3/6/09

Ahh yes, rush hour in Houston. One of life's simple little pleasures. After waking this afternoon and making the trek down I-45, I got to remember just how much I love this town. The statue of Sam Houston is 65 miles away though. As I understand it, the fella retired in Huntsville but still. There is a city called Houston. I don't know.

I had two sets of directions to my consignee - one to a warehouse off the I-610 frontage road and one down by the Budweiser brewery. The address on the bills corresponded with the place by the brewery. My colleagues at the shipper last night seemed to think that we were going to the other place. After some sheerly brilliant analysis, I decided to stop at the place on the frontage road first. It was more or less on the way to the brewery anyhow. Better to go there first than to go to the one by the brewery and have to backtrack. As I walked in the door, an elderly hispanic gentleman started muttering, "Market Street. Market Street." Okay then, on to the other location.

The warehouse was one of those where you can't really turn around. There were trucks and trailers backed along both sides, docks on the left and a fence on the right. I needed to back in along the fence and then visit the receiving office to sign in. So, given the inability to turn around, I decided to back into an open dock on my left, pull out forward in the other direction and then back in along the fence (which would then be on my left). This would clearly be safer and easier than backing directly toward the fence on my blindside. If you happened to see a dipshit who couldn't back his truck in Houston today, I was that dipshit. No explanation really. Just one of those days. I did a reasonable job of getting backed into the dock door in order to turn myself toward the entrance. Backing along the fence proved to be a whole other adventure. Get started - that won't work - set up again - nope - we'll try another spot - get started - that spot is way too tight - try again - oh hell, now we're all screwed up - might as well go back toward the first one. Eventually I settled in and the people who were waiting while I blocked the exit were able to leave.

My hunch that I wouldn't be getting unloaded early proved to be correct. I showed up at 5pm and the driver with the 4:30pm appointment was assigned a dock shortly thereafter. Then there was another guy with a 5:30pm appointment. Then me, with a 6:30pm appointment. I did get a sliver of hope from the 5:30 guy though when he said that he had received a pre-planned load to be picked up once he was empty. At that point, I still had nowhere to go once I was unloaded. I was hoping for a pre-plan of my own.

Consistent with an impression that I've formed during my time with this company, the driver who had a pre-plan was an owner-operator. No such luck for the company guys, apparently. I got on the board at #5 once I was empty. I'm still #5.

I backed in along the fence line again and waited for someone to tell me to leave. Nobody has told me to leave, so I guess the warehouse is home for the night. I wasn't planning on staying here so of course I had no food with me. Enter Domino's delivery and my American Express card. Good deal.

Being empty and #5 going into a weekend is likely not a good scenario for me. Maybe I can at least get a decent deadhead tomorrow before the pay week ends.