1/14/10

My truck has been idling an awful lot lately. When it's at least 30° outside, I do okay with a sleeping bag. Any colder than that and I need some heat. Quite a bit of the country has been quite a lot colder than 30° at night this season. So, in that situation, I go to bed with the bunk heater running. Then, after a couple of hours, the battery rundown warning thing starts beeping and wakes me. So I start the truck, go back to bed, and forget about it. I used to be able to run the bunk heater all night without killing the batteries, but this is no longer the case. Net result - lots of idling over the past month or so.

Last night my temperature gauge said 31° and I wasn't cold once I climbed into my sleeping bag, so I thought we were all good. Might as well leave the truck off, or so the theory went. This wasn't one of those times when I was completely fooled by the weather, going to bed in my underwear when it's 60° and waking to find that it's 25°. No, this time I had pants and a sweater on, to go along with my very warm sleeping bag. It was all good, for a while. Yeah... it got freaking cold last night. 12° when I woke this morning. As soon as I reached over and flipped the switch to turn on the bunk heater, the battery rundown thing started beeping at me. Bastard. So I had to get out of bed and fire up the engine. Luckily I had time to go back to bed and wrap myself up in the sleeping bag until my truck got to its operating temperature and started kicking out some heat.

Once I finally decided to get rolling, the drive up to Lancaster was quick and easy. I found a locked gate at the consignee (I was 45 minutes early) but this would turn out to be the least of my issues with respect to making the delivery. After finding a spot along the road to pull over and wait for someone to arrive, I saw a pickup truck pull into the driveway around 7:30am. I gave the guy a few minutes to get settled in and then walked over. He asked if he could help me. I told him that I had a load of mulch. "For here ?!" Yes sir, that's what the bills say. "In that (pointing at my trailer) ?!" Yes sir.

It's very early in 2010 so I'm hesitant to name a frontrunner, but this guy will be tough to beat for pissed-off customer of the year. Good grief. There was no loading dock or ramp or anything, so the fella went off an a profanity-laced tirade about how there was "no fucking way" he could unload my trailer. Whatever dude. I do what I'm told and I was told to deliver the mulch. He called his company and got no useful information, so I tried calling my company. The customer service people hadn't gotten to work yet so I went to my truck and awaited further instructions.

After fifteen or twenty minutes the angry guy waved me into the driveway. I drove in and asked if the freight was in fact being delivered to his location. Yup. He had received a phone call from his boss. I was at the right place. (The F-bombs were flying by this point in time.) Homeboy had to drive a little tractor up to the back of my trailer, hook a chain to a given pallet, back the tractor up until he had dragged the pallet to the tailgate, unhook the chain, drive a forklift up to the trailer, and then unload the pallet. He was livid.

I sent a satellite message informing anyone who might be interested that I would be getting unloaded after all. I received a reply from my fleet manager acknowledging my message and then kicked back to wait for the unloading. After I had sent the satellite message saying that I was getting unloaded, my fleet manager caught wind of my earlier phone call saying that I wasn't getting unloaded. The time-shifting of the information left him a little confused, for obvious reasons. After another exchange of messages we were all squared away and all I could do was wait. And wait. And wait.

A little after 11:30am, the disgruntled chap pulled off the final pallet. I walked over with my copy of the bill of lading so I could get a signature and get the hell out of there. I was forced to ignore another vulgar diatribe in the process. That guy needs a shrink or something, man. I've got a temper of my own and I'm no stranger to some creative language, so I'm not gonna judge anyone, but for Christ's sake. He was acting as a representative of a company in the conduct of a business transaction. That was extremely excessive.

I had to decide where to go once I was empty. The place where I delivered had no room for me in the first place, so I certainly couldn't hang out there. The choice came down to either going back southward to the rest area on US-33 or going northward to the truck stop in Hebron. The distance would be roughly the same in either direction and I had no idea which way I would be going for my next assignment. I decided on Hebron since it's at least along the freeway. We also have various customers in the Columbus area, so it seemed like my best bet. Anything picking up to the east would be good. Anything to the west would mean that I had gone a little out of the way.

After settling in at the Pilot, sweeping out my trailer, and enjoying an Italian BMT with double meat, the waiting began. I was #1 on the board when I left Lancaster so I was optimistic about getting something quickly. It only took about an hour or so. I guess that part ain't so bad, but the assignment itself leaves something to be desired. Deadhead to Columbus for a Con-way load leaving tomorrow morning, headed to Newark, New Jersey. So yeah, I had gone out of the way, but the real kicker is the 5am departure from Columbus. Boo! 5am. Boo! Oh yeah, and Newark pretty much sucks too. It's a solid run though - 524 miles. Since my paychecks aren't exactly setting any records at the moment, I'll just appreciate the work wherever I can get it. I've caught some good weekend runs out of that part of the country in the past, so we'll see how it all shakes out.

For what it's worth - I tried one of those old-school Pepsis with the real sugar today. I'm unimpressed.