Ortanna, PA - Nightshift

I swear, these guys are trying to run me into the ground. I woke up at 7 PM and found I had a total of fifteen messages on the Qualcomm, which is never a good sign. It turns out that I'd received two work assignments, one of which had been canceled. Of course, the one they took me off of was 400 miles longer; I ended up on a "critical" load that was only 370 miles and that - even if things went perfectly - I wouldn't have made by more than a few minutes. So I got dinner and hit the road, driving 180 miles to the shipper and arriving just before midnight. That's when things started to go wrong.

First, I followed my directions exactly, but they led me to the wrong entrance. There were no signs at all indicating that it was not the main entrance. I tried calling the customer and nobody answered the phone. I called operations, who in turn found another number to call somebody on, set up a three-way call, and only then did I find out that I just needed to go another half block up the road, over a hill. Then I received the paperwork, went with one of the yard guys over to the trailer yard (which is where I was in the first place), nearly lost control of the truck trying to go down a 15% grade on a gravel road... and found that the trailer number on the paperwork was wrong. It matched five out of six digits and had the right product on it, but that meant I had to eventually go back to the shipping office and get it corrected. More pressing was the fact that the trailer had an air leak and it took both me and the other guy to figure out where it was leaking from and a few good smacks from a hammer to fix it. By the time all that was done, I'd spent more than an hour and a half just trying to pick up the load when I could only afford to take half an hour.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful, which made it rather tricky to stay awake. At least I made it here without causing an accident; that's as much as I can say for my drive up here. The problems only resumed when I arrived at the consignee. Nobody here knew where I was supposed to go. I checked with the main office and the receptionist sent me back to shipping. I checked in there and was told to come around to the front again. I was parked and looking for a loading dock when someone on a forklift came over and led me to the docks, though there was another driver who was blocking things off. Only after a fifteen-minute wait did someone else come over to take my paperwork and tell me to back in. I'm getting unloaded now and it sounds like they're nearly finished. When they're done, I don't have any time left that I can continue working, so I get to park in the facility's driveway and take my break. Seriously, that's where they said I could park the truck. So I'll get nine or so hours of much-needed sleep and hope that I don't find another dozen or so messages in the morning.

On a better note, I was assigned to a new board. More accurately, because of how they're re-organizing things now, they seem to be splitting boards up and I ended up on a different number. I don't know how well (or badly) that will work out since the person I'll be calling is still in training for his new position and won't be ready to take calls until Friday or Monday; I'll be routed to my existing board in the meantime. There is, however, something rather odd about having seniority over my boss despite having only 13 months of experience...

Black Mountain, NC - Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I started off the night by leaving Carlisle a little later than I planned, but I made up plenty of time on the road just driving toward Virginia; by the time I stopped for fuel (when I amde my previous post) I had made up nearly an hour and, as such, was well ahead of schedule. Good thing, too, because that fuel stop cost me 45 minutes for what should have taken only fifteen. I've never seen the place that busy; there were even drivers blocking the exit driveway when I was trying to leave.

It's a good thing that I made up so much time, too, given how the weather conditions deteriorated. As I continued south, then east, the wind picked up significantly, until even with a 42,000 pound load I was getting blown out of my lane. And, in the last 30 or so miles, it started to snow. I couldn't believe it, considering there was no snow in the forecast, no forecast temperatures below 35°F, and my dash said 40°F. But, sure enough, the distinctive swirl of snow was on the road, making conditions even more treacherous. For some reason, my truck was handling badly enough in the (freezing?) rain up near Carlisle, but the snow made me reluctant to exceed 45 mph despite the posted speed limit of 70. I got here about an hour and a half ago and, in that time, the snow has just gotten heavier and heavier. It's blowing sideways, too, which makes me very nervous, since I'll be leaving here with a completely empty trailer. The nearest truck stop that I know of is roughly 18 miles away, so it'll be a bit of an adventure to try and get there.

They're done, so I need to post this and scoot. If anything happens worth writing about, I'll make another post before I go to bed.

Troutville, VA - Midnight Motion

For reasons that defy logical explanation, all six lanes of the Pilot are in use. I've been waiting on one to open for ten minutes now. Why on earth is this little place so crowded at this ungodly hour?

Carlisle, PA - All bundled up and nowhere to go

It seems like things just haven't been working out with work. I got a work assignment that, had it come in a few hours earlier, I could have made the pick up Friday evening and parked at a shipper. Instead, because I was told to just find "any truck stop" I ended up going 250 miles in the wrong direction. Specifically, I went to the nearest place that I knew would have parking because dispatch hadn't given me any information on a load, then I got an assignment to go up to Philadelphia after I'd already gone down to Norfolk, VA. Had they bothered assigning me that two hours earlier, I could have earned two full days of layover; instead, I get about 42 hours. I'll still be catching up on sleep, at least.

After I get out of here tomorrow morning, I'll be going down to North Carolina. The delivery appointment isn't until Tuesday morning, so I still have some time to spare, but I do want to get down there so I don't have to get up exceptionally early for the appointment. I just hope they can find me something better than this soon, since 550 miles in three days is not very productive.

Temperanceville, VA - Nowhere to go

Turns out that they're not going to be able to get me a decent load after all. In fact, this is a first-come-first-served market and there's a long list already. The only concession they made is that I can drive to any truck stop that I have enough logbook time to get to and will get paid for it. Good thing, too; Ruther Glen, VA is the nearest truck stop with more than 20 spaces and it's 197 miles away from here. So I need to close the laptop now and hope I can make it there within three hours, forty-five minutes, or else I'm going to be over my 14. I don't even want to think about my 11; if I've used more than seven hours of driving time so far I'm screwed no matter what.

Suffolk, VA - Quirks

Been a weird day so far. Woke up an hour late due to neglecting time zones. The place I needed an empty from insisted that I be in and out within 15 minutes. Found rolls of wrapping paper in the trailer along with a lot of trash. Misread a road sign and "accidentally" took the right exit. Going to chance a 13'6" tunnel since the detour adds 240 miles. All this and it's not even noon yet...

Ruther Glen, VA - Where's the mileage?

As I was driving down the road, I saw a message come in about me needing to relay something, then a "work assignment change" message. The last one almost always means that a load got canceled or something otherwise went very wrong. Instead, in this case, I was supposed to take it to a truck stop to relay it off to another driver, as I posted earlier. When I got there, I found out that he'd only just arrived a few minutes before I had, not that he had been waiting several hours as I was told on the phone by operations. So that's one strike against them.

Then, once I unhooked from the trailer and waited for a fuel lane to open up so I could fill the tanks, I looked at my work assignment and growled at the Qualcomm. Rather than getting something good to make up for the fact that I'd lost 200 miles, I got something that requires me to pick up an empty trailer 120 miles away, take it 20 miles to get it live loaded, then just 109 miles to drop the delivery. Strike two.

I then attempted to trip plan it out, though one thing was almost immediately obvious: even though I said I would be available at 6 AM, which has proved to be exactly accurate, I would have to leave no later than 5:30 to have any chance of picking the trailer up on time. Strike three.

So I called support shift to complain, ask why I was given such a horrible load instead of being rewarded by getting something good, and ask to either be pre-assigned a load immediately following this one or, even better, get taken off of it and assigned something else entirely. They insisted that this was a critical load and that, if I didn't pick up and deliver on time, it would cause factories to shut down. Given that I'm only bringing in a load of pallets, I find that hard to believe that the absence of my trailer would be more than a minor inconvenience. He also said there's freight in the area, but that he didn't know what I'd be assigned and that he wasn't able (or, more likely, wasn't willing) to pre-assign me something to at least ensure I don't continue to get screwed over like this. The only good news that came out of the conversation was that the pick up time isn't critical, though I still need to get there as early as I legally can. Making the delivery never was a problem, since I have twelve hours to spare on that end.

For lack of any other solution to this situation, I'll be calling operations tomorrow while the trailer is getting loaded and probably taking someone's head off. Can you do that over the phone? I'd rather like to see video of that sometime. But if they don't find me a good load - preferably at least a thousand miles - I'm going to have a few choice words for people.

Mount Jackson, VA - U-turn

Another driver his an "emergency" and I have to relay my load off to help him get home. If it's an emergency, why are they making him wait on my relay? I also lose about 200 miles as a result of this, if they corrected everything in the computer; I'll be out 400 miles and be showing a lot of out-of-route otherwise. They owe me for this.

Carlisle, PA - At least it's not New Jersey

So I delivered the load this morning and, as expected, traffic in New Jersey was terrible. The closer I got to Newark, the worse things got. It's quite hilarious now, but at the time it was all I could do to avoid screaming obscenities in tongues at people. Seriously, I think I would have started swearing in Swahili if I had to stay in that state much longer. The best moment of it all? Seeing cars go five wide in a section of highway with two lanes without even using the shoulder. That move doesn't even work in NASCAR so I was stunned to see five non-professional drivers manage to pull that off without anyone colliding with anyone else.

It also took quite a few tries to get my load picked up. The guy couldn't find the paperwork for my trailer, nor could he find anything matching my load number. So I went out to the truck, called operations, complained about the traffic, and scared them because I never get worked up as I was this morning. That five-wide traffic comment made both of us burst out laughing; what else can you do about such insane drivers? I was sent about fifteen different numbers and basically got to go play bingo with that. The shipping office's response? "You know what you can do with those numbers? ... Nothing." Given that he left that sentence hanging in the air for about three seconds before finishing the statement, I was bracing for a typically New York area response, the sort of thing that would likely cause a sailor to blush. It turns out, though, that the information I had the first time was right; the other guy working behind the counter had grabbed the paperwork and nearly handed it to another driver for a different company. Oops. So after all that, I went to their other yard a mile up the road, picked up the trailer, and came here to Carlisle.

As I'm still trying to get back on any sort of rational sleep pattern, I'm not going to deliver this load tomorrow. Instead, I'm planning on stopping in Charlotte, taking my break there, and hoping to somehow coerce myself to get out of bed at around 4 AM. Even writing "out of bed" and "4 AM" in the same sentence makes me cringe, though it could be worse; I had to run today at 3 AM and that on less than two hours of sleep. I just wish it weren't so cold, since I still don't have a heater in the truck. It's ten degrees below average so I'm not just complaining for sake of complaining; this really is unseasonably cold. At least it'll be warmer once I get south, if I don't freeze something off tonight.

Naples, NC - Circles

Tonight was an exercise in frustration, if nothing else. My next work assignment came in during the afternoon... a 2 PM live load at a location about 80 miles from where I was unloaded previously. The problem is that, at this time of morning, parking is all but impossible to find. I tried three truck stops along the way before just calling support shift, exasperated with the situation. Rather than acknowledging that, if I couldn't find a stop that was directly along the way I'd not be able to pick the load up on time, the moron on the line insisted that I could go 45 miles out of the way to take my break and still be on time for the load. I hung up after I asked him to explain his math and got this answer: I'd be ready to drive at 1 PM, be 67 miles away, and still somehow be able to make the pick up on time.

So I started driving and hoped for the best; I figured that if I didn't somehow find something along the way, there was a truck stop about 15 miles past the shipper that I could use. I really, really hate having to go 30 miles out of the way, but even my last-ditch solution was better than anything support shift had come up with. Instead, I lucked out and found a place directly on the way with a large gravel lot that had some room to park. I am on break now and, even better, am only a few miles from where I need to pick this thing up tomorrow. So, when I come off break at 1:30, I'll have half an hour to go nine miles. I'll then have most of the afternoon to drive and probably will shut down at the Carlisle OC tomorrow night. Getting to Carlisle would be over 550 miles, so it would certainly be a productive day if I can get that far. Of course, the way things are going lately, "if" is the key phrase here.

Valdosta, GA - Northbound

Just about ready to get out of here. I'm a little behind schedule, at least relative to what I'd intended to do this evening, but it really doesn't matter. I'm less than 400 miles from where I deliver this load and my delivery appointment isn't for another 24 hours. I'll pick it up tonight and possibly stop in Atlanta, just since I can get a free shower there, but I might continue on toward where I'm delivering. Either way, I just hope they can find me something after I deliver this, since I really don't want to have to try find a place to park the truck at 1:30 AM on Monday; parking at that time of the morning is nearly impossible.

Valdosta, GA - Ahead of the game

I had a 2 PM appointment here and they were ready for me. Instead of this taking 3.5 hours like Izd been told, it looks very probable that I will be out of here within 20 minutes. I think they're done unloading and just need to take care of the paperwork now. Of course, this only helps if there's any freight out here.

??? - Excessive safety

This place is so anal retentive about safety that I had to watch a seven-minute video on the subject before they'd let me in the gate. The guard also wouldn't let me walk 100 feet back to my truck without wearing a hard hat and wrap-around safety glasses. I just "love" it when policy triumphs over common sense...

Laredo, TX - Finally, something

Because of the kind of load I'm on, I don't want to go into specifics, but I have something to pick up tomorrow and deliver on Friday. It's a nice, long run too, though I do have a reasonable amount of time to deliver it. If I've planned it out just right, I should have roughly eight hours to spare in case something happens or (more likely) I just want to sleep in on Thursday or Friday morning. For now, though, I'm off to bed and have a 7 AM wake up call coming from the front desk.

Laredo, TX - Nowhere, slowly

As expected, freight is terrible. All the bobtail parking is taken; presumably, all those drivers are waiting on loads. There are about 15 people inside here alone. So I drove the seven miles to drop the load and get back to th OC. Now I get to wait a day (or more) to see if they can find some loads.

Laredo, TX - Next to the border

I can't say "south of the border" for obvious reasons, but there are plenty of places in Mexico that are further north than this. Of course, the place I was supposed to deliver to is closed on the weekend and we don't have any freight, so I just had to take a layover. I honestly am to the point where I want to work; I've had so much time off lately that I don't even know what to do with myself. However, freight is always bad down here and things are exceptionally soft nationwide, so I've a bad feeling I might be waiting quite a bit longer to get something. At least the hotel they use here is decent; they have a security guard on site so I don't have to worry about anyone in the neighborhood causing trouble. But for now, I'm off to bed; if they did find me a load I want to be able to run all day tomorrow.

Baytown, TX - Same place, different day

I was originally given an assignment telling me to drop this load as a relay in Houston, then pick up a load from there and take it to Laredo. However, I could barely sleep last night so I was nearly eight hours behind schedule; I finally got to sleep around the time I'd originally intended to wake up. When I did wake up, I found several messages asking me why I hadn't moved and telling me that the other driver was waiting. So I called in and made a very simple suggestion: have the other driver pick up the relay I was supposed to have and let me continue down to Laredo with my current load. Nobody gains or loses any miles and the other guy isn't stuck waiting for me. They seemed rather dumbstruck that I had such a simple solution to the problem.

I would have continued into Houston to take my break at the operating center, but traffic on I-10 was terrible once I got close so I stopped about ten miles early at a truck stop here. On the bright side, I was able to get dinner (and won a free burger from McDonald's in their Monopoly game) and watch a bit of TV, both things I would not have been able to do at the OC. I'm taking it somewhat easier than I should, but given that we never have enough freight coming out of Laredo and things have been particularly soft the last six weeks, I'd be shocked to find a load ready for me when I get down there. At least, on the bright side, I should have some decent miles coming out of there simply because there are few places that aren't at least a day's drive from the border.

Hammond, LA - Here we go again

Operations actually seemed worried that I disappeared for a few days. They took me off the load I was previously assigned but gave me another load with comparable mileage. Hopefully they'll keep me busy now.

Evergreen, AL - Failure to communicate

When I came back to the truck Tuesday, I had a load to be delivered by noon on the 10th. I took that opportunity to go home and take care of a few personal matters (including casting an absentee ballot). When I returned to the truck this morning, however, I saw that my delivery had been moved up to the 8th by 6 PM. That message came in on the 7th at about 5 PM, several hours after I had left.

So the took me off the load and asked me to call in. I dd so, explained the situation, and they seemed to understand. At least I won't have to try and get home again before my vacation in November; I took care of everything I needed to do at home over the next six weeks. Now I just need a new work assignment - hopefully one without several days to kill - and I'll be on my merry way.

Atlanta, GA - You just hit MY truck?

Yeah, that subject line is right: I had a driver from the Sure Wish I Finished Training transportation company hit my truck. I was waiting to make a right turn; he came along and made a right turn coming toward me and the front corner of his trailer hit my driver's side mirror. It cracked the plastic housing for the mirror enough that I can't get it back into place and will likely need to resort to duct tape to hold everything together. This after a rather frustrating time at a customer; I absolutely hate it when the guard doesn't speak enough English to even tell me where I'm supposed to drop my loaded trailer or to find the empties. Took me an hour to do something that should have taken twenty minutes.

In any case, despite all the irritations, I'm still about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I was making killer time on the highway today (I was averaging 59 mph until I hit Atlanta) so that cancels out the problems I had here in town. I plan on getting a shower and getting to sleep as quickly as I can, though, since the sooner I get moving the sooner I'll make it home tomorrow. And it is very nice to get home at least once in a while.

Middletown, TN - Something Special

The route to get to this place was... an adventure, to say the least. A narrow road with plenty of potholes. I hit one and worried I broke my steer axle; a quick inspection in that area showed no immediately obvious damage. So now I'm just waiting to get loaded. Since it's loose boxes, I really have no idea if they're even working on my truck, but it sounds like there's something going on back there.

While I was waiting, I also called operations to find out what happened about the first customer I picked up from, since they had several concerns. Ops is going to contact customer service and pass the information along; they should take it more positively coming from my board instead of directly from a driver. I also found out that I'm doing incredibly well in every category that they measure: insanely low idle (I was actually encouraged to "live it up a little" since 2.5% was so low), excellent service, better than 7 mpg, and extremely low out-out-route mileage. He said he needs to get back to me to find out just what I'm doing right, whether it's simply a matter of paying attention to detail or some special technique I have. I can't say that I've any particular technique, though it is very, very good to hear that I'm doing so well.

Russel, IL - Ahead of the game

I'm so, so thankful that September is finally over. I don't know why, but somehow, now that the blasted month is over with, things seem much better. That might have something to do with a few things going on outside of work, like getting those extra days off, but things seem genuinely good right now. Of course, assignments are as frustrating and misleading as ever: the first pick up for my current load was scheduled to be picked up tomorrow, any time between 7 AM and 5 PM, at a customer that allowed parking. In reality, they weren't planning on being ready for me until 9 AM and do not allow drivers to park. However, this is October! A wonderful new month! Instead of just telling me off and leaving me to complain to operations, they actually worked me in and loaded the trailer immediately. I was there less than 30 minutes.

So I'm at a TA just south of the WI/IL state line and am two hours into my break. I plan on getting moving as soon as my 10 hour break is up and making the second pick up stop for this load. I may then take my break in Indianapolis and just make it a half day (to catch up on sleep) or press on and try to have three 10+ hour days in a row. Both options certainly have their appeal, especially since the harder I run the better my assigned runs seem to become. However, before any of that can happen, I need to get the seven or so hours of sleep I can manage before it's time to resume working. :)

Neely's Landing, MO - Exasperation

After going every wrong way, I finally found this place. This time, they had both the name and city wrong. Charming, hm? In any case, I have a 10 PM appointment, which means I won't get to finish my break before they get to me. I could be cute and just not log the time it takes for them to load the truck (lumping it into my break) but I'm not sure if I could get away with that. If I do it that way, it'll ensure that I can use another very full day tomorrow, if nothing else.

Anyway, as for that last load, I hadn't been taken off of it when I made my last post. I was told that by operations but I then received a message from the trip planner explaining that I was still on it and that I would make pickup and both deliveries on time, even after I explained that I couldn't possibly do it. I responded by explaining (again) that it would put me over both the 11 and 14 hour rules unless I averaged more than 57 mph and didn't stop for anything whatsoever; when trip planning, they tell us to normally plan on an average of 50 mph and to allow an hour for miscellaneous stops or delays. Only after I said that it would be illegal for me to do so and that I flat-out refused to do it did they take me off the load, though there was a note telling me to call in before I'd be assigned something else.

So I called in and talked to operations and explained the above. They were as bewildered as I was as to how the trip planner thought I could take the load legally. Even more unusual is that the trip planner claimed she wasn't the one to assign me the load, even though it was on her shift; the information about the load assigner disappeared after the load was canceled. At least ops had some good news: I get to go home next weekend because it'll be the one time this month I want to go home. I need to check the mail and such, especially because they mailed all the drivers a coupon for a free pair of boots, good in October only. Also, I found out that we're doing away with the trip planners entirely, which means I won't have to deal with this kind of load-related crap as often; I'll be dealing directly with operations and operations will handle everything that is normally done by trip planning. There was some bad news, though: I do not get a bonus for this month like I was previously told. At least she took the time to look into it and research the correct answer this time around.

As we were wrapping up the conversation, my current work assignment came in, complete with an appointment four hours after my time ran out. Since I was still on the phone, ops just put me on hold and called the shipper; they're allowing me to take my break here. Of course, what should have been a roughly hour trip here turned into nearly double that, resulting in me ending up in downtown of a small city and having to turn around in open lots twice. I'm finally here, I checked in, and it looks like they're just going to take me in the order I arrived. There are three trucks in front of me right now, so once I post this I'm going to get to sleep, since I don't anticipate them being ready for me within the next three hours. The sooner they finish my trailer, of course, the better; I want to get as close to a full night's sleep as I can.

This load is going up to Wisconsin and the route is easy enough, at least: I-55 to I-94 to the consignee. It shouldn't be a problem, since I can deliver the load any time tomorrow, but Chicago traffic is always horrible. I'll just have to cross my fingers on that front. It looks like one truck has been loaded in the time it took me to write this, which means these guys are working remarkably fast tonight. I might not even bother with a nap and just get eight (or more) solid hours of sleep after they finish the trailer if this keeps up. But for now I'm just going to post this and hope that I don't have anything else happen tonight that's worth writing about.

Bloomsdale, MO - uh?

Things are so screwed up that I don't know where to begin. I have an assignment though, so details will come later.

Mount Olive, IL - Unpossible

They took me off the lord, so I'm going to get fuel. Whee.

Mount Olive, IL - Do what now?

My next load is impossible. More than 600 miles and one day to do it. It might be possible if things go perfectly, but it's a two stop delivery. I would just make the first if I got extremely lucky. Now I'm on hold with ops trying to find out how this is possible or if they'll admit they goofed and not try forcing me into an illegal, unsafe run.

Waddy, KY - Long days ahead

Thanks to all the problems last night, I'm going to just barely make delivery on this load. I'm pretty sure I can make it, since I have about 360 miles to go (I think) and a little under eight hours to get there once I get off my break. I can't afford to take any more time on break than the DOT requires, but if things go well (for once) I should at least be able to make a stop for an early lunch on my way to the consignee. There's conflicting information on this load, though: the work assignment specifies "at" noon while the notes say "by" noon. It doesn't make much difference in this case since there's a very slim chance I'd be there before 11 AM anyway. Hopefully they'll be able to find me another decent load right away; I'm doing pretty decently right now and I'd really like to keep up the positive momentum while I can.

Big Island, VA - Exactly on schedule

Even though I'm here at a manufacturer, I'm stuck waiting for "about an hour" for them to get ready to load my trailer with product. I don't see how these guys can't have the product ready to go several hours in advance; it's not like there are a lot of other trucks getting loaded and they can't keep up. I now have the dilemma of either taking my break here tonight and leaving as quickly as possible in the morning or trying to make about 200 miles tonight and putting myself within one more day's drive of my delivery. Sure, this thing has to be delivered at noon on Tuesday, but the closer I can get to the place on Monday, the easier that task becomes. If I play my cards just right, I could even get to take my break Monday night near St. Louis, where we have an operating center, so I can at least be sure of having a parking space and a shower. However, that requires I get loaded and feel up to driving another three to four hours, which I may or may not want to do. That decision will come after I have a full trailer.

Big Island, VA - Hurry up and wait

I arrived here about 30 minutes ago. It took this long to cut through the bureaucracy and get told where to go. They started unloading me quickly, but my next load isn't ready for another three hours. On the bright side, since this was a shorthaul and wasn't supposed to be a live unload, I got an extra $40.

Carlisle, PA - Relaxation

I hadn't originally planned on taking all day off today. I was thinking I'd sleep in a little, get a shower, then drive into Virginia this afternoon. That plan fell apart when "sleep in a little" became sleeping in until 11 AM. This load has to be delivered by 11:59 tomorrow night, so it's not like I can't spare the time. I guess I'll just relax up here and leave mid-morning tomorrow.

Carlisle, PA - Run to the woods

After finally getting rid of that last @#$*(@#$ load, I got another assignment to move an empty trailer around, then pick up a load going to a place that's 50+ miles off the interstate. I stopped here since there were a couple of things operations wanted me to do while at an operating center. I have two days to spare on this load, if I feel like taking that long, but since I'm pretty desperate for miles I'll probably deliver it quickly as I can and hope they can find me another load. On the bright side, the load is just short enough to qualify for short haul, so I get a couple extra cents per mile. Too tired to think of much else to write tonight.

Mechanicsburg, PA - Where is it?

Pulled into a strip mall's parking lot to get directions since this place is not where my directions claimed. Can't these guys get anything right?

East Berlin, PA - Whose load is this anyway?

When I arrived about half an hour ago, I was promptly greeted by someone insisting I had the wrong place. They started arguing about it before walking off, leaving me confused. I called operations and found out that I was in the right place after all. Further, the load is a drop, not a live unload like I'd been told all week. My next load is just under 300 miles; I'm going to see if I can make it today.

Greenville, VA - Taking it slow

Because freight is horrible right now, I'm not in a huge hurry to deliver this load. I'm still planning on being up early tomorrow, getting a shower, and likely being on the road before dawn, but I could probably leave two hours or so before I actually will. I have a little more than 200 miles to go on the load, so even leaving at 6 AM or so means I'll be there around 10, four hours before the 2 PM deadline. Supposedly I'll be out of there in an hour or so, but it really doesn't make much difference; freight is really bad right now and it's unlikely they'll be able to find me a load no matter when I get out of there. Of course, that's what I figured last time and I ended up getting this 1,360 mile load to Pennsylvania. I wouldn't mind another one of these loads, provided I don't have the mechanical problems to go along with it.

Knoxville, TN - Ready to go

The truck had a problem with the SRS and TRS sensors. I have no idea what that means, aside from the fact it was ready to go several hours earlier than expected. Because the shop had told me that it would likely be late this afternoon before it was ready, operations is going to credit me for two days of layover so I'm not wasting a night in the hotel that I've already paid for. I'll be out of here at (or near) 8 AM tomorrow and hopefully won't have any further problems. I quite literally can't afford much more of this.

Knoxville, TN - Hauled Away

They got the truck towed. One of the guys here at the shop is going to give me a ride to a nearby hotel in a little bit. It'll be tomorrow before they begin working - it's technically after hours already - so hopefully they can get the work done tomorrow as well.

Knoxville, TN - Getting towed, maybe?

They got here about twenty minutes ago, but it seems like something is wrong given how they're acting. If this thing is so screwed up it can't even be towed, that would be impressive.

Knoxville, TN - Waiting on a wrecker

It turned out to be more than they could fix on the side of the road. I was told a wrecker would be here "within the hour" at 3:30. So far, nobody has shown up. I'm not going to have the hours to drive any further today. At least the new information for this load gave me about two days to spare.

Knoxville, TN - I blew what now?

While it might not be the only problem, I blew a fuse inside the battery box. I didn't know the truck had fuses there. The mechanic had to go back to get the fuse - they're larger than the ones in the cab - so I'm waiting again. Hopefully it won't be another two hours.

Knoxville, TN - R.I.P.?

This is... bad. I was riding along, when my engine suddenly stopped. Meaning I was coasting helplessly downhill at 60 mph. I had a gap to pull over; I did so immediately. The engine seemed to refire at about 20, but given that I also had a warning for low oil pressure, I parked it. Now I'm on hold waiting for maintenance. Oddly, the truck will restart, but dies immediately when I try drive. I'm pretty sure there's a shop at the exit I'm next to; there are three major truck stops here. I just hope I didn't kill the truck.

West Memphis, AR - Whose load is this, anyway?

This has to be one of the stranger loads I've had. I picked up the relay this morning, only to find that the paperwork was missing. Normally this is an annoyance that can be worked around; I just have to call operations to get the info I'd need to write up a bill of lading myself. However, in this case, not even operations had a clue about this load. Every bit of information we had about the trailer, its contents, its origin, and its destination was included in my work assignment. Also, it was originally set up for an 8 AM appointment on Wednesday, but when I sent in a message to confirm I could make that (it'd have been close), I received a response saying that if I wanted to request an early delivery I needed to call in, followed shortly by a new delivery information changing it to "on Friday" between 8 AM and 2 PM.

Confused as to why they would have rescheduled a load I'd said I could make, I called in once again. And more confusion ensued. Turns out that, because freight is so bad right now, customer service is doing a lot of things without confirming them in advance; otherwise we'd lose business to other companies that are more willing to cut corners. A few minutes on hold revealed that the load should have said "by Friday" instead. This means that, if correct, I could get there Wednesday morning and still get unloaded after racking up 1,500 miles in about three days. If it's not, I could potentially get two days of layover at the Carlisle OC while I wait for Friday morning to roll around, though they'd probably just have me drop it and take another load instead.

Either way, I need to haul ass tomorrow. If I don't knock out at least 600 miles, I'm in trouble. I have 931 miles to go on this load and time is very, very short if I want to make that original, Wednesday morning appointment. There's a stop I'd love to make it to up in Virginia, but it's 665 miles away; now that the trucks are at 60 mph, there's no way I can do that unless it's downhill most of the way and I have a good tailwind. Amusingly, there is a 5 to 10 mph tailwind along my route tomorrow. Of course, there are other places I can stop if time is running short.

Dallas, TX - And off we go

I woke up today quite a bit earlier than I intended due to the combination of heat and the Qualcomm beeping. However, the news was good for once: it's a whopping 1,368 paid miles to go into southern PA. This is, by far, the longest run I've had this month and it's about time I get something like this! Since I've been finding it impossible to get to sleep before about 2 AM lately, I decided to just try driving overnight for a little while and see how that goes. Once I get further north, the temperature shouldn't be as much of an issue and I should be able to sleep during the day somewhat comfortably.

One thing that I found incredibly disturbing, though, is that there was a homeless person lounging around in the operating center last night. It was pretty obvious he didn't work here; he had to ask where everything was even though there are signs all over the place and was wearing what appeared to be red bowling shoes instead of the boots any of our drivers wear. Given incidents that have happened in the past, I was worried he was going to pull out a gun or something. Thankfully he was only clueless, as opposed to dangerous, though security had missed him. They said more than six months ago they were going to put up an electric fence and sliding gates around the OC to improve security, but that has yet to happen. As it is, where as I once thought our operating centers were at least reasonably safe, this has proved that's not so and I'm probably going to avoid this place in the future, if I can help it.

West Memphis, AR - Continuing Insanity

Unsurprisingly, things have continued to remain chaotic. I left somewhat later this morning than I intended (though I did desperately need the sleep), only to find a massive line at the truck stop on my way out. I needed to use the scale but the line for the unleaded was so long that it had actually blocked the truck entrance off entirely. A quick look at my atlas and truck stop guide revealed that there was another Pilot truck stop about 40 miles further down the road and there were no government scales along the way.

So, of course, I went along. And as I suspected, I was overweight. Because of how close to the weight limit I was, I had to play around with the fifth wheel.For those of you who don't drive, it's hard to even convey how much of a pain in the rear this is; the truck lurches violently forward or backward when you're trying to move it, making the sort of small, controlled movements I needed impossible. Each notch is only two inches apart and the truck displayed a tendency to jump four inches at a time when I needed to make the adjustments. As such, it took over an hour and a half to finally get it where I needed it, to get re-weighed so I could prove the weight was legal, and to get back on the highway. This meant that I wasn't going to make it to Little Rock like I'd originally planned, especially since I needed to get a couple things fixed at the operating center here.

On the bright side, I'm doing laundry right now and had a lovely catfish dinner for $6. On the not-so-bright side, I have 500 miles left to go on this run that must be delivered tomorrow and a message came across the Qualcomm today saying freight is soft across the entire country this weekend. I'll probably end up going to another operating center after I deliver the load, even if it is a fifty mile drive, because I don't want to be stuck with a layover out in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I don't think there are any truck stops nearer than that; they seem to like sending me to places that are way off the Interstate lately. It'll all make sense tomorrow, I suppose.

Also, not directly related to trucking, what is it with gasoline prices? As the photo below shows, sometimes just going across the street can save you 42¢ per gallon. Yes, that Pilot is selling regular for $3.77 while the Shell is charging $4.19. There was another big line at Pilot while only one person filled up across the street.

Nashville, TN - WHARRGARBL

Things pretty steadily went from bad to worse after my last post. The "one hour" live load took almost an hour and a half. I was fifteen minutes over my fourteen hours when I got to the truck stop, then it took me an hour to actually get into a parking space; even that took the help of two other drivers. I could write more, but I really just want to curl up for a while, so I'm going to do that and only hope tomorrow results in me having fewer instances in which I want to rip my hair out.

Red Boiling Spring, TN - Time is of the essence

I was quite happy after I got my trailer unloaded at the last customer; what I had been told would take three hours ended up taking only 30 minutes and I looked like I'd have enough time to pick my next load up before I went on break. Of course, given the way things have been lately, you can imagine how it wouldn't be that easy. Turns out that this isn't a pre-loaded trailer like I'd been told. I was assured it would be an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes before I was loaded; it's been 45 minutes and they've not even started working my trailer yet. This is a big problem because the nearest truck stop I know of is a whopping 67 miles away, most of that on secondary roads, and I only have until 6:30 before I'm out of time for the night. If I were out of here by the top of the hour, there'd at least be a chance I could make it; if I'm not out by 5:15 I'm going to have to get really, really creative with the paperwork. I'm also going to rip customer service a new one when I call in tomorrow morning; this makes three out of my last four loads that they've completely screwed up.

East St. Louis, IL - Simmering

Amazingly, the rest of the day went well after that last post. I ended up getting to the next place, dropping my empty, and picking up the load in a grand total of 30 minutes. So I have a little wiggle room on this load, but only a little; I still have only seven and a half hours to go roughly 400 miles. At least it's all on the Interstate this time, unless I find a significant short cut somewhere; I'll be looking for one in the atlas tonight. For now, though, I'm planning on finishing dinner, doing a bit of exercise, getting a shower, and getting to bed. I'm going to need to catch up on sleep since I have to be up at 4 AM again.

Fenton, MO - Boiling point

I'm trying to be as patient as I can with things, but I'm finding that patience to be running extremely thin right now. I don't think they had a single piece of information right about this load. Originally it was supposed to be picked up yesterday but I never had enough time to get there and find a place to park; I had to get them to reschedule it. The delivery was supposed to be a drop at 4 PM, which then was bumped up to 2:30 after I called and said I could make it earlier; instead, nobody ever bothered contacting the consignee and - on top of that - this was a live unload and not a drop. As a result of that, I might not have enough hours left to pick up the next load and get to a truck stop, which is the same problem I ran into yesterday, only this time the nearest truck stop is about fifteen miles away. It doesn't help that I was berated by another driver for blocking the only trailer drop slot in the yard; I parked there because it was the only place that I could park the truck while I tried to figure out why none of the information I was given about this load was correct.

My hours run out at 6:30 - two and a half hours from now - and as I figure it there's no way I can get everything done before 6:15. Even that assumes that I get in the dock exactly at 4 o'clock, per the original appointment, get out of here within a half hour, get everything done at the next shipper (drop and hook) in less than an hour, then find no traffic problems at all as I drive through the middle of St. Louis at rush hour. Even then, it'll be a hell of a squeeze to try and get the delivery done tomorrow; I'll have roughly 400 miles to go and seven hours to do it in, which doesn't even leave me enough time to stop for a bathroom break. If I can somehow save even fifteen minutes somewhere, that will help immensely, though I seriously doubt anything is going to go in my favor at this point. It's now 4:10 and I just backed into the dock; they haven't even turned on the dock lock to let me know that they're ready to work on it. It's a small wonder I was even able to get it in here, though, due to another driver taking up most of the area I needed to maneuver. At least I'm not the first person who has had to cut across the grass to try and make this work.

I'd be really, really happy to just get assigned a simple drop and hook somewhere at this point. A load going to Wal-Mart would be wonderful; those are always easy to work with and generally have extra time in case something goes wrong. They've just started unloading my trailer (finally), so I'm going to post this and hope I can get out of here within the next ten minutes.

Antioch, TN - How many loads can a trip planner cancel?

So far today, I've had one load canceled outright and it looks like I can't pick up the on I'm currently assigned either. At this rate it's not unlikely that I'll just end up on break after this unload.

Gary, IN - Laid over once again

Due to the weather screwing with the area, the driver who was supposed to relay this load couldn't even get into the operating center; he was stuck in Forest Park, IL for almost twelve hours. I woke up late this morning, got lunch, got a shower... and then found that the trailer was overdue for a PM. You'd think that a driver dropping a relay could at least get that written up and put it in the maintenance row; this guy hadn't bothered to do that. So now I've been waiting nearly three hours for them to do whatever they need to do with this trailer. Instead of being able to deliver this load this afternoon or early tomorrow morning, it looks like I'll be stuck trying to deliver it early tomorrow afternoon, at best, and even that assumes they can get an appointment scheduled for then on such short notice. If I'm not out of here within another hour, it'll be after the consignee for this load is closed and they probably won't be able to set up a delivery even later than that.

It's amazing how many things can go wrong, isn't it?

Reddit for Truck Drivers

Despite the popularity of the site, I noticed that there wasn't a subreddit for truck drivers. So, given that I had a little extra time this morning, I set one up and populated it with a couple of recent news articles. So there's now a trucking reddit that needs links. Anyone have some content to submit or, if nothing else, any interest in joining?

Gary, IN - Not so fast

So here's an amusing problem: the load that I'm supposed to pick up here isn't here until morning, which means that the one time I do want to work I can't. At least it'll be here in time for me to get near my destination tomorrow and have more than enough time to sleep in as it's a live unload for 11:30 AM. Not really much else to write about today, since it was just a straight shot up I-55 to deliver my last load, then directly across I-80 to get here. Hopefully tomorrow will be this uneventful, though I'll be driving through the remnants of Ike later in the day, so I imagine that the weather will be getting rather interesting as I move south. I'll keep the camera on hand in case there's anything worth photographing.

Elkton, IL - I've got nothing

Looks like I am once again going to have more downtime than I know what to do with. Freight is terrible up here so I'm picking up an empty and parking at the nearest truck stop, roughly ten miles south of here. Hopefully they'll find something soon or at least let me to go the OC.

One minute later - Heh, incoming work assignment as I type. This better be good.

West Memphis, AR - No rest for the weary

I have a work assignment. Normally this would be a good thing, but not when it means I have to drive 380 miles by noon. I'm going to have to wake up at 3 AM to have any chance of making this delivery, two hours earlier than I said I'd be available. Apparently, as usual, support shift doesn't care about drivers; they only care about scheduling loads even when it's unsafe for me to be up so early as I'll have gotten barely seven hours sleep. I'll take this load as I'm pretty desperate for miles but I'll be complaining about the delivery appointment while I'm getting unloaded.

West Memphis, AR - Going nowhere slowly

I meant to post this about four hours ago. Oh well. >_>

Due to the storm, they ended up canceling my delivery and had me drop it as a relay right here at the OC. Since I didn't get much sleep last night and just have been really groggy all day as a result, I ended up going absolutely nowhere. I'll be getting up early tomorrow and (hopefully) getting quite a bit more sleep to facilitate a full day's work, though if I get an assignment before bed that allows me the luxury of sleeping in, I'll be very happy to do so. For now, I'm just relaxing in the OC since it's not as hot as the truck (though I'd swear the air conditioning is off) and just enjoying the afternoon.

West Memphis, AR - Racing the storm

Well, this is a familiar predicament. I'm en route to a place that's threatened by a tropical cyclone. In this case, it's Ike, bearing down on the Texas Gulf Coast. However, I should be able to deliver this load either late tomorrow afternoon or first thing Friday morning, hopefully before everything gets shut down, if indeed they do force an evacuation. However, given how many people are on the coast and how long it would take to actually evacuate everyone, I'm not so sure about that. I'll just keep checking the radio every few hours to ensure that there haven't been any more evacuation orders posted and hope for the best. At least I'm not going to be down there on the same day it makes landfall, assuming they can find some freight to get me out of there; the last time I dealt with a tropical storm (Fay) I was delivering on the very same morning it made landfall.

Indianapolis, IN - Getting ready to go again

The shop finished up the truck earlier this afternoon, so I went back over to the operating center to double-check their work. Unlike Atlanta, they did everything that I'd asked for. The truck actually drives in a straight line! I don't have any obnoxious sounds coming from the radio! But since it was about 3 PM by the time I was ready to go, I decided to take one more night off and be ready to leave at about six in the morning. Hopefully they'll have a good run for me out of here since I really need to make some miles this week.

Amazingly, operations didn't seem to mind that I'd taken the time off without even trying to get a loaner truck; my manager just said that everything was okay and reminded me to send in an update on my hours to run and such. I'll send in about hotel reimbursement tomorrow once I'm ready to go since there's a chance I'll even get the room covered. Overall, this could be quite a good week.

Indianapolis, IN - In the shop again

When I arrived in Indy this evening, I had to drop a trailer for a relay, then went to the shop to put my truck in for all the things that Atlanta didn't fix. As soon as I said the truck needed an alignment, the mechanic just glanced at my steer tires and said "Yeah, those are shot." I'm confident that I'll get everything fixed this time. Though it'll be about Tuesday by the time I'm done waiting on repair (assuming they stay on schedule) it'll be worth it to get all those things fixed. I'm just annoyed that Atlanta didn't fix them the first time.

I'm also somewhat annoyed that operations gave me a work assignment even after I'd written the truck up; I sent a message back telling them that my truck is in the shop and I will not be able to make the delivery. I left them my cell phone number and told them that they could call me if they absolutely, positively had to, but so far I've not gotten a call back. Knowing my luck, I'll get chewed out on Monday for missing the delivery appointment even though I explicitly said that I couldn't take the load due to truck repair. They'd probably have me take a loaner truck again if I actually called them myself, but I'd like to avoid that mess since it took so long to return the loaner last time, resulting in the sort of anemic paycheck I can't afford right now.

Anyway, I'm off to sleep to enjoy yet another couple of days off.

Cornersville, TN - On The Road Again

First day back out and I get a 750 mile run. I'll also be going through Indianapolis to get the truck double-checked. I'd say this is a pretty good start.

Panama City, FL - 150 miles and 2.5 hours left

Yes, that subject is right: I need to average sixty miles per hour to get home without getting cute on my logs. Considering that I'm not taking any Interstates, there's a roughly equal chance of flying pigs. I'm still planning on getting there regardless; with as screwy as this week has been I'm overdue for a few days off.

Marianna, FL - 240 miles to go

I have finally been released to go home, but I have to go 70 miles out of the way to drop this empty trailer. As such, I have serious dou ts about making it home before my hours run out; I'm going to round things well in my favor on my logbook if that is the only way I'll get home today.

Atlanta, GA - Going nowhere, slowly

I never did find out who took my time at home out of the computer, though supposedly operations is going to look into it. I also was told that the load I was assigned - with a live unload that would keep me 180 miles from home until 10 AM Friday - would be the best they could possibly do for me. I've told them that I could get it there at 4 PM or so today, assuming the place has any afternoon receiving hours, though it looks very unlikely that I'll be able to deliver it then. If they reschedule it for some ridiculously early hour of the morning, I'll go back to sleep and drive all night to get there. Operations once again promised that I'd get to go home, since apparently they'll let me bobtail anywhere under 200 miles to get home. In other words, Atlanta is 37 miles too far away for them to just send me directly home.

I don't know what's going to happen at this point but none of it is good.

Atlanta, GA - Who says you can't go home?

I have no idea how this is possible, but when I called in from the OC to complain that the run I'd been assigned wasn't going to get me any closer to home, I was told that I didn't have any time at home in the computer. Someone apparently deleted my request and, as such, apparently nobody knew that I was supposed to be home yesterday; the only request in the computer was to be routed through Atlanta to return the loaner truck. I have my alarm set for 7 AM and I'm not leaving the operating center here until this mess is sorted out. So far, I've gotten nothing but lies from the trip planners this week and I am completely exasperated by their inability to give me a single correct, honest piece of information. In short: I'm going to call and whine that I want to go home since, apparently, that's about the only way I'm going to get sent home at all.

In (somewhat) related news, the shop here in Atlanta sucks. Even given five days to work on my truck, the only thing they fixed were the windshield wipers. I'm going to walk over there in the morning to get a print out of what exactly was fixed and, hopefully, an explanation of why certain things weren't fixed. Most worryingly, three of my tires are still in questionable condition; I'm certain that one of them wouldn't pass a DOT inspection. If there's no note about the tires at all on the shop's report, I'm going to have someone from the shop take a good, long look at it and, if he still insists that it doesn't need repair or replacement, have him sign my logbook as verification that I had a mechanic inspect it.

Before any of this, though, I'm going to bed; hopefully six hours of sleep will at least get me through the day tomorrow.

Tuscaloosa, AL - Off we go

Looks like things are finally not insane. I was told to head in to the consignee at 8 PM, which is doable. Now I just have to hope they actually will route me directly to Atlanta as I've been promised; most of this week has just been changed assignments and being left hanging.

Tuscaloosa, AL - All together now

Over the course of the evening, it seems like every piece of information I've had about this load has changed at least twice. Though my work assignment originally said noon on Thursday, it turns out that the actual appointment was 5PM on Wednesday, something that I couldn't possibly make. Even my most optimistic estimate had me there around 6PM and that's assuming nothing went wrong, which it always does. So when I picked up the load, I updated my information once again... only to get back a snarky message telling me that the load had already been rescheduled twice and that I had better figure out what I'm doing before I send in another update. Never mind the fact that operations apparently couldn't communicate any useful information to me or that I kept having to adjust my entire sleep schedule around this load; they expected me to have everything sorted out for them.

So, when I shut down here, I called in and explained the situation to someone in support shift for at least the second time today. I was told to send in another update with my best estimate - which ended up being different than anything I'd communicated previously because I'm going to hit Chattanooga at rush hour - then call in the morning as well to confirm that everything was in order. I've done that, so now I just need to get to sleep and hope that, somehow, things miraculously sort themselves out in the next seven hours. Assuming that I am delivering this load and get routed immediately and directly back to Atlanta, it's 541 miles, which leaves me just about enough time to shut down for the night; I'll still have 237 miles to drive on Thursday to get home. If they have me relay it in Atlanta and just go home, it's 438 miles; needless to say, I'd much prefer this option since I'd actually get home on time.

Of course, every single thing that I'm posting here is speculation and requires operations to have things together. If they don't, I'll be lucky to see home this weekend at all.

Brookhaven, MS - I'm doing what now?

They moved the delivery appointment up to 5PM eastern time tomorrow. I'll have to drive all night to have any chance of making that; even then it's going to be close. I guess it's a good thing that I slept in unil noon today.

Brookhaven, MS - Going nowhere quickly

I finally have an assignment, but it's not at all helpful. It's a live unload at noon on Thursday at a place about 160 miles from Atlanta. While they (supposedly) have a lot of freight in that area going back toward Atlanta and, in turn, home, I wouldn't be getting to my park location until about 12:30 AM Friday morning.

I've been on hold for almost 40 minutes now, trying to get this load relayed in Atlanta or simply to get assigned something better, though the latter is extremely unlikely. First shift is gone for the day so here's hoping that support shift can be useful for a change. Of course, I'd be thrilled just to have someone answer the phone.

Jackson, MS - Still idling

I've been waiting all day for a work assignment to come in, but right now, 26 hours after I shut down yesterday, I still don't have an assignment to take me anywhere. I did get permission to move the truck up here so I could get a good meal and a shower, neither of which I could do at the little hole-in-the-wall I'd stopped at last night. I'm going to head inside to get a drink then go to bed, just leaving the Qualcomm next to me so its incoming message beeps wake me up for when I do finally get an assignment.

At this point, though, they need to route me back to Atlanta post-haste if I'm going to have any chance of making it home Wednesday, as planned. As I see it, they have to find a load that I'll either deliver near Atlanta or relay at the operating center tomorrow; if they don't, I might not even have the truck back in time for the other driver who needs it. Then, on Wednesday, the only thing I can think of would be getting a load to Mobile or, for that matter, pretty much anywhere in the southern half of Alabama. They could possibly have me relay something at the drop yard I normally park at, though that's somewhat less likely. It's not entirely impossible that they'll have me do something else with the goal of getting me home Thursday and, since freight is extremely soft, there's a risk that will happen. I seriously hope it doesn't, though, as I already have plans for Thursday evening and through the weekend.

Brookshaven, MS - Waiting Game

Apparently freight is extremely soft today. It's rare that I have to wait this long for a load, but even though I told operations I'd be ready to move six hours ago, I have yet to get a work assignment. I plan on calling in before they leave just to ensure they realize that I have to be back in Atlanta by tomorrow, or to get permission to drive the truck somewhere that has more services. I could really go for a steak dinner at Petro or, at the very least, a cool shower at Pilot. I just don't want to drive the 50 or so miles to get to those truck stops without having a reason for it, since that would definitely not help my chances of getting the low out-of-route bonus.

Atlanta, GA

I'm too tired to write in all the details, but here's the short version of what had me so worked up last night. Instead of being shut down while waiting for my truck to get through a PM, they ended up assigning me another load. I then find out from support shift that I'm supposed to pick up a loaner truck, something that nobody had bothered to tell me until after I had planned to get the work done on my tractor. So I went to the shop to have them write my truck up, only to be told that since it wouldn't be ready until Tuesday afternoon, it would no longer be assigned to me by the time they finished the work; Schneider only lets drivers stay assigned to their truck if they're not gone more than five days. So, in other words, the shop figured that whatever loaner I was assigned would be a permanent change. This is what had me so irate last night: changes like this are not something I should find out from the weekend shift in the tractor shop.

I ended up calling in this morning to get the mess straightened out. Turns out that the truck I'm temporarily assigned to is part of a special program we have and, as such, it would have to be back here by Wednesday morning anyway. They're going to do everything they can to route me back here Monday evening; if that happens, I'll be taking tomorrow to deliver a load, then coming right back here on Monday, though I'm still not holding my breath about that. I'm also not sure how this is going to change the situation for time at home, since I'm scheduled to be done on Wednesday and I've a weird feeling that it's not going to work very smoothly.

Failure to Communicate

I'm so pissed off at every level of management at the company that I am completely at a loss for words. In short, I have to permanently give up my truck for a "loaner" because nobody knows what they're doing. Details later once I have anything to say that isn't saturated in profanity.

Work Assignments

I've mentioned my work assignments before, but I've never really gone into detail about what an assignment consists of. I'm going to provide examples of one below and explain what the gibberish means. Each message requires at least one response.

Fuel and Directions (one for each load)

PLZ SEND FUEL LVL FOR LD XX12345 TO RECEIVE DIRECTIONS

For this message, a reply presents a form on which I have to input two things: my fuel level (in increments of 1/8 tank) and what kind of directions I want (fueling only, company directions from nearest major highway, or street-level directions akin to Google's). This is the only way to get fuel directions so I generally round down to the next-lower fuel increment to be safe.

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Equipment Disposition (one for each movement of unloaded equipment, rarely more than two per load)

Unfortunately, I don't have an example of this handy right now. But all it does is provide a customer code, what I'm doing with equipment (picking up or dropping off a trailer, deadheading, or bobtailing), and the number of miles I'm getting paid for it. In a case where I'm picking up an empty trailer and taking it to another yard - which is common for places that only receive or only ship - I'll get one message to pick up the trailer and another message to drop it. Each one requires a reply so they know when I picked it up and that I did, in fact, get the trailer I was supposed to get. If for some reason the trailer I've been told to pick up is not available, there are fields that I can input that information on; I then have to wait and find out what they want me to do.

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Pickup Information (one for each pick up point)

PU INFO  LOC ID ABC12_ LD# XX12345 CUST NAME GENERIC WAREHOUSING #42 ADDRESS 123 NOWHERE RD CITY CORINTH____________ STATE MS PU STOP# 01 OF 01 BOX # TA987654 PRELDED___ PU RELAY N EST ARRIVE DTTM 08/21 0800 PU WINDOW 08/21 08:00 16:00 ON AVG DUR 00:30  HV______ MILES LDED 320 MILES FROM PREV LOC 0

Yay, details! This message provides the information I'll need in order to get directions, when I'm expected to arrive there, and how much I'm getting paid for it. In this case, I'm going to pick up a load that I have to pick up on the 21st between 8AM and 4PM and will get paid 320 miles for delivering it. If "miles from previous location" weren't zero, I'd be getting paid just to drive there. This is often the case if I've dropped a load at the previous customer and am picking up a preloaded trailer. Any specific information for the load or customer will be in this message as well, listed below the information in my example. This message requires two replies: one when I arrive and one when I depart. When I leave, I need to include the trailer number I've taken with me so the company can track what equipment is where.

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Pickup Billing & Service Verification (one for each pick up point unless load is picked up as a relay)

PU BILLING & SERVICE VERIFICATION LOC ID ABC12_              LD # XX12345 CUST NAME GENERIC WAREHOUSING #42 PCS 3495 WEIGHT 30360 CMDTY PAPER, BALED MB/L 123454321 PU # R2-D2 HAND LOAD? NO X PART _ FULL _ LMPR _ PALJACK _

And more details! The first three lines just repeat information I already know, but the rest is useful. In this case, the load is just over 30,000 pounds so I need to be somewhat concerned about weight. I also have a bill of lading and a pick up number; most loads will only have one or the other, but in this case I have both. It's also not a hand load, though that's pretty obvious for preloaded trailers. When I reply to this, I have to fill in the correct number of pieces, the weight, and the bill of lading number. "Lumper" services are loading or unloading services we have to pay for and, frankly, are a pain in the ass. But that's a post for another time.

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Delivery Information (one for each drop/unload point)

DEL INFO LOC ID ZZ987_ LD# XX12345 CUST NAME BIG BOX MART #7269 ADDRESS 500 DUELING BANJO LN CITY MCDONOUGH________ STATE GA DEL STOP # 01 OF 01    DP RELAY N EST ARRIVE DTTM 08/21 1539  DP LDED DEL WINDOW 08/22 00:01 23:59 BY AVG DUR 00:30 MILES FROM PREV LOC 320 SND MAC29 IF DEL IS OUTSIDE SVC WINDOW

And now for information about the place I'm going to. This has similar information to the pickup info message, only detailing my delivery. In this case, it's a "by" delivery, which means I can drop it any time I want as long as it's by the time listed; if I get this load delivered by 11:59PM on the 22nd, it's considered on time. Of course, I can deliver it early; the computer figures I can get there before 4PM on the 21st. It's to my advantage to deliver as early as possible, since the sooner I deliver a load the sooner I can get on something else to rack up more mileage. Like the pick up info, this message requires a reply both at arrival and departure.

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Delivery Billing & Service Verification (one for each pick up point unless load is dropped off as a relay)

DEL BILLING & SERVICE VERIFICATION LOC ID ZZ987_              LD # XX12345 CUST NAME BIG BOX MART #7269 PCS 3495 WEIGHT 30360 CMDTY PAPER, BALED HAND LOAD? NO X PART _ FULL _ LMPR _ PALJACK _

The delivery message contains completely redundant information. All I have to do is, once I get the bills signed or stamped, reply to this so they know to send out a freight bill.

There may be an additional message with pick up or delivery numbers, such as PO numbers that may or many not be necessary, or any other unusual information I might need. I still haven't figured out why they can't just include it in the load-specific information on the pick up or delivery info messages, but that's not my thing to figure out

Satsuma, AL

1:15PM - Ugh. I got to Kimberly Clark in Mobile and picked up my load without too much trouble, though it wasn't in the yard they normally keep our trailers at. This trailer is in pretty rough shape, though; there are two tires that only just met DOT specifications and the tandem slider barely worked the first time I tried it. So what's the problem? The tandems didn't move after I scaled the load and found I am 100 pounds overweight on the trailer. While I've dealt with worse things before, I sent in an overweight message, waited half an hour, then after not getting a response called operations. Rather than telling me to run with it (as I've been told to in the past), they warned me that if I got a ticket I'm responsible for it and suggested I call road repair. So now I'm on hold waiting for them to answer the phone. At least that Bluetooth-enabled CB radio is working out nicely; it's a fantastically loud speaker for when I'm waiting on hold, saving me the trouble of holding a phone up to my head.

1:45PM - That was a long time to accomplish next to nothing. I was told to go to a place 25 miles away to get this fixed, so I'm going well out of my way; hopefully I can at least get credit for driving down there. And I really hope that the place I'm delivering to will allow me to park since I'm waiting on a load to come out of there; I'm going to have one heck of a time finding parking tonight if they don't.

Crestview, FL

I stopped at the Florida welcome center to update operations about the load. Despite my best efforts, there's no way I could have made the delivery appointment I had. The unload of my previous load took nearly four hours; it was supposed to be done within two. And even if I'd gotten out of there on time, I'd have had only one hour to spare on this load. So when I got a message that said "Please call me" I prepared for the worst, since I didn't think it was anything good.

Turns out, though, that they want me to relay the load somewhere. It's going to be a relay not because I'm late but because of Tropical Storm Fay. I'm just waiting at a rest area right now for instructions on where I need to go. I'll be particularly happy if they route me to the place I've parked my car and I can just take the rest of the day off, but I doubt I'll get that lucky.

Into the Storm

I get to drive into a tropical cyclone and dispatch doesn't care. I hope it's just whatever support shift is smoking and first shift is more reasonable.

Browns Summit, NC

I'm starting to write this while I wait on road repair. Yay.

Anyway, my day started off with the unexpected beeping of the Qualcomm as I received a work assignment. I'd been hoping to sleep in, but no, I ended up waking up at 7:30 to that infernal thing. I looked at it and saw that I had an open pickup window and a delivery appointment on Saturday, leaving me some extra time, so I tried to get back to sleep. And failed miserably. I gave up on it entirely around 10 o'clock, got online for a little while, then decided to head inside for lunch and a shower. Even that didn't work out so well; I had a long wait for the lunch line and the shower line was so long that I decided to forego that entirely instead of waiting at least another 30 minutes.

So, I ended up hitting the road. I got to where I was picking up an empty trailer, only to find that the trailer I'd been assigned wasn't there. Instead, they had just one of our trailers, an "A" trailer that probably is as old as I am. It wasn't in the best of shape, either; it was road legal, but had one rear marker light out and another that looked ready to fall off. Also, it looked like someone had broken open an economy-sized bag of popcorn, as there were kernels strewn about the trailer. And I only have a hand broom, so I only swept out the worst of it and hoped that the next place didn't notice or care.

Thankfully, they didn't say anything, but that's because this is such a bureaucracy that it's a wonder they can actually ship anything out at all. I arrived at 6 o'clock (or so), slid the tandems and opened the door... then needed nearly twenty minutes to back the trailer into a spot since there's so little room to maneuver here. It took me three tries; the first two attempts were so far off that I couldn't salvage anything useful and I just had to go around again. Once I dropped it, I had to drive to another lot to get the load, or so I was told. Turns out that it wasn't there either, so I was directed to a third facility. They said it was there, but that I had to go to a fourth location to pick up my paperwork, then come back to get the trailer. So, after more than half an hour of running around aimlessly, I had my paperwork in hand and found the trailer.

But, as I wrote earlier, I was waiting on road repair. Why? Because as I walked around, I noticed a big rip in a tire's sidewall. We're talking an eight-inch gash along the inside. Needless to say, the tire was completely flat. So I called, spent ten minutes on hold, and tried to work the landing gear. Even that proved difficult; for some reason, the high gears were extremely tight and I nearly threw my back out trying to get the blasted thing to move at all. I had only just finished raising the legs when someone answered; I gave the information, provided directions for the facility... then got called back five minutes later by the local business that does tire repair to get asked for directions once again. They initially quoted an ETA of two hours, though after I complained they lowered that estimate to one hour. Sure enough, the guy arrived here in a little under 45 minutes, which is just about the only thing that has gone well today. He sounds like he's nearly done mounting the new tire right now.

Once I'm out of here, I'm going to head down to the Charlotte OC for the night. Unless I've seriously done my math wrong, I can afford to stop there tonight, drive only about 400 miles or so tomorrow to get to Birmingham, AL, then finish the run Monday morning in time to make the delivery in southern Mississippi. I'll probably take this trailer to the shop to get the landing gear fixed while I'm in Charlotte since I really don't want to hurt myself trying to drop this trailer later on.

They're finally done with the tire replacement, so now I can finally get on the road again. Joy.

Browns Summit, NC

This load is getting incredibly frustrating. Right now I'm waiting on tire repair. I'll post details later tonight.

Riviera Beach, FL

Getting unloaded now, but they said it's going to be two and a half hours. Given that the trailer was overloaded and several boxes were ready to fall out when I opened the door, it wouldn't surprise me if they take longer, but they certainly seem to be working quickly. In any case, the guy working receiving has a serious attitude problem; he started yelling at me about being late as I climbed out to look for the receiving office, then started cursing at me when I didn't immediately move the truck and open the other door after they restacked the freight that was going to fall over. I showed as much restraint as possibly could have by simply saying I don't appreciate his language and that I'd like to keep things civil; I didn't even listen to anything else he said after that.

In any case, I have another assignment already, this one good for a thousand miles. It's a live load early this afternoon; hopefully I'll be able to get there on time for that, but not so early that they chew me out for arriving too early. There's exactly nowhere to stop along the way - there isn't even a rest area - so I'll have to go straight down there and hope they let me wait there if they're not ready for me. If not, I have no idea what I can do; the nearest parking is about 30 miles north of here and the place I'm going is 70 miles south. At least my next run is easy to plan for: straight up I-95. I just hope that I can find a truck stop along the way; there aren't that many along that route.

Cartersville, GA

Today was one of those days that I thought would never end. It started off with me sleeping in about twenty minutes late; not a good thing considering the load I'm currently on had barely an hour to spare on it even if I woke up on time. So I took off, delivered my previous load, then found out that the place had no empty trailers. So instead of being out of there with an empty in thirty minutes, I instead wait that long just to get directions to another place that is supposed to have empties, 50 miles away. I go down there and the guard says they don't have any empties but I'm welcome to look. Amazingly, they just finished unloading a trailer and, as I was driving in, a yard jockey had just dropped it off. I promptly went over there and took it, then headed up to pick up my load, despite being at least two hours behind schedule. I arrived and picked the load up without further incident, though it's nearly five tons heavier than I was told it would be; my work assignment said 21,000 pounds and the bill of lading says 30,500.

After taking back roads for nearly seventy miles just to get back to the Interstate, I realized that there was no chance at all I was going to make Atlanta tonight, which I had originally planned on. I'd lost too much time just trying to find a trailer. So I peeked in the truck stop guide and found a couple of stops along the way, including the TA here. OF course, not even that could go entirely without a hitch; as I drove along, I noticed my truck struggling more and more when going up hills. I'm not sure if it's my fuel filter acting up, the turbocharger going out, or something else entirely, but I have nearly no power when the engine is revved above 1500 RPM. Even as low as fourth gear, I can feel the lack of power at that speed and feel the truck jerk around as soon as I hit that number. Even in neutral there's still a noticeable change in the engine's sound. I'm currently on hold waiting for maintenance to pick up so I can find out whether or not this is a major problem that requires road repair, one that I should drive to Atlanta to get fixed, or one that they'd rather wait to fix until the truck is due for PM. I guess I'll find out soon as someone answers the phone.

West Memphis, AR - Keeping Busy

I really should update this thing more often, but I've been running so hard lately that I don't want to do anything but sleep when I get parked. It's not going to let up over the next couple of days, either; I need to run as hard as I can to make this next delivery, which is going to require me to be up at 2 AM on Monday. I'm not at all looking forward to it, but at least I'm getting plenty of miles, which will equate to a nice paycheck. For now, I need sleep; I have to be up at 5:30.

Chamblee, GA

I only have a few minutes to type this while they're unloading my truck, but I did have two people that nearly caused accidents just within the first six miles out of the Charlotte operating center. The first incident happened while I was just pulling out of the gate; there's a fairly steep hill on the way out of there and, with a 44,000 pound load, I couldn't get above 10 mph on it. It's a two lane road, marked with double yellow lines, but some idiot in a van decided to pass me... and very nearly crashed head on into a vehicle that was just cresting the hill. They missed one another by inches; they're both lucky that there was a wide shoulder on that side of the road. I couldn't have done anything about it, either, since it was happening too quickly to react and if I stopped I don't think I could have gotten the truck rolling again. Even dumber, though, is that the van was for some professional services company; if he had stopped at the red light at the end of the road, I would have taken down his unit number and called it in, but he wasn't even phased by that.

The second incident was on the Interstate, about three miles down the highway. There was just one vehicle trying to merge onto the highway, which has a speed limit of 60 going through Charlotte. I was in the right lane and signaled left to try and give him room to get onto the road, but a vehicle in the next lane over wasn't about to yield or shift lanes, even though he had plenty of room to do so. As for the merging vehicle, rather than accelerating to get ahead of me or waiting and getting on the road behind me, he decided to move left and get in front of me while he was still doing about 35. I couldn't have stopped in time; while I had plenty of distance to the next vehicle in front of me, I couldn't have stopped for the moron that had merged onto the road while doing barely half the posted speed limit. So, I did the only thing I could do; hit the brakes so hard that I spilled my drink and tugged on the horn. He took the hint and accelerated just enough to avoid the collision, which left me doing 45 and losing speed while going up hill.

Seriously, is anyone else seeing problems with people being stupid on the road lately or is that just a phenomenon in Charlotte?

Greenland, NH

Wow. I never thought Connecticut's traffic would be as bad as it was, but I-95 was horrible going through the state. I-91 wasn't much better; only once I picked up I-84 did traffic start to clear up. Even then, I still had to fight off Boston's rush hour; since I was held up by traffic. When I found I had an assignment to New Hampshire, I figured I'd be going south out of here... instead, I'm picking up a load in Maine tomorrow morning, then going clear down to Atlanta, over 1200 miles away. Thankfully, it's an appointment on Monday so support shift has no reason to screw with this assignment. The only thing that I have to worry about is finding a place to park tomorrow evening; there's very few places to park in New England and I don't have any chance of making it back to the Carlisle OC. Still, it's nice to have some decent miles. And as a bonus, I can finally catch up on sleep.

Pottsville, PA

It's only 10:30 in the morning and it's been a rather interesting day so far. I got started a little later than I'd planned on, which made me nearly ten minutes late getting here... but this place is rather significantly behind schedule and there are two people in front of me; even if I'd been on time I would still be waiting to get loaded. It took a bit of luck - and a map from Google - to find this place at all; one of the roads to get here was completely unmarked and I very nearly missed it. Another driver did miss the turn and I heard the lady in the shipping office getting increasingly irritated until she simply transferred him to someone else and slammed the phone down. I then found out that I had to wait and got told to back up into the main parking lot. Somehow, backing up caught the attention of a passing state trooper, who stopped me to ask a few questions. Specifically, he thought it was odd that I'd been backing up, then got out of the truck to look around, then got back in as they were pulling into the lot. This is actually standard procedure for us; they probably said "get out and look" a hundred times during training. Once they established I wasn't trying to pull anything they let me go, but only after warning me not to take off. Once I pointed out that if I take off, I don't get paid, they laughed and walked off.

In any case, I'm still waiting for my turn in the dock. And ... bang, there it is.

Davenport, FL

The last couple of days have been rather busy, to say the least; I've pulled about 1150 miles. During that time, I've gone through construction, heavy downpours, and seen all manner of stupid driving. I'd have posted sooner, but seeing as my last load - currently being unloaded - was extremely expensive stuff, I'd rather not have taken any chances. I've yet to get a new assignment, though, which is somewhat worrying; they seem to be nearly done unloading me even as I type this. Granted, dispatch seemed to think that it would take five hours to unload it when it's not even half a truck load, but I couldn't necessarily prove them wrong so I just had to go with that estimate, absurd as it was.

Anyway, on to another bad driving award. Pop quiz! You're trying to get to a service plaza (oasis, whatever) on the turnpike. Somehow, you miss the on ramp. What do you do?

1. Drive to the next plaza and just wait 45 minutes.
2. Stop immediately after, back up on the shoulder, then drive into the plaza's entrance ramp.
3. Drive by, stop in the plaza's exit ramp (the acceleration lane), then back up in that lane of travel?

Seeing as I'm writing about this under a "bad driving" award, I hope you can guess which of the three our esteemed driver chose. Yes, someone actually stopped in an acceleration lane and started to back up. I don't know if he got hit, since I was continuing down the highway, but I'd have loved to watch that happen. I wouldn't necessarily have wanted anyone to get hurt - I'm not that mean - but it would have been hilarious to hear the guy try to justify what he was doing to the insurance company and the police. This is the sort of stuff that makes me wonder whether people still have to take a test to get a driver's license.

Yawn

Another reasonably good day, but I'm too tired to make a full post about it. I'll make a full(er) update tomorrow.

Indianapolis, IN - Things go right occasionally

Today was one of those rare days where everything actually went according to plan. I woke up when my alarm went off, found an empty trailer, picked up the load without incident, found out that the load was already perfectly balanced, never ran in to any problems with traffic, and arrived here at the operating center just early enough that I'll be able to complete a 34-hour restart before I have to deliver this load. I really hope I have more days like this.

Also, I have one crappy driving award to give out to an idiot at a traffic light. Apparently he didn't realize the "stop here on red" sign and line actually applied to him. The line was perhaps 50 feet from the intersection; he pulled past it all the way to the pedestrian crosswalk. I stopped far enough back to give him room to back up behind the line, as well as to ensure I didn't trip the sensor; I wanted to see how Tweedledumb would handle it. Sure enough, since nobody was on the sensor, the light never turned green. The ramp in front of us got a green light; we didn't. The guy even pulled forward, ready to take off, but instead the cross-traffic got the green. Even then he didn't realize his mistake and kept inching forward until traffic on the street actually had to swerve around him. As soon as it was clear, he took off, ignoring the red light. I wish I'd been recording the incident; it would make for a wonderful YouTube video.

In any case, I'm taking a 34 hour break now; I have a live unload at 8 Monday morning. Obviously I have no idea where I'm going after that but I certainly hope for some decent miles.

Bedford, PA

I never thought I'd be stopping at a Wal-Mart for the night, but apparently the distribution center here also doubles as an operating center. I was originally going to just pick up an empty trailer from here and hope I made it to another truck stop before time ran out for the night, but instead I'm parked here and will comfortably be able to make Indianapolis tomorrow afternoon. I'll be getting there a little later than I might like, but at least I'll be there without having to get cute with my logbook.

The last few days have been pretty much hell. Support shift has continued to screw with my work assignments, given me conflicting information, and generally just made my day very unpleasant. Yesterday, I was given an assignment based on outdated information, though even if that information held up I don't see how I'd ever have been able to make the load on time. Instead, I would have been nine hours late. I was told last night that it was an open delivery appointment, even though my work assignment said at 9 AM; any time that day would have been acceptable. I planned based on that information and updated operations. Then, while driving today, I got taken off that load. So I stopped again, updated them with correct information before they could screw up once more. This time, they finally gave me an assignment I could legally make. Sure, it doesn't deliver until Tuesday morning, up near Chicago, but that just means I'll be able to take a day off and possibly even get paid for it.

So, despite the cosmic pain in the butt the last few days have been, I think that things are going to improve markedly over the next week or so.

White Pine, TN - (No) Support Shift

That guy who said he would confirm everything and that I'd have something by morning? Bull. No message this morning. Operations had no clue what I was talking about. I'm still on the load even though my first pick up was for an hour ago. They'd better not blame me for this.

White Pine, TN - Late Night Parking

Today was a much longer day than I expected. It started off well enough, though I left Carlisle a couple hours later than I intended. That ended up screwing a few things up further down the line, not that I realized how bad it was going to get at the time. Only when I stopped for lunch in the late afternoon did I realize that I might be in time trouble. I got a work assignment just as I was leaving the truck stop, which made me pull into the next area to check it. It was about 600 miles, straight across I-40; I would have been quite content with that. Of course, I'm writing that in the past tense because, shortly after first shift left for the weekend, support shift took me off the load to assign me something else. That "something else" was based on the assumption I'd left Carlisle early in the morning, not shortly before noon.

Problems never come alone, though. As I approached the Tennessee state line, I felt the truck's handling become increasingly unstable. It felt like it was coming from the back right, so I pulled into a rest area to check it out. Sure enough, one of my trailer tires was just about ready to go; it was badly bulged out. So I called maintenance, updated operations with a message saying I'd be at least two hours late to pick up my newly-assigned load, and sat around to wait. It was only about an hour before someone arrived to replace the bad tire; normally it's two or three hours on a weekend. That still pushed me even further behind schedule, though.

By the time I dropped the load, it was obvious that I'd be at least four hours late to get the trailer loaded, possibly five. I updated them with that and sent in a second message asking them to confirm what my new pick up appointments would be. I got a reply... asking me what time I went on break, even though I was still driving to find a truck stop. I seriously am starting to wonder if support shift even bothers looking at the driver information before sending out half-assed responses like that. At least I found parking; normally stopping at 11PM on a weeknight guarantees that truck stops are going to be jammed full. I called operations when I parked and got told that the trip planners will try to find someone else in the area or, failing that, get the appointments rescheduled. They know when I can leave here (no earlier than 9:15 local time) and are planning around that. Hopefully they won't assign me a different load that requires me to work too late tomorrow; I don't want to have to get lucky and find improbable parking again.

Carlisle, PA

Yesterday was a nice, short day. I woke up early, headed into New Jersey on I-95... and hit bumper to bumper traffic that had me going nine miles an hour. As in I was held up for an hour and the traffic jam was nine miles long. Ugh. At least once I got to the I-295 split, it cleared up considerably and I was able to go full speed. I picked up an empty, headed over to Philadelphia, and picked up my load. Due to the traffic, I got there right at noon for my appointment; I don't like cutting it that close, but at least I wasn't late and got out of there within an hour. Amusingly, the load is only five pallets and weighs 1,550 pounds; it's the third lightest load I've had.

I could have gone further than Carlisle yesterday. I also could have gone anywhere today. But I wanted to get a shower, some decent food, and relax a little while I can afford to do so. I'll update operations before bed by putting in that I'll deliver it tomorrow afternoon and probably go right on break again, pushing myself out 'til Friday morning. They haven't complained about me doing that (yet), probably because they know that I generally am not physically or psychologically up to working more hours than I show. Lately it's been mostly psychological; I've just really not felt the desire to work more than I have to. Even so, I'll gradually try to get myself back in the habit of being up at 3 or 4 AM, being ready to work a full 14 hours, then getting to bed shortly after I go on break. I'll be able to take a day off if I run out of hours to work, after all.

Elkton, MD

About five hundred miles today; I could use a few more days like this to help my wallet out. Aside from people driving like crazies around Washington DC, there really wasn't a whole lot that happened out of the ordinary. It would be nice if people would actually use their turn signals once in a while, but that's the worst thing I have to complain about. Seriously, though, your blinkers are not decorative. Use them. Really.

Charlotte, NC

First day back on the road and I'm already putting in twelve hour days. If I could keep it up, I'd be set, but instead it feels like I'm burning myself out very quickly. I'm far too tired to write more at the moment, but I'll probably make a longer post after I get some much-needed sleep.

Troutville, VA

Yep, I'm still here. Why? Because operations has screwed things up so badly. I called in the morning and, apparently, they have only two loads in the entire state of Virginia today, neither of which could get me home. Worse, I found out that the load I've been assigned wasn't a typo when it said my pickup window started at 2349; the load won't be ready until late tonight. At least they confirmed that I could pick it up early tomorrow morning and it'll be okay. However, they originally said that dropping it in Charlotte isn't going to help; we don't have any freight there either! There's another driver with a load going to Mobile; if he agrees to swap freight, I can drop the load down there, take the truck back to my usual park location, then finally drive home. Even if that happens, though, it won't be until Sunday since there's likely no way I can drive all the way from Charlotte to Mobile to where I park on Saturday.

On the bright side, because of how badly this has gotten screwed up, operations is giving me two days worth of layover pay. So for sitting on my rear, I'm getting $160. While I'd rather be home than getting paid for wasting my time at a truck stop, I can't complain too much about getting two days worth of layover for a delay of roughly 36 hours. I'll type up additional posts if anything else happens, but I really hope that this is the end of it and that I'll finally be on my way home.

Troutville, VA

Well, this was entirely unproductive. Nine hours after I started my day and I'm back here in Troutville, parked at the same stop I was at last night with the same empty trailer. What happened? After several hours of waiting (and waiting, and waiting, and..) I finally got a work assignment for a live load tomorrow that picks up about fifty miles east of here. I can pick it up any time, so I'm probably going to sleep in a little to try and get my sleep pattern back on track. Of course, by "sleeping in" I still mean that I'm going to get out of here around 6 or 7 AM, but that's quite a bit later than the time my required break will be up: 3 AM.

Once I pick up the load, my goal is to just get down to Charlotte, NC and see if I can relay the load there. Why? Because, even though it's picked up tomorrow, it only delivers in Augusta, GA on the 7th. There's no way I'm going to hold it over the weekend. As it is, though, there's no way at all I'll make it down to Evergreen tomorrow unless they have me picking up a preloaded trailer that's on the way; even then, I seriously doubt I can make it that far in the eleven hours I can drive. So, at best, I'll be getting home on the morning of Saturday, the 5th, and even that assumes that they don't screw up anything else.

Before I head to bed, I'm going to send operations a message explaining all that to them. I'm also going to call once I get to Charlotte and ask them for detention pay since I waited six hours at the "shipper" for that misplaced load. I got there at 9:15 and finally left at 3:15; that's exactly six hours and worth $45 if they're going to pay me for it. I'd really like it if they just gave me layover pay, which I'm eligible for if I have a 24-hour delay; that's $80 and, given how long it took them to give me a load that actually is there to be picked up, I think I can make a case for it. Either of those that will offset the cost of getting IdleAire in the truck tonight, which will allow me to finally get a good night's sleep, something I've been sorely lacking since I lost air conditioning a few days ago.

In any case, I'm going to enjoy a nice, steak dinner here before heading out to the truck to post this and the couple other posts I've typed up.