11/19/09

Given the choice between falling asleep at 5am and waking at 5am, I'll take the first option every time. Early morning wakeup calls are the bane of my existence. That being said, my one minor concern about getting trapped into an overnight schedule this week was that it might wreck my weekend. A full week of graveyard shifts isn't so bad once you settle into the routine. On a short week though, the act of delivering in the morning and then blowing the whole day on a ten hour break can be costly. It looks like I may end up being correct, although I hope otherwise.

By the time I was empty at 4:30am today, I was a little tired. I had been up all day yesterday, prepared to work, so the late night was an inconvenience but not a terrible one. I'm often awake until 4:30am for no particular reason, after all. So I bounced over to the local truck stop and found a place to park for a nap. My 14 hour clock was set to expire at 9:30am, so either I would get something before then or I would be forced to stay parked until after 2:45pm today.

Around 8am I received my new assignment. I will be picking up a load at the Con-way terminal on the south side of Florence, Kentucky tonight and passing it off to someone at our West Memphis terminal tomorrow morning. Good enough, as far as that goes. The miles are pretty solid and clearing the cities along that route during the overnight hours should be nice and easy. The one issue, as one might have guessed, was the scheduling. Normally they like us to arrive at the shipper, drop an empty trailer, take a ten hour break, and then make the run with a fresh clock. In my estimation though, I didn't think that I would be able get through Cincinnati at 8:30am and cover the rest of the 67 miles to the shipper, then drop my empty trailer by 9:30am. I would have to stay at the truck stop and finish out a ten hour break instead.

The deadhead and the loaded run combine for around 550 miles, so it won't be a problem to make the whole trip within one day's 11 driving hours and 14 hour on-duty window. Just a bit of an inconvenience for me and probably some kind of violation of protocol according to the suits, since I wasn't set up and staged for the load ten hours early. Whatever dude. Nothing I can do about it. I don't write the laws. The load is set to relay in West Memphis by 6:30am (my time) tomorrow, so I'll sit here in Monroe until 4:30pm and then head down to the shipper. It's a fairly small facility according to my recollection, meaning that they may need my empty trailer. If I can show up before 6pm I'll be giving them a three hour head start. That should be plenty.

Then we get to the more legitimate potential negative about the whole overnight scheduling deal. However the drive goes, my hours will be pretty well spent by the time I get to West Memphis. So I'll have to take ten hours of down time there, carrying me well into Friday afternoon before I can get back on the board. Terminals on weekends, as we've discussed plenty of times here, can be hit and miss. Sometimes there are sixty trucks and no freight and sometimes they hand you a choice of loads right away. Time will tell. In the interest of getting at least a few hundred bucks in net pay out of this week, I'm hoping for the latter.

Update:5:50pm
It's worth observing that, so far, the Con-way terminal in Walton, Kentucky is my new favorite. I thought that I had been here before but I was mistaken. Here's what we've learned about the place thus far: My directions were accurate and easy to follow. The yard appears to have been designed to allow trucks to navigate (novel concept). The terminal is large enough to operate efficiently but small enough that it's not an absolute zoo like the big city locations are. The drop area is not located directly across from any bizarre obstacles. And lastly, in a pleasant twist, the employees have all been polite and helpful. Eye contact, complete sentences, the whole nine yards. Consider me impressed. I'm supposed to check back with them in a few hours, so let's hope it continues.

11/18/09

After spending the morning trying (unsuccessfully) to get my job classified as having been saved by the stimulus package, I decided that I might as well call the terminal and get on the ready board for realsies this time. It was worth a shot to try and get a few million bucks out of the deal, I thought. It turns out that I'm not very well connected though, so it's time to get out and earn a living again.

I was either #12 or #19 on the board at the time, depending on whom you believe. In either event, I had reached #7 by the time I ran out of things to do at home and headed up to my truck. Good enough. Once I got to #2 I received an assignment. It was a head-scratcher, of course, but what else is new? I headed inside.

As I stood behind a couple of guys at the dispatch window, the dispatcher got on the PA and made an announcement asking me to check with him if I was in the building. Woohoo! Front of the line for me! He told me that the folks in Joplin were on the phone and they had a dedicated run in Ohio that "went sideways," whatever that means. The load needed to be picked up in Columbus by 12:30am and then delivered 88 miles away in Monroe, Ohio by 3:30am. Anyone who had driven to Taylor today and then gotten on the board today would have run into 14 hour issues. Guess who had been on the board without working all day. Awesome.

It was a nice and easy trip to Columbus, allowing me to ease back into the whole truck driving thing a little. Then I made a quick drop/hook before heading over to the Cincinnati suburbs and checking in. Mine was the third of three delivery appointments, so I got to kick back for a while. Now I'm at the dock awaiting my turn to be unloaded. I'm hoping that I can park here once I'm empty, or else I might be in for a hell of a time at this ludicrous hour. Then who knows? We'll have to see what kind of work will fit in either before correction: 9:30am 10:30am (when yesterday's 14 hour clock expires) or after I've had ten hours off tonight. The weekend is just around the corner, so there's a chance that I can catch something long to keep me moving.

11/17/09

I once worked at McDonald's for a week. Have I ever told you that story? I got a job there when I was in high school. After having completed only a few training shifts, I broke my ankle in a baseball game. I went in and explained to the manager that I would be on crutches for a while and she said that it was no problem. Just let her know when I could come back. I went back to the restaurant six weeks later and the manager was excited to put me back to work, or so she said. When the next schedule came out, I called the restaurant to see which shifts I would be working. I wasn't on the schedule. Rather than seek clarification with a simple phone call to the manager, I went to work at the local movie theater. Screw it. That McDonald's job was pretty dumb anyway.

Why the little trip down memory lane this evening? Well, I didn't seek employment elsewhere tonight, but I did experience the exact same 'who gives a shit' reaction that I felt so many years ago. After spending the day running to and fro, tying up loose ends and tending to some social matters, I stopped by the terminal. I loaded up my clothing and supplies for the next month or so and then headed inside to have the dispatcher put me on the board. He was all flabbergasted by something but I was in no hurry, so I stood at the window and waited. And I waited. And I waited.

After hearing the dude freak out every few minutes when the phone rang, I wrote down my truck number and left it on his keyboard, with a note that I needed to get on the board whenever he had a chance. Then I headed home. That was four hours ago. I'm still not on the board. As a follow-up to their non-payment for my trip from the Kenworth dealership to the terminal last Friday, we can view this as another failure in basic competence on the part of the Taylor dispatchers. (For the record, they generally seem to do a good job. Not this month though, as far as my little slice of the business is concerned.) I could call the terminal now or I could call the night crew in Joplin. Either approach would probably get me on the board after I endured a few minutes of moronic discourse.

You know what though? Screw it. My job is pretty dumb anyway. Instead of going to work at the theater this time, I'll just stay home until tomorrow and take it from there. I ate a massive dinner tonight and I'm not in the mood to do anything anyhow. My evening's entertainment, for lack of a better description, even had to be curtailed because I was feeling like a damned slug. Such a tragedy.

11/16/09

Spending the first half of your day sleeping off a hangover is not good, mmkay? By the time I rolled out of bed and got moving, there wasn't much chance that today would be very productive. I think I'll shoot for getting all loose ends tied up by tomorrow afternoon and then see about getting the hell out of town for a while.

I'm a marginal NFL fan at best, especially concerning non-Redskins games, but I decided to head out and watch the Monday night game anyway. Poor Brady Quinn. When you're a dude with a decent arm but somewhat sketchy accuracy, the last thing you need is to play behind a line that couldn't block my grandmother. Oy. That was tough to watch.

Guess we should see if there's any sleep in store for me tonight. The running of the errands is likely to take some time. Best to get up before noon, I think.