8/26/09

It wasn't possible that today could start earlier than planned, right? Just not possible. I had a scheduled pickup time of 5am. I set my alarm for 3:45am. No way could the day begin any earlier...

So of course, at 2am, my satellite unit chirped and woke me from my peaceful slumber. "Load canceled. Please send Form 40 and Form 02." Form 40 updates my hours and Form 02 updates my duty status. I did as I was told and went back to bed. My alarm woke me at 3:45am, as scheduled, since I hadn't thought of turning it off while I was up dealing with the satellite message. I called the 800 number to check on my board status. Not on the board. Whatever dude. Back to bed again. I could deal with those people in the morning.

Around 6:15am, I was awakened by another satellite message. "When are you going to board?" Okay then, let's do it. Game on... I replied that I had sent in my forms (as directed) at 2am. The fact that I wasn't on the board was not my call.

"Do you have an empty?" I replied that I dropped my empty yesterday and that we can't park at Con-way yards while hooked to a trailer. I could grab an empty once I received an assignment.

"Can't board without an empty." I replied that the usual approach here would be to board without an empty, since I would have to leave the yard once I was hooked to a trailer. I asked which way I would be going, thinking that maybe this conversation was taking place because they needed me to go somewhere and pick up a load. No, apparently it was taking place simply to keep me from sleeping.

All of these messages were coming from someone whose name is unfamiliar to me. Then I got another saying something about people being on the board and the planner not knowing where I was going or something. Then another message came from someone else whose name I didn't recognize, saying that it was all good and I was on the board. I'm not sure exactly what the complication was. The first individual seemed to be implying that I was supposed to hook to a trailer once my load was canceled. Doing so would have started my 14 hour clock at 2am, thus ending it at 4pm, and not really doing my employer or myself any favors in the process. I would have had to start driving aimlessly, in the middle of the night, with absolutely no knowledge of where I was picking up next, and then tried to find a place to park. I know the drivers are traditionally the non-thinkers in this little game that we play, but come on. A little common sense.

After getting the message from the second individual (indicating that I was on the board), I grabbed my computer and checked on my board position. #2. Not so bad I guess. Probably would have been #1 if the 2am sequence of events had been handled properly, but that's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I was fully awake by this time, so I was able to catch up on the news that I missed last night. Tigers win. Twinkies win. White Sox lose. Ted Kennedy checks out. Bunch of stuff about deficits and unemployment and inflation and other assorted nonsense that shouldn't be surprising to anyone. And so on, and so forth. In other words, the only thing of personal interest that I really missed while sleeping was a ballgame.

Later in the morning, I received a new load assignment. So I headed across the yard and hooked to an empty, then sent in my load confirmation with the number of my empty trailer. I got my information about stop locations and such, but no dispatch. A few minutes later I received a message asking for the number of my empty trailer. My reply was probably more sarcastic than it had to be, but seriously, enough already. The trailer number is in the load confirmation, presumably for a reason. They got the number one more time from my reply though. Good enough.

I had a drop/hook in the same industrial park as the Con-way yard, so I headed over and checked in. My scheduled arrival was 10am and I showed up around 9:30am. I saw my loaded trailer sitting and waiting for me. The paperwork, on the other hand, was another issue. I didn't get that until 11am. By the time I got everything checked over and made it out through the security gate, it was 11:15am. Okay then, why do all of these times matter?

I am on a weird sort of run with some pretty tight timelines. One drop tomorrow at 4:30am (Central), another at 6am, and a third at 7:30am. Then I re-trace the route and make pickups at each of the first two drops before delivering at the place in Plainfield where the load originated. I guess this would be the true definition of a dedicated turn, if there ever was one. So the big issue is the 4:30am first drop. There is no place to park at the first consignee in Leawood, Kansas. Therefore my last shot at parking was the truck stop in Grain Valley, Missouri. We do have a yard in Kansas City but, as you'll see, I really can't afford to go six or seven miles out of the way and then go six or seven miles to get back on route this time around. I reached Grain Valley at 6:45pm (my time). A post-trip inspection takes us to 7pm. A ten hour break takes us to 5am. I have a little over 30 miles left to cover, so... ~5:30am (4:30 Central) if I'm lucky, right? It's gonna be pretty damn close. If my paperwork had been done on time, no worries. If I could spend the night at the consignee, no worries. As it stands, we'll just have to see. CTL has the new Big Brother satellite tracking going on, so I can't really tweak the schedule much. I'll just take the seven minute rounding error that I'm allowed, hit the road at 4:53am, and then see what happens. At least there shouldn't be much traffic at that hour.

I tried to figure how an 8 hour break tonight (instead of 10) might affect my schedule, but I can't see how it would fit when I have five stops to make tomorrow, each an hour and a half apart. I would never get my two hours of down time to finish the split before today's 14/22 hour clock ran out. (If none of this makes any sense to you, there's a reason for that. Obfuscation of common sense. Your government doing what it does best...)

Pretty decent outcome for the day in terms of miles. Plainfield to Leawood was 482 miles. Then I'll have something like 13 and 16 miles between stops. Then the same miles re-tracing the path back to Leawood. Then another 482 back to Plainfield, plus $175 in extra stop pay. My delivery in Plainfield is scheduled for Friday morning, leaving a shot at a decent weekend and a good week overall. Groovy.

Think I can get to sleep in the early evening again? The odds are against me, but let's give it a shot.