9/22/09

Today, I think we had better go ahead and get this part out of the way:

The views expressed in the following post are those of the author and only the author. They have not, in any way, been endorsed nor supported by his employer. While the author is thoroughly aggravated with several nameless individuals at the moment, the reader should be aware that this post is made with love... or something to that effect.

Okay, that part is out of the way. So... let's talk about it. Amateur hour, after hour, after hour... would probably be a good way to describe today's go-around in the life of this here driver. It all started out innocently enough. I got up in the morning and headed over to my shipper, where I was told that I had a drop/hook at 8am. I arrived at 7:30am and was told that my trailer wasn't loaded yet. No big deal though. They just did a live load and had me rolling not long after the original 8am scheduled time.

The fog was wicked thick up north this morning, but the sun had come out and burned most of it away by the time I reached Escanaba. With the sky clearing up, the drive down M-35 along the coast was rather pleasant. Around the time that I caught back up with US-41, my satellite unit gave the patented double chirp that signifies a pre-plan. Beauty. Things were looking good indeed.

The pre-planned assignment also came with an added benefit. It was picking up this afternoon in Wisconsin and delivering tomorrow in Taylor, Michigan. I was just home so I have no great desire to go back, but what the heck. Might as well be able to get out of the truck and chill at home for a bit if I have to wait on the board after I make my delivery.

I rolled into the consignee's lot in Neenah at 12:15pm Central. My dispatch said that I was due at 1pm Central. There was nobody inside, so I guessed that they must be out to lunch or something. After 12:30pm had passed, I tried again. Yeah, there was a guy in there this time. Dude gave me a pretty thorough ass-chewing, saying that I showed up without an appointment, blah blah blah. He made me park along the side of the lot and wait for him to assign me to a door. I sent a message to the folks in Joplin, apprising them of the situation.

I got a reply saying that my pre-planned assignment had to pick up by "1630EDT," and that I needed to let them know if I hadn't been unloaded by "1530EDT." I'm in Wisconsin, mind you. Fair enough though. We'll just play it by ear then.

There was one truck in a door at the time of this exchange. That truck left within ten minutes. So where are we now? Something like 1pm Central or so, right? A few minutes before 2pm Central, the same grumpy guy came out and told me to back into a door. (No trucks had arrived in the interim.) He went on to explain that his shift ended at 2pm and I would have to wait for the second shift guy to get started. I asked if he knew approximately how long it might be, so that I could keep the Joplin gang informed. Yeah, he didn't give me an estimate. Instead he chose to bitch some more about the fact that I didn't have an appointment.

I called Joplin at this point to try getting some clarification on the whole Eastern/Central thing. If 4:30pm Eastern was really the pickup time, it simply wasn't happening. If the appointment was for 4:30pm Central, it would be close but I could possibly make it. The young lady on the phone, bless her heart, had absolutely no clue what I was asking. I mentioned the earlier message from the gentleman - you know, the one that said "1630EDT." Then... I'm sure she was trying to help... or something. Good grief. After answering a couple of her irrelevant questions, I managed to pry out of her the fact that the load was indeed scheduled for 4:30pm Central. Fine. Good enough for now.

The second shift guy at the consignee showed up a short time later and, while he certainly was in no hurry, he had me unloaded by 3:15pm Central. I slid my trailer axles back forward and took off for the next pickup. (The non-endorsed and unofficial conclusion here might be that three hours of my time were wasted because nobody bothered to make an appointment for me.)

The deadhead was somewhere around 50 miles along rainy state highways and through a few towns, so it took me until damn near the 4:30pm Central appointment time to reach the shipper. I followed my directions (turn here, turn there, first building on the right) and proceeded to a door next to a set of loading docks. The sign out front had the name of the shipper and "Shipping/Receiving" on it, so the directions seemed to be right on. The door next to the docks said "Driver's Entrance" as well. Okay then. I caught the attention of a forklift guy who motioned me over to a desk and then drove around a corner. There was a big sign saying that drivers are to wait by the desk and not to walk in the work area. Fair enough then.

After a half hour that I spent trying to get the attention of various people in the factory, a local truck driver walked in and told me that I needed to check in at a different set of loading docks. We walked over and the super-friendly dickhead shipping clerk promptly marked my paperwork "LATE -16:55/16:30." Well that's nice. Then I had to walk back to where I was parked and drive around the block to reach the second set of docks. Since I was late, in their view, I would have to wait for an open appointment and get worked in. (The non-endorsed and unofficial conclusion here might be that my pickup was screwed up because I was given wrong directions.)

I parked in the staging area and sent a message advising the dispatcher people that they needed to correct the directions. Might as well see to it that the next driver goes to the right place, right? I also mentioned that I was marked down as being late, on account of the aforementioned wrong directions.

After hanging around for a while, I was directed to an available loading dock. The forklift guy and my buddy the shipping clerk walked into the trailer and checked it over. Then I was lucky enough to get yet another ass-chewing because the trailer has some kind of metal rails along the bottom edges and these rails are all banged up. In a few spots, the sharp edges of the metal rails protrude a couple of inches from the side walls of the trailer. What this meant, apparently, was that they couldn't "pinwheel" the pallets and load me with the full 25. Instead, they would have to load me with 22 pallets. Since the load was going to Canada, all of the paperwork had to be re-done and re-submitted before they could start loading the trailer. (The non-endorsed and unofficial conclusion here might be that more of my time was wasted because the shipper didn't bother to mention that we shouldn't bring an old Con-way trailer to pick up this load.)

Eventually I got my 22 pallets and sent in my loaded call. Oh goodie, time for my phone to ring. Nothing like a call from Joplin to brighten an otherwise shitty day. The gentleman on the phone asked if I would be able to make it to Taylor by 8am tomorrow. I'm going to have plenty to say about this in a minute, but the answer (obviously) was "no." Then I was asked what happened, why couldn't I keep my schedule, and something else along those lines. It's called the 14-hour rule, dude. I don't make the policies for this country, you know. I just live by them.

Then I got a nice lecture about how I shouldn't have confirmed the pre-plan if I couldn't keep to the schedule. I responded with a mini-lecture of my own about how those pre-plans are never fully accurate and I have no way of knowing what the actual delivery time will be. In the past, I have declined them based on the listed times. Each time, I've gotten a phone call telling me to confirm the load. The message has always been, "You just need to make the pickup time. The computer will dispatch you with your available hours once you're loaded." Since I sent in my hours (1) before starting my day at 7:15am this morning, (2) once I was loaded in Munising, (3) once I arrived in Neenah, (4) once I was empty in Neenah, (5) once I confirmed the next load, and (6) once I was loaded in Waupun, I'm pretty sure that 'the computer' knew how many hours I had available along the way.

The gentleman on the phone then said that he would have to call the Taylor terminal and see what they said. What did the Taylor terminal say then? Exactly what I could have told you they would say. Get it there as quick as you can. Duh. The freaking thing is scheduled to deliver on the 24th (at a time yet to be determined) in Lachine, Quebec. According to truckmiles.com, the trip from Taylor to Lachine is 576.8 miles. So what exactly is the problem? That's the way these Canada runs work, for Christ's sake. We get them to the border as soon as we can and then the Canada driver has a day to finish the trip.

So yeah, I had enough hours to get down past Milwaukee before I had to park it for the night. I faxed the paperwork to Taylor, as I always do on Canada loads, so that they can set an appointment with the consignee, as they always do on Canada loads. After a ten-hour break here, I'll get to slug my way through Chicago and then get to the terminal some time in the afternoon.

Now that I've done my bitching for the month, indulge me a moment to wonder about a couple of things. Munising to Neenah - 209 dispatched miles. Neenah to Waupun - 44 dispatched miles. Waupun to Taylor - 438 dispatched miles. So what do we have, 691 miles overall? Is there any way that I could have managed a 62.8mph pace along that route?

The U.P. segment was all state and U.S. highways, with a sprinkling of towns along the way. The Wisconsin segment was mostly U.S. highways, with a shit-ton of construction and several towns along the way. Now I'm on the interstate, but I'll soon be in Illinois where the speed limit is 55mph. Then I'll be in Michigan, where the speed limit is 60mph. So the answer is no. I could not have managed anything close to a 62.8mph pace along this route. Obviously whoever assigned the pre-plan would have known this, right? I had already been driving for a few hours this morning when it was assigned, after all. So obviously a ten-hour break tonight had to be a part of the equation from the word 'go,' right? If I picked up at 4:30pm Central (planned pickup time), took zero minutes to get loaded, took a ten-hour break, took zero minutes for fuel or inspections, and drove the ~7.5 hours to Taylor, we would be at 11am Eastern at the earliest. The 8am thing on the pre-plan was obviously just a placeholder, as nearly as I can tell. Yet I'm the asshole for accepting the pre-plan? Right. Okay.

Or how about this. Let's leave aside the fact that the miles involved would have dictated a break in any case. Let's pretend that the whole dang shebang could have been done in one shift. When I received the pre-plan, could I have known that nobody in Joplin made a delivery appointment for me? No. Could I have known that the guy at the consignee would use this as an excuse to sit around and do nothing until his shift ended? No. Could I have known that the wrong directions to the next pickup would have left me standing with my thumb up my ass for a half hour, then left me waiting even longer for them to 'work me in' and deal with the 25/22 pallet issue? No. Yet I'm the asshole for accepting the pre-plan? Right. Okay.

After reviewing my little War and Peace here, the only conclusion that I can draw is that either (a) it was amateur hour tonight and things will be back to normal tomorrow, or (b) I'll have to start turning down virtually every pre-plan from this point forward. I'm sincerely hoping for (a). My fleet manager will, rather quickly I suspect, get sick of calling and telling me to confirm my assignments if we have to go with (b). Whatever dude. The Tigers won.