2/12/09

There's a neat little tradition that I've developed in my line of work. Whenever things go as planned, I take them in stride and do my job. Whenever plans change, I immediately try to figure out whether or not I'm getting screwed. I suppose that, once I've really earned my stripes out here, I'll be able to assume that I'm always getting screwed. I haven't reached that point yet though. For now I prefer to stay somewhere within the confines of reality.

As I slept soundly this morning, I was awakened by the lovely chirp of the Qualcomm. Yep, that screwed me over. Good luck getting back to sleep. I took a look at the message - "Load unassigned." Definitely getting screwed. A few minutes later I got my new assignment. I had a pickup in Pasco with a delivery in Pasco, followed by the original load to El Paso. Well, that wasn't so bad then. I wasn't sure what the Pasco thing was about, but I assumed that it was a local run. I could make an extra twenty bucks for a quick detour without losing any miles in the process. Clearly not getting screwed.

On the way to this morning's consignee, I turned down their street and saw a truck with its left turn signal on. He was waiting to pull into a parking lot. The lot was completely blocked by two other trucks. I couldn't see the sign on the building but I suspected that he was going to the same place as I. I pulled around him and continued down the road. The customer was said to open at 8am and I was around twenty minutes early. I had no desire to sit parked in the traffic lane for twenty minutes. Kennewick is not Laredo, after all. Getting screwed again? Eh, maybe.

As I passed, I saw that the lot did indeed belong to my consignee. I cruised around for a few minutes, looking for a way to double back. I had no idea where I was going. I just stuck with my usual principles - try to favor left turns, avoid skinny roads, that sort of thing. It wasn't too difficult to find a decent route back to the consignee's street. By the time I got back there, the turning truck had squeezed himself into a neighboring lot next to the other two trucks. I saw what appeared to be a big enough opening to insert myself into the mix and get me off the street. I got 'er in there.

The consignee opened the gate a few minutes later and we took turns filing in. As I was retrieving my paperwork after being unloaded, I got a call from someone in Joplin. They needed to know if I would be empty soon, as they needed me to pick up a load in Pasco and drop it at the ConWay yard in the same town. (This would be the Pasco to Pasco trip that woke me this morning.) The timing worked out perfectly and I got to the shipper in Pasco right on time.

Once I got backed into the loading dock, my Qualcomm chirped again. "Load unassigned. Another driver returned to work a day early." Totally getting screwed! Taking my load away and giving it to someone else? Screw him! Hang on though. There was more to the message... "I'll leave the Pasco to St. Louis load with you." (This was the one that I was originally going to leave at the ConWay yard.) Final judgment required a quick look at a map. I would be getting a little over 1,900 miles in lieu of the roughly 1,600 miles that I lost. Okay then, unscrewed.

Those guys had me loaded quickly and I was headed eastward along I-84. The weather forecast was the same as the weather forecast every damn day for the past week - snow in the mountains. In keeping with the trend of the past week however, the forecast was wrong. The roads were clean and dry all day. Not a single snowflake that I could see. This was a marked improvement over my only previous trip along that stretch of highway. I got down to Eden, Idaho and decided to call it a night. I would picture a place called Eden being a little warmer, but you know, good enough.

Tomorrow's forecast looks like I should be in decent shape crossing the Rockies. Since the forecast is always wrong though, I'll probably get screwed.