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.
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