3/2/08

Up before the roosters this morning, it was off to Iowa. I hit some congestion around Chicago, which is unusual for a pre-dawn Sunday morning. Then, adding in the 55mph speed limit in Illinois and a brief stop for breakfast, I rolled in a little ahead of my 9am appointment, instead of getting there at 7am as I had planned. I sent in my arrival call (more on that later) and started looking for a door marked 'CRST.' One set of instructions said that my trailer went in that door. There was no such door, so I went with the other instructions that said I needed to drop it in a door marked 'R.' It was another pain in the ass blindside dock, but what else is new?

After I finally got my trailer dropped, I hooked to an empty and swept it out. The drive over to the next shipper was a quick one, then I had another drop/hook on that end. This time the drop lot had room for me to maneuver, so that was nice. I didn't have enough hours on my 11 today for me to get to Taylor, so I'll have to finish off the run in the wee hours of the morning.

Back on the arrival call topic, we had a little drama this morning. As I was sweeping out my new trailer, I got a call from my fleet manager informing me that I was considered late. Of course this would make sense if I had showed up late, but I hadn't. I got there ahead of my appointment. It also would make sense if I had failed to send in my arrival call, but I hadn't. I sent it ahead of my appointment. So why was I late? I entered a '1' in the stop number field on the arrival form, when I was actually at stop 2. So, according to the computers, I was in New Jersey. I'm not sure what I was supposed to say at that point. Apparently, "Sorry, I must have hit the wrong button," was the wrong answer. I was told that I'll be given a service failure, unless he can convince the higher-ups to see things otherwise tomorrow morning. I asked what I could do to fix it, but I was told nothing could be done. Since I had entered the wrong stop, and the correct stop wasn't entered until after 9am, the load was late.

Now, first things first, I'm not whining here. Nobody else needed to send the arrival call. I was at stop 2, so I should have hit button 2. I fucked up. I get it.

Seriously though, the idea that this is going to be a problem for CTL with respect to the customer is retarded. The load was there before 9am. An arrival call was sent before 9am. I was hooked to an empty (which I got from the customer's yard) a short time later, after having cleaned it out. My truck has a GPS tracking system. If nobody can put two and two together here and figure out that I was on time, well that's just asinine. What if I had hit the right side of the '2' button, rather than the left? Would CTL be getting paid for a nonexistent third stop? What if I had hit the zero button? Would I be exiled into a perpetual state of nonexistence? What if I had sent in the correct stop number on time, but actually arrived five hours later? There was nobody at the consignee to know the difference, so am I to understand that this would not have led to a service failure?

I know... what, if, what if, what if... I know. I get it. I really do. I'm the one who hit the wrong button, so whatever has to happen will happen. It's just pretty stupid that someone can't look at the computer and change a 1 to a 2. Obviously I sent the arrival call from Davenport. Obviously I wasn't in Jersey City. Whatever man.

I have to deliver in Taylor by 6am, so that will get me on the board pretty early. As long as I'm not too far down the list, I should have a shot to get rolling again before my 14 hour clock becomes an issue. I really have no reason to be home tomorrow, so I'm hoping I get in and out quickly.