgrade is particularly frightening when you smell brakes burning, even if it later turns out to be someone else's.

By the time I arrived at the operating center, it was nearly impossible to drive. The truck fell out of gear twice just on the half-mile or so stretch of street between the Interstate and the OC's gate, then once more as I tried idling it to the shop. They wrote it up for maintenance, gave me a rough time estimate, and told me where to park it. Good thing, too; I barely could get it into gear at all because the clutch was nearly seizing up and it was practically impossible to shift out of gear without turning the truck off. There's no way at all this thing could have made it to my delivery tomorrow.

A bit of phone tag with operations later, and I was originally told that this was going to be a relay... then ops called back ten minutes later to tell me that there's so little capacity around here that I'll have to take a loaner and deliver it. I was assured that I'd be routed directly back to the operating center, but I'll believe that one only after I have a work assignment that tells me to stop here. Regardless, I'll have to call first shift in the morning to finalize the details on this run, attempt to get the delivery moved up a few hours, and pester them until they give me a run that brings me back to Charlotte tomorrow evening.

Rogers, MN - Back and forth

After getting stuck on a rather lousy run in Pennsylvania, I was given a nice trip out to Minnesota, worth over a thousand miles. Getting out here was pretty easy, despite a few routing mistakes, since there are only so many ways one can go on the Interstate. I arrived here slightly earlier than planned despite the detour, largely due to Chicago traffic being far better than anticipated. I get to deliver this thing around 6 in the morning tomorrow, then take a relay back toward Chicago for a Monday delivery. I need a weekend free. :)

Kennebunk, ME - More early mornings

The last few mornings have been incredibly early starts; I had to be up around 1 AM to try pick a load up Friday morning and had a 5 AM delivery today. Things were going pretty decently yesterday, so I decided to push my luck and try hit a truck stop much closer to the delivery location than I'd originally planned. My hours were running out, so I decided to go to a rest area instead of the truck stop I wanted to reach. That might have worked out well, except that the New York State Police were doing level three inspections. In other words, logbook checks. By the time I arrived there, due to traffic and hills, I was already fifteen minutes over my time for the day.

The officer had his share of issues with the paperwork, though most of them were the sort of mistakes a rookie would make. For one, he asked me to open the trailer to get the VIN and other information off it; that stuff is on a plate right near the gladhands. For another, he thought that "AR" on my logbook was the abbreviation for Arizona, not Arkansas. He also noted that yes, I am pushing it, but "I'm not going to bust your balls for fifteen minutes" he said as he returned everything to me with a clean inspection report. I was forced to park there, of course, but given the shortage of hours I'd planned on that anyway, so I only lost the half hour due to the inspection.

This morning I started as early as I could: 1:30 AM. I had to drive straight through and skip my originally planned fuel stop just to make it on time; I arrived just ten minutes before my appointment time. I checked in, found out we needed a lumper, grumbled about that for a couple minutes, called operations and got "approval" to have them do it, and took a nap while they worked. They finished just after 8 AM, came back with a price, and I called in to get a comcheck for payment. First shift decided to chew me out for not calling in sooner as the genius in support shift apparently decided not to update that information in the computer after I called. I was given a check, but still haven't received an authorization number; without one the fee comes out of my paycheck so I'll need to call first thing Monday morning to get that resolved.

Once the unloading stuff was taken care of, I went to the truck stop I originally was to fuel at and actually filled the truck up with the 51 gallons it needed. Operations wouldn't tell me anything about a work assignment except that I was being held for a customer. Only on the third call was I told that it's unlikely that I'd be assigned anything that would get me moving before a break and I should have considered the time immediately after I parked as the start of my break. I called them out on that, though, and said rather bluntly that if I'm having to get up at 1 in the morning they better find a way of utilizing me since I'm quite tired of busting my tail only to get screwed over again and again. The lady in ops then said she'd see if they'll at least get an assignment pushed out to me before they leave; I had one show up just after 11 for a customer other than the one they claimed I was on hold for.

This assignment is notable for one thing: it's the first time I've been told to deadhead more than 300 miles to get a load. Usually, they try to keep that under 100, or maybe 200 if they're truly desperate to get a load covered, but above that is unheard of for us. I'm not sure what's so special about the load, though; it's a pickup that I can make any time tomorrow (I plan on arriving around 5 AM) and a delivery 500 miles away for Monday at 4 PM. Looking at my hours and the details of this load, I should just be able to make it to the consignee tomorrow afternoon if I try; I sent in a macro asking if we can deliver it then so I'm free much earlier on Monday. If so, I can park on-site there and have a full slate of hours after my break. If not, I can easily claim layover pay for it. So, in this case, I pretty much can't lose. :)

Findlay, OH - Incredibly early mornings

I hate going to New England. There's almost no parking, almost no freight to get out of the area, and it's far too easy to get lost. So, of course, I end up with a load going to Connecticut that delivers at 5 AM Saturday. This means I have to get up around midnight tonight and tomorrow night and hope that I'm coherent enough to keep the truck on the road and on the only legal truck route anywhere near the consignee. It's going to be more than a little unpleasant, but I couldn't find any excuse to get them to take me off the load, leaving me stuck with it. I just hope they promptly get me out of the region since the only nearby parking is a pay lot.

Evergreen, AL - Three hundred miles to go nowhere

I finally ended up back to work today, though I got a bit of a later start than operations would have liked. I even got put back on the load that I'd told them yesterday that I probably wouldn't be able to pick up, since I had to go so far just to get an empty trailer, but they insisted that I run with it anyway since they found an empty that was more than 50 miles closer (83 v. 140). It worked out, but only just; I made it onto their property less than five minutes before they stopped taking new trucks for shipping. I got away with being in the wrong part of the facility, too, since I had to go from one gate to another, then to a scale, then past there to a fourth location to get the truck loaded. Once that was completed I was given a ticket off the facility's scale and sent on my way.

Since it was already getting kinda late and construction on US 84 cost me quite a bit of time, I just stopped back here in Evergreen for the night. The only other places I could have stopped were in Montgomery (if I were lucky) and potentially the consignee (if they were open past 7 PM), but I was feeling unusually tired so I just called it a day early. I'll have about 150 miles to go tomorrow to deliver this thing; hopefully my next run will be long enough to be worthwhile.

Tulsa, OK - There's no place like home, if you can get to it

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.

Too many palletsW

Whilw hwading through Cincinnati, OH todat I passed th s pickup truck hauling an alarmingly large quantity of pallets. Not sure how he can see out of any of his mirrors...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Big Springs, NE - Wild ride

Things with work have actually being going remarkably well lately, which is why I haven't written much in here. After all, it's more interesting to write about conflict than to just go on about a perfect day after a perfect day.

In the interest of keeping this brief, I've had three weekends in a row in Gary, IN, but finally broke out of that streak with a run heading out west. I detoured to Denver and took a day off there instead before delivering in Ogden, UT yesterday, capping off another 1200 mile run. My next assignment? Pick up a load in Wyoming and go 1200 miles back east to... wait for it... Gary, IN. Well, not really, but it's fewer than ten miles from the operating center there and I plan on waiting at the OC on Wednesday for my delivery appointment Thursday morning.

Though things overall are going well, that's not to say that there haven't been a few snags along the way. This morning I managed to grab an empty trailer with a small hole in a top corner; it was completely impossible to see in the dark due to the awkward position but pretty obvious once the sun came up. They had me take it to the customer anyway, though; they'll have someone go out there to fix it, sooner or later. Less than two miles from the customer, though, I heard a sudden shattering - no impact, just a shatter - as a golf-ball sized crack materialized in the driver's side of my windshield. It doesn't impact my visibility thankfully, as it's in the lower right corner, but it is an item that I'll have to get fixed once I make it to the operating center. My day was cut a bit short by a tire blowout, further adding to the maintenance bill; there's a 24-hour shop only eight miles up the road, though, so I should be able to limp there in the morning to get it replaced.

All these issues have thrown some significant doubts on my trip plan, but I still have an outside chance of making it to Chicagoland a full day early and banking yet another day of layover pay. It all depends on whether or not the shop can actually get me out of there in under an hour as the emergency maintenance hotline claimed. Hopefully the place will have somewhere I can get a quick bite to eat so I can at least save an additional stop.

Gary, IN - Another weekend in dystopia

Things actually have been going well the last couple of days. Once I finally got out of Gary to deliver that load from last weekend, I had a quick run up to Maine and a trip straight back here to Chicagoland. They've actually had decent information on these loads, decent directions, and all that good stuff. This has been the kind of week that exemplifies what things should be how things are more often. As such, there's really nothing that dramatic to write about; I could talk about the weather, but that's about it.

Gary, IN - A couple days of nothingness

The last few days could most politely be described as frustrating. I started off in Indianapolis, waiting for a load that delivered Wednesday. I had originally been told it wouldn't even be there until Tuesday evening, but when I went to pick up the paperwork, it turns out that it was dropped off Monday evening and I could have saved a lot of time and hassle by getting there earlier than I did. But, since nobody bothered to tell me, I spent an extra day sitting around and doing nothing.

In any case, I knew it was going to be a long run; I had to go 600 miles and still leave enough time to find a truck stop to park at. I left early enough to avoid Chicago's rush hour, but a truck fire on I-90 north of the city had traffic backed up for a couple miles and cost me most of the time I had to spare. To further add to the annoyance, my Qualcomm went on the fritz so I couldn't send in a message about it; I had to call while stopped in traffic. My DBL said he was going to look into it and that I should call him back later in the afternoon to find out what we could do.

So I keep driving along and it becomes quite obvious that I'm going to get to this place with zero hours to run and not have anywhere to park there. Of course my DBL never told me that they were going to be in a meeting in the afternoon so rather than talking to him I get someone at support shift who insists I can continue to drive over my 14 legally just because the customer doesn't allow parking. She refused to even look into rescheduling or making other arrangements.

With no way of talking some sense into the support shift person, I proceeded to the customer and arrived just as my 11 and 14 ran out. They had multiple signs up saying "no parking" and "violators will be towed" so it was pretty obvious I couldn't park there despite the insistence of the support shift person. I did find a truck stop 15 miles away, but that left me 45 minutes over my 14 as well. This is the second time in under two weeks I've been forced into a logging violation because nobody in operations listens when I say that I can't legally deliver a load and find a legal parking place.

So, having gotten that mess sorted out and finding that my Qualcomm was still acting up, I called in to see what my next work assignment was. It was certainly a decent one: just over 800 miles delivering in Columbus by Saturday morning. So I went to bed, slept in a bit, and woke up to get it. While I was driving there I received messages asking me when I was going to pick up; I still couldn't read anything so I could only guess I was on the same load. That turned out not to be the case, though; the load I was on was canceled and I was given something with half as many miles that I needed to have picked up four hours ago. I called in, furious about it, but got met with a dismissal of "I don't want to argue" when I called them on the crap. Ultimately I was just told to go pick it up anyway and to call when I got there to find out what freight was like for the weekend.

The directions I had to the shipper were pretty bad and didn't account for a road being closed to trucks due to construction. I lost nearly 20 minutes just trying to get around that mess and find the correct entrance. Once there, though, I was in and out under an hour, which helped make up quite a bit of time I'd lost earlier in the day by running 75 miles in the wrong direction to pick up that canceled load. From there it was just a race against time to try deliver it by 10 PM. While caught in traffic on Minneapolis' Interstates, though, I received a message telling me that the load had been reconsigned to another location 30 miles from the old one. No other information was given; they just sent me a customer code and omitted an address, appointment number, or any other useful information.

I arrived there just after 10 PM (slightly later than I was supposed to but I had to get fuel) and they seemed very confused to see me. My bill of lading listed the original consignee and had no information at all about delivering there. They unloaded me anyway and let me park there overnight; if I had to drive to the Gary OC I would have once again been stuck logging a violation as I had zero hours left on my 14 by the time they finished unloading the trailer.

This morning I woke up to a message saying that freight is incredibly soft across the country - presumably due to the holiday weekend - but that they were going to look for anything they could. I called to find out what my options were, but I was told to go to Gary and call when I arrived. Two hours later, I called from the OC and found out that there are 27 loads in the computer here, all of which are live unload appointments for early next week. All the ones delivering Monday were under 250 miles. The one I got is a live unload Tuesday morning at 8 AM Eastern about 650 miles away. The loaded trailer will be ready to grab by midnight tonight, but I don't have to get it right away; it's an open pick up appointment.

So, since another driver I know just arrived here in Gary and neither of us has a load for the next day or so, I have time to kill and someone to get food with. I suppose it could be far worse for the weekend.

Cusseta, GA - Two flats for the price of one!

Things were going fairly well this morning. I got up a little later than planned, perhaps, but otherwise all was fine and dandy until I noticed an ever-increasing cloud of smoke coming from my right-rear trailer tires. Given that I'm on US 280 and there's not really a shoulder - it's maybe two feet wide - I kept driving trying to find a safe place to pull over. This would have worked if I weren't in such a rural area, perhaps, but instead it resulted in me losing the other tire on that side as well and the rims starting to bounce on the ground, resulting in sparks. Soon as I saw sparking I just pulled as far over as I could and stopped; I'm blocking the right lane of the highway but there's no way I could possibly proceed any further up the road. So now I have the joy of waiting for road repair yet again; they should be here in another 45 minutes or so.

In the meantime, have some photos of the resulting carnage; it's been too long since I've posted images here anyway.

Update (8:54 AM): Road repair is here, and not a moment too soon; the sheriff's deputy who was keeping an eye on traffic was not happy about how long it was taking. He'd originally threatened to have the truck impounded if the guy hadn't arrived by 8:30 but apparently thought otherwise somewhere along the line. How here's hoping it'll take a relatively short time for them to replace all that mess.

Jacksonville, FL - Who wants the what now?

After a rather annoyingly schedule run yesterday that delivered here in Jacksonville today, I have yet another assignment: a zero mile run. Yes, that's right, zero miles; every stop is within the city limits of Jacksonville. From the consignee for my last load to the drop lot with this loaded trailer was half a mile; from there to the load's consignee was another 4.3. I'll get a flat $25 for that, too, which works very much in my favor.

Of course, that's assuming that we ever can get the freight off the trailer. There's no bill of lading for this load. The guard at the drop lot said that all the paperwork should have been left with the trailer; since it's not there, she claimed, the other driver must have forgotten to leave it. After 35 minutes on hold to try talk with ops, I was given a rough explanation: it's a return load. Therefore, a bill of lading likely doesn't exist in the first place. I was given information to write up a bill of our own, but as soon as I handed it to the receiving office here they handed it back and said they can't accept those. So now I'm playing Qualcomm tag with operations trying to get someone to create a bill of lading and fax it here because they've explicitly said they won't accept the load until they have an original copy of that from the load's shipper.

I just received word that they've gotten in touch with the shipper (whoever they're holding responsible for this, anyway) and that it should be getting sent shortly. It's just really annoying that we have to go through all these hoops just to get a single pallet of freight unloaded...

College Park, GA - Failtastic

I'd say it's been one of those days, but it's really been just one of those weekends overall. It started off promisingly enough, with a 1,000 mile run out of an area that I was worried wouldn't have any freight and enough spare time that I could, just maybe, earn a layover in Atlanta. I even managed to find parking at the Carlisle OC at about 10 PM on a Friday, as the shop was pulling dropped trailers out of the transient section. Unfortunately, that's about the last case of things going well.

First, I significantly overslept and didn't leave there until late Saturday morning. Then, while things were going reasonably well for most of the day, I had a tire blow out as I reached Statesville, NC. That cost me nearly four hours. It took over an hour just to get through to emergency maintenance; I found out during that call that they had exactly four people answering maintenance calls for our entire 14,000 truck fleet. Then it was nearly two and a half hours before Wingfoot arrived to replace the tire, and another half hour for the replacement to actually get bolted on. As such, while I'd originally planned on reaching Charlotte by about 5 or 6 PM, I didn't get there until after 10. This also ruined my plans of making Atlanta by Sunday morning; since I had a 9 AM appointment here I needed to be in Atlanta by about 8 AM yesterday in order to actually get paid for the layover.

So I decided at that point that I was going to stay in Charlotte instead, despite not having anything to do in the area, and leave at about 3 o'clock this morning to ensure that I'd get here on time. At least I was able to do that, as much as I loathe getting up that far before dawn. I wasn't able to get breakfast before I left, though, and due to concerns about the inevitable traffic jam in Atlanta I didn't want to risk leaving any later than I did. Sure enough, there were delays in Atlanta, including the smoldering remains of a car that bore an eerie resemblance to my own, but nothing as bad as I had expected. I attempted to park at a truck stop to get breakfast, but due to the place being badly overcrowded and my truck's clutch acting up in a way I haven't seen in ages, I just gave up, losing about 15 minutes and still being hungry.

I arrived here about 8:40, twenty minutes before my appointment. I should have figured something was amiss, given that it was showing an appointment for a drop and hook, though I have had a few of those before. But of course, they're starting to pull the same thing on me as they are on another driver: marking loads as drop and hook when they're really live unloads. It gets even more frustrating, though; while I was getting checked in, another truck pulled in and blocked me from getting to the docks, claimed he didn't have an appointment but he was supposed to be here anyway, then took the dock that I'd been assigned. Now they're unloading him while I'm backed into the dock next to him and my freight hasn't been touched. This means I'm losing even more time that I didn't really want to kill in the first place.

Of course, the freight situation down here is a perfect case of SNAFU. Over the weekend we didn't have enough capacity to cover the loads already in the system, which is why I was told I couldn't relay the load off at the Atlanta OC and keep the truck moving; this morning we've 18 more drivers than loads. This means that I could have dropped the relay, covered a load they needed saved, and there would have been drivers coming available that could have delivered this. I'm seriously starting to question if the trip planners even bother looking at anything other than the first number that comes up on the screen without thinking about the implications of things a day or two out. So while I could probably have helped them cover loads on the weekend and gotten some really good miles out of the deal, instead I'll probably be stuck waiting for more freight to pop up before I can go anywhere.

About the only other thing I can do at this point is try to call in, explain the situation, and see if they can try sneak me up the line for load assignments. I doubt that will go anywhere, though.

Knoxville, TN - Oops I did it again

After spending the entire weekend in a hotel under the assumption that I just had to deliver to a place five miles up the road this morning, I came back to the truck at about 7:30 only to find that I'd been taken off that load and assigned something else. That's definitely not a good thing, since when I called yesterday morning, I was under the assumption I still had that delivery in Charlotte; had I been told that wasn't the case, I would have started moving on this load yesterday and delivered it right on time: seven o'clock this morning. The delivery window simply required me to deliver it by 2 PM, but by the time I had everything together - the paperwork, fuel, directions, and such - it was nearly 9 AM and I had to travel 300 miles, including a stint on US 74 (through a series of small towns with lots of traffic lights) and a ride through the Smokey Mountains on I-40. Needless to say, that wasn't happening.

Despite all that, and despite the fact that the entire situation could have been avoided had I just been in the truck like I probably should have been, somehow I'm not being blamed for a service failure on this load. A few rounds of Qualcomm tag later and I was first told that they were going to stay late to take me, then given a second message saying that they rescheduled it for tomorrow morning at 8 AM. The latter message left me slightly confused, since they (allegedly) open at 7; I was advised to try at seven and just hope for the best.

Thus I'm here in Knoxville with roughly 16 hours to kill. I'll probably head out of here around 6 to try arrive just after 7; it's about 60 miles away. In non-numeric terms, that means I have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn if I want to get breakfast before I hit the road. I don't have another work assignment yet, though I'm hoping one comes in overnight. Failing that I'll just call first shift while I'm being unloaded and hope they have some good news.

Charlotte, NC - Maintenance Downtime

After about a week off, I'm back on the road again. Coming out of the house I had yet another great run: over a thousand miles to central Pennsylvania. However, I also had a message telling me that I'm due for routine maintenance by the sixteenth. I didn't want to have to set up a relay on my very first load coming out of the house, so I delivered that load yesterday afternoon. Rather than merely hoping I was sent somewhere for maintenance, I called operations after dropping the trailer and asked them to find something that would get me through an OC. About ten minutes later, I was assigned a load that delivers here in Charlotte Monday morning.

The most stunning thing about the load? I had to deadhead (drive with an empty trailer) nearly three hundred miles to get it. I stopped about five miles from my pickup point, got there a few minutes late due to bad directions, get the trailer loaded, and went on my merry way. The load was far lighter than expected so I didn't have to scale or fuel up; I drove here with just a quick stop for lunch. After arriving in Charlotte just after 9 PM local time, I dropped the trailer in our lot, then went to talk to the mechanics. Only after I'd listed nearly a dozen items to get fixed did they say that I'd need to wait until tomorrow morning for the truck to be done; prior to mentioning that I needed work on the air conditioning (aka the ice maker) the estimator said I'd be able to get everything done in the express bay and be ready to go within two hours. I'll have to remember how quick the shop is down here since, usually, it's impossible to get anything done over a weekend.

Once all that was taken care of, I got a ride to the hotel and am enjoying the bliss of air conditioning while I type this up. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the load, though most of that depends on whether or not the shop really can get the truck done by early tomorrow afternoon. If they do, then I'll probably need to ask operations to relay my current load off me so I can take something else and keep moving over the weekend. If the truck isn't going to be ready until late evening or sometime Sunday, I may need to at least inquire about a loaner to ensure that I can get layover pay since they've really become anal retentive about that sort of thing. Thankfully, they do have first shift available Saturday morning from 7 to 11 so I can talk to someone who may actually be willing to listen and consider all the options rather than simply reading from a script and following a flow chart.

However, none of this can happen until morning. There was a small chance of them getting my truck in tonight, but most likely it'll be 5 AM before anyone touches it. Everything hinges on what I find out when I call in the morning.

Pensacola, FL - Relay race

Amazingly, operations actually did something useful for a change. Over the weekend I'd been assigned a load that is to deliver in south Florida Wednesday night. Normally I wouldn't complain about getting 1,250 miles out of Laredo, TX, but I was supposed to be home Wednesday afternoon and - if I delivered the load - I wouldn't have enough time on my seventy to get home before Friday. The weekend shift was being entirely unhelpful as well; when I complained they sent back a snarky message defending the work assignment as getting me closer to home, even though it only moved me from a place 775 miles away to a place 525 away.

So I got a hold of my guy in first shift yesterday morning, explained the situation, and he said he was going to work on a relay. A few hours later - after I'd parked here in town - I received a call telling me to relay the load off somewhere else today and just head home after that. Thus, all I need to do today is get to the truck, do my pre trip, drive 30 miles to the truck stop in question, drop off the trailer, then drive 30 miles back to Pensacola and enjoy a beautiful weekend off. I'll be heading back out on Monday, June 8.

Moulton, AL - Six days to go

I'll be heading home again in less than a week, but work seems adamant about keeping me busy as possible in the meantime. For the first time since that accident back in March, I'm running up against the seventy hour limit. I should have just enough time to make it to Memphis this afternoon, if all goes well, but it's going to be uncomfortably close. Ultimately this load is going to Laredo, TX, though we're not exactly sure when it's due; ops said, "Some dum-dum probably set it up wrong" and it's being looked into now.

I should be in Laredo by Sunday afternoon and won't likely have time to go anywhere else after that. Since I'm supposed to be home Wednesday it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to send me straight there after this run. Obviously it's too early to do more than speculate but it strikes me as a reasonable guess.

Gary, IN - Down for a weekend

I feel somewhat guilty for not updating here more often, but it just doesn't seem like much has happened to warrant a post. I had to take a 34 hour restart in a customer's parking lot due to a total lack of freight in New England; even the Kimberly Clark plant half a mile from where I sat had nothing to offer us. They finally found a run for me to pick up, but I caught the beginning of NYC's rush hour going to get it, complete with loads of people making pointless lane changes and bums begging for money at nearly every ramp.

Given that I still need to do Spring Training and have to wait on a new EZPass transponder to arrive, ops just decided to push me out until at least Monday afternoon. Depending on how freight is I may not get a load right away, of course; that's just the earliest they'll show me as available. Hopefully I'll get some decent mileage in the second half of the month; things are getting rather shaky around here...

Laredo, TX - Laredo, we have a problem

Yesterday I felt something was a bit ... wrong with the truck. I couldn't quite place it, and part of it could have simply been fatigue messing with my mind, but I did a particularly thorough pre-trip. I found a few relatively minor things - my cab's air bags went flat and I appear to have a slow coolant leak - but I had one major problem: a chip in my driver's side steer brake drum. Damage to the brakes is an out of service item, but even so, I'm not about to take a chance with the brakes after that tow truck incident in California.

Since I was on a load that I had to pick up by noon, I just picked that up here in town, then came back for the repairs. It took a while for them to get the truck into the shop; by the time it was done, it was too late in the evening for further driving to be worthwhile. This leaves me about 1,150 miles to go and two days to get there. I've a pretty good idea of where I'll be parking tomorrow, since it's almost exactly 660 miles away and would leave me just under 500 to go on Friday. The downside, though, is that I'll likely need to wake up far earlier than I'd like tomorrow to ensure I get to that truck stop at a reasonable hour. I really am getting sick of only being able to manage four to six hours of sleep.

Effingham, IL - Sunny side up

Today was one of those rare days where things went generally well. I have to remember to write about these once in a while. :)

Despite getting quite a bit less sleep than I should have last night, I felt quite energized when I woke up this morning. I fueled up, left exactly when I planned on, yet arrived at the customer nearly an hour ahead of schedule. They assigned me a dock, started unloading me shortly thereafter, and I left at the time I'd originally had an appointment for. While waiting, I found a shortcut that saved me more than half an hour getting to my next stop, to pick up another load.

I lost some of that time at my stop, though. Dropping my trailer was easy enough, but the loaded trailer was sitting with its landing gear in a sinkhole. One side of the trailer was leaning so far down that the bottom rail was nearly resting on the tires! I was ... less than thrilled at this point, as I was eager to get back on the road. It didn't help that I'd hopped a little too high getting into the truck and smacked my skull on the door frame. Further, I hit my chin with the landing gear handle as I tried to raise it a little. A twenty minute wait later, one of the yard guys came by and managed to pull the thing out by ramming under it at speed. I hooked up and got driving shortly thereafter.

The rest of the drive was relatively easy: 55+ mph through Michigan, Indiana, and half of Illinois to get here with 45 minutes left on my 11. I had to stop to scale out on the way, but otherwise the trip was uneventful. I tried to stop at a truck stop further north, but they apparently charged for parking - multiple signs said "authorized parking only; permits may be purchased at the fuel desk" - so I pressed on to arrive here. I've trip planned out the rest of my current load, so it's now just a matter of getting up on time to deliver the load when I said I would.

Charlotte, NC - Back to the frozen north

I've been neglecting this blog lately. For that, I apologize. Since I'm not entirely sure when I last updated this thing and I'm too tired (read: lazy) to go back and look, I'll instead summarize last night and today.

Last night I had the displeasure of delivering yet another Procter and Gamble load. I've really started to dislike hauling their freight, since they've become increasingly anal about load requirements. As such, I had to give my name and other information three separate times just to be allowed to drop a loaded trailer. It didn't help my mood that there was exactly one other driver on the yard who ended up in my way twice. :p At least they allowed me to park there while waiting for my next assignment.

I finally got assigned something around noon today. I needed to get an empty trailer from P&G, so I went in, was assigned one to pick up... that had considerable damage to the gasket on one of the doors, ensuring the thing would leak badly in the rain. I didn't want to deal with the guards again, so I just took it, went through the Charlotte OC, dropped it off for repair, and grabbed another empty. I sent in multiple messages telling ops what I was doing, including one that should override whatever they're doing up there, plus called in to ensure I was assigned the trailer I was taking. That's all well and good, at least until I got to the gate. The guard said, among other things, "Your DBL screwed you over. That trailer's staying here on this yard." I then had to back up about a hundred feet, forcing another guy out of the way, to call in and find out why the hell something I'd confirmed twice wasn't taken care of. Five minutes later, it was resolved and I was on the way.

The rest of the afternoon was, thankfully, uneventful. I dropped the empty trailer, picked up my next load, and came back here to Charlotte. Time is going to be against me the next two days, though: I have about three hours to spare on this load, at best, assuming everything goes well. That's three hours for anything and everything, inculding food or fuel stops. I'll be filling up before I leave here, but I'll likely need to top off somewhere along the way, since I'd be uncomfortably low on fuel by the time I arrive at the consignee. It doesn't have to arrive until 10 AM Wednesday, but I'll be fighting some traffic on the way, taking secondary routes for much of my travel through Ohio, and potentially dealing with snow once I get into Michigan. The city I'm delivering to has an 80% chance of snow Tuesday night and will only be in the upper thirties by the time I get there Wednesday.

To make all this happen, though, I need to start snoring. I have to wake up in a little over six hours and be driving shortly after that.

Indianola, MS - Middle of nowhere

The weekend was entirely uneventful; I put the truck in the shop late Thursday evening to get the starter replaced and the repairs weren't complete until Sunday night. I asked for the time off to see a doctor; I'm on medication and getting better. Once back in the truck Monday afternoon, I received a work assignment telling me to go about 60 miles in under an hour, picking up an empty along the way. I just called in to tell ops that it was impossible; they told me to pick it up this morning.

So I woke up early this morning, fueled the truck up, and hit the road. It was rather annoying trying to get the empty trailer, since it was parked right against a curb, making it very difficult to get the tractor straight under it. On top of that, it was at a really awkward spot which forced me to get under it before working the landing gear to lower the trailer, so I needed nearly 45 minutes to do something that should have taken just under half that much time. From there, though, things were pretty simple: drive to the shipper, relax for an hour while the trailer was loaded, then drive to the consignee.

I'm thankful that this place has parking, since there's just about nothing else this far out. I'm at least an hour's drive from the nearest Interstate. Since I could use the rest, I just pushed myself out to the wee hours of the morning; I won't be getting assigned anything before 4 AM tomorrow. Given how slow freight usually is in Mississippi, though, I wouldn't be surprised to wake up and find that I'm still without a work assignment. That's entirely speculation for now, though; for the moment, I just need to get some sleep.

West Memphis, AR - 34 hours of rest for the weary

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.

Charlotte, NC - A whole lot of malarkey

I'm starting to run out of polite ways of titling these posts. Really, I'm trying to be nice. My parents read this after all.

Things started out from Tampa on Friday, when I got an assignment to pick up a load going to Albany, GA. I was promised decent miles, among other things, but the 300-mile run wasn't even ready to be picked up until 2 AM the next morning, leaving me a nearly 12 hour wait just to get started. At least I had parking available. My DBL insisted that he told me that was the case, but he had never communicated that to me. At least he confirmed I could deliver it Saturday, as long as I arrived before 2 PM. I got there around 10 and, after weathering intermittent severe thunderstorms, made it out of there and parked at a truck stop in time for lunch. I got an assignment while waiting, but it was one that I couldn't pick up until 9 PM, so I just got it early Sunday morning.

Sunday was relatively uneventful, since it was the only day out of this entire series of events that I simply had to worry about driving. Four hundred miles in total, taking me up to Memphis. I found parking at one of the truck stops there, leaving me about 15 miles from the delivery, though that proved to be a nearly half-hour drive on the city streets. I left at 3:30 AM Monday, arrived at 4, checked in at 4:25, and backed into a dock by 4:35. That's about when things started to go downhill. Specifically, I found out that I wasn't going to be able to hire a lumper, per the instructions of the shipper; if I did so, it was coming out of my paycheck as I was not going to be reimbursed for it. Nowhere on my work assignment did it say I was going to be responsible for unloading the truck, but I was basically told that I either had to do it or I was going to be out $75. I was also told that my DBL should have told me what the terms of the load were, among other things, none of which I'd ever been told by anyone. It took me three hours to finish pulling the freight off, during which time I received more than my share of harassment by the people working the facility. The part that ticks me off the most? Another Schneider driver was backed into the dock right next to mine and he was allowed to hire the lumpers without any problem at all.

After finishing that up, I picked up another load, though this too had its problems. Specifically, just after I arrived, I received a message saying the load was cancelled. I go to check in and get told the same thing; the message was waiting for me when I got back to the truck, along with one saying I was back on the load. I call in, find out that they were working on it but it might take half an hour, so I get to sit and wait. At this point, I'm completely exhausted from having to unload 16,000 pounds worth of stuff from a trailer earlier in the morning, frustrated that I keep getting conflicting information that varies simply depending on who I talk to, and have long since exhausted my patience. Forty-five minutes later, after receiving no confirmation from anyone, I call ops and get told that things were good to go about 40 minutes ago; this was never communicated to me. At least there were no further incidents: when I went to check back in, I was assigned a dock, loaded, and ready to go in less than 45 minutes.

The rest of the day was generally uneventful: I scaled the load out and found it to be legal on my first try, got lunch, fueled up, and ended up stopping at a Pilot in Birmingham, AL. The truck stop was a mess, to say the least, in part because the parking spaces were actually too short for two 53' trailers to be parked back-to-back. I ended up backing into the trailer behind me and most of my tractor was still in the aisle. The guy behind me left before I could even apologize for the collision (not that anyone cares much about trailer-to-trailer rear bumps like that), so I backed out of the way to ensure I wouldn't be blocking anyone else. That made getting out a bit harder, but at least I was able to sleep without being disturbed.

That brings us to today, Tuesday. I got a work assignment while I was about 20 miles from the consignee, so I pulled into a rest area to check it, just in case something was amiss. It's picking up from the same place I'm delivering (very good), but is a live unload (bad), a lousy 150 miles (bad), and the unload's expected completion time wouldn't leave me enough time to even legally pull off their property, much less drive back to the operating center here. I sent in a message saying that, if I arrived on time and it took the expected two hours, I would have no time to leave; I got back a reply telling me that it shouldn't take that long and that I should be fine anyway. While I was on the yard - and fighting with a painfully stubborn trailer tandem slider - I called and asked for help planning it out. I asked my DBL to either try get the appointment moved up or to confirm that it would take under two hours, and get back to me as soon as he found out what could be done about either of those. Of course, he never got back to me at all, nor was he even at his desk when I called in after my fears were confirmed: at 4:15 eastern, there was no sign of my trailer being done.

By the time they were done, it was just about 4:30, leaving me half an hour to drive and at least 25 minutes away from the operating center. After fighting stupid four-wheelers, city busses that stopped everywhere except their designated stops, badly time traffic lights, and the usual freeway problems, I arrived at the OC at about 5:07 PM, just barely in time to legally round my driving time back to five o'clock. This is not a situation that should have arisen at all; when I said I wasn't going to be able to make the delivery and have hours to leave, I should have been taken off the load right there unless it was confirmed that the times in question were not accurate. No confirmation, once again, a trend that I'm finding to be exceptionally frustrating. While here, I got a PM done on my new tractor, so I don't have to worry about maintenance for a while. I'm parked next to the only truck in the entire yard that's idling, annoyingly enough.

I'm going to head to bed shorty, after sending in a message marking myself as available in the wee hours of the morning. If the Qualcomm wakes me up with a work assignment, fantastic; if not, I've set the alarm for 6 AM just in case things are slow. Given that freight is apparently balanced here right now, it's a 50/50 chance that I'll get something that requires me to get moving before sunrise. However, given the sheer number of issues that I've listed above, I will likely be calling operations and asking to talk to someone higher up to figure out why so many things are going unresolved and being left to me, the driver, to clean up after their mess. There's really no reason for this.