3/11/09

I got hoodwinked by that damn global warming again. I swear it was sixty degrees when I went to bed last night with my truck turned off. We all know that it's best not to picture my state of undress when I awoke this morning, but I was shivering my balls off. My satellite unit chirped at me, so I hopped out of bed thinking that I may have slept through my alarm or something. This was unlikely since the alarm was set for this afternoon, but you don't exactly process all of this stuff when you are jarred from a peaceful sleep. I stepped into the front of the cab and took a look at the screen. Dumbass message asking us to drive safely. It was 27 freaking degrees. Dude. That ain't underwear weather.

After I cranked up the heat and then got back in bed long enough to warm myself to a survivable temperature, it was time to hit the road. I got to the consignee a little early and had to watch a neat little slide show about safety procedures, none of which were followed by anybody at the location. Well, they did take my keys while I was at the dock. One procedure was followed. After watching the slide show I was directed to a staging area and told to listen on Channel 13 for my dock assignment. "Okay, you need to go over there and we'll call you on 13 when we're ready for you." That sentence is quoted verbatim without any words redacted. No further instruction was given.

I got my call to the dock after a little over an hour of sitting, during which my next assignment had come across the satellite. The forklift guy was working at warp speed so I got my keys back and left the dock a few minutes later. I stopped at the security booth to check out and then got scolded by some chick that I had never seen before. She informed me, rather forcefully, that I did not get a scale ticket on my way in. Yeah, so? She was pissed right the hell off. Yikes.

It turns out that I was supposed to weigh my truck and trailer on the way in and then weigh it again once I was empty, so they could calculate how much stuff I delivered. I defy anyone to find any mention of this weighing process in the quoted sentence above. Further to that, I sat in the damn parking area for at least an hour before I went to the dock. If this was so important, then surely the little princess could have said something over the CB and told me to weigh in before I left for the dock. Whatever dude. The news wasn't all bad though. Since I didn't have a loaded weight, there was no need for me to turn back toward the scale and get an empty weight. Beauty. Away we go.

I had to head up to the good old ConWay yard in Des Plaines today and stage for a load leaving tomorrow morning. Nice light traffic passing Chicago again this afternoon. Creepy. This run will get me 500 miles tomorrow, relaying in Nashville, but today's end of the deal only brought me 54 miles. I'll still be in decent shape for the week as long as the weekend can bring me something reasonable. That last sentence could have been written in any of the last several weeks though. I won't hold my breath. Hey, I do get to relay at that shithole Pilot in Nashville tomorrow afternoon. That's always nice.