6/12/08

[What follows is an imaginary conversation between an individual and a government entity. It is set last night at roughly 7pm]

Joe: Hey, sweet, my relay is here early.
FMCSA: Too bad you're not going anywhere.
Joe: I'm not tired right now though. I can get an early start and stop for a break later tonight.
FMCSA: We'll decide when you're tired and we say you're tired right now. Ten hours is ten hours.
Joe: That doesn't make any sense.
FMCSA: We have studies.
Joe: You would rather force me to drive straight through the night for 440 miles?
FMCSA: We're the government. We've been screwing things up for decades. We don't need advice from you.
Joe: Fucking bureacrats.
FMCSA: Fucking truck drivers.

So, after I hung out until 8:30pm, I was able to get rolling. The drive was straight across I-64, with only 11,000 pounds and light traffic, so that part wasn't too bad. Then I got to the Pilot in East St. Louis.

I could see five trucks with CFI or ConWay trailers as I pulled through the lot, so I started checking the numbers on the fenders. No. No. No. No. No. What the hell? But wait a minute. There's another CFI trailer parked nose-in down at the end. Surely nobody would set up nose-in for a 4am relay, right? Yeah, well, I guess there's no IQ section on the CDL exam. I was almost an hour early, so I backed into a space (you know, like a regular truck driver might do), and sent a message to Joplin. If the other guy was planning to get up at 4am, I wouldn't want to wake him at 3am. That just seemed rude.

I got a reply from Joplin indicating that they would let him know at 4am, so I had a little time to kill. I hadn't slept since Monday night, but I couldn't go to bed until I got rid of the loaded trailer. I was resigned to the fact that I probably would have to stay awake for another hour. Yep. And then some. Another message to Joplin. A phone call to Joplin. Another message to Joplin. Nothin' doin'. Well after the scheduled relay time had come and gone, I headed back over and knocked on the door. No answer. By this time, I was having a hell of a time keeping my eyes open, so enough was enough. I parked in front of my loaded trailer, tried one last phone call to Joplin, and then went to bed. Dude was gonna have to move his ass sooner or later. He wasn't going anywhere as long as he was nose-in and I had his loaded trailer.

Around 7:20am, a knock on my door woke me. It was my (grumpy) outbound coworker. "Why didn't you come and get me?" Dude, don't even get me started. So I re-hashed the narrative for him. He swore that he was awake the whole time, sending messages to CTL asking about me. He further said that he only received two messages from them - one saying that I had arrived and a second telling him to let them know when he was moving. Here's where I guess I'm just a little too analytical for my own good. What did he think was the purpose of those two messages? If you know that I'm there, and you know that you'll have to park elsewhere (back-in) for the relay to go down, and you know that people are waiting for you to get moving, and you know that you have a scheduled relay at 4am, and you claim not to have heard the knock on your door yet, why in the fuck wouldn't you back in to a spot at some point and look for the inbound truck?!?

Anyhow, he took the paperwork and dropped his empty trailer. I backed under it and went to bed. I won't mention the name on his door, since I'm sure he's a swell human being who simply doesn't quite grasp the concept of an early morning relay. I imagine there are greater sins than this.

Shortly after I fell into a wonderful slumber, I got a beep. You know, yesterday I was trying desperately to sleep before my inbound relay arrived. The damn satellite thing beeped to say some shit about a stolen trailer that had been recovered. Then it beeped a short while later to list the hucksters, I mean leaders, in the recruiting contest. If you add those two issues together, they mean about as much to me as Hillary Clinton's self-esteem. And I never did fall asleep.

So you fast-forward to today. The load assignment is a necessary beep. No issues there. Then what followed? A few minutes later (just imagine me at this point with weary eyes closed, trying desperately to rest), another planned load tacked onto my next one. Okay, that's legitimate. Two hours later, a beep telling me that my next load (a relay leaving the same Pilot) has inbound truck # "N/A" and outbound truck # "my number." So they woke me to say nothing, basically. Two hours later, a note about a fella who has apparently fallen on hard times. It looks like the company is going to be taking up a collection and people can participate through payroll deduction. Worthy cause, I'm sure. But when it has to wake me up, well... we'll just say I was cursing a name that I've never heard before for a few minutes.

So, moving past my bitterness and angst, what does my actual job have in store for me next? I'll be leaving the Pilot in East St. Louis with a load tonight and running it to Cincinnati for a drop/hook. From there, it's down to Kentucky to make another drop/hook and grab a load going to Texas for two drops. The smart money says that I won't face a repeat of my last trip to that shipper in Kentucky, thanks to global warming and all. I'll deliver in Texas on Monday, so this week will eventually wrap up with a little under 2,200 miles. I don't exactly jump for joy over 2,200 mile weeks. However, I also don't get too wound up when the week effectively didn't start until Wednesday, so I guess I'll be fine.

I suppose I'll try to sneak in one more nap now, before my third straight all-nighter gets here. Cheers.