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. :)
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