Welcome. You know what that word means, right? Obviously there are different usages and so forth, but the general concept is clear. Welcome. Come well. We look forward to your well-being, etc. I'm not sure everyone sees it the same way though.
The first time that I heard the word 'welcome' today, I had just arrived at my consignee in McDonough, Georgia. My intention had been to get past Atlanta and then find somewhere to take a break before my 3:30pm appointment. I didn't see anywhere to stop between Atlanta and McDonough though, so I just continued onward to my delivery point. The young lady in the security booth gave me the bad news, informing me that I wouldn't be getting unloaded early. I was, however, welcome to park in the staging area and then check in at 3:30pm. Good lookin' out, my sister.
At some point during the afternoon, I received a satellite message. I'm assuming that the person signing the message was my new fleet manager, as the message was sent in order to welcome me to my new fleet. We've known that this one was coming for a month or so, since we learned that my old fleet was becoming regional. So there's that word again - welcome.
At some point after I got my holiday fireworks order placed and before my trailer was empty, I received my next load assignment. I was to pick up in Atlanta at 10:30pm and deliver in Albertville at 10am. It's not often that one gets a chance to go from the site of the '96 Summer Olympics to the site of the '92 Winter Olympics. Alas, I didn't get to drive my truck to France tonight. It turns out that there's another Albertville... in Alabama... 146 miles from Atlanta.
That 10:30pm pickup was going to be a royal pain in the ass for me. If I stayed at my consignee in McDonough long enough to complete an eight hour break, then I most likely would be late for my pickup appointment on the western edge of Atlanta. (A ten hour break wasn't even an option.) If I didn't complete a break before picking up the load, then my 14 hour clock would run out at midnight. This would make it impossible to reach my consignee by 10am after taking a break overnight.
About the only solution that I could find was to head straight to the shipper. If I could get loaded early, then I could head to Albertville and park for the night. If I couldn't get loaded until 10:30pm, then I would just have to stay at the shipper until I had been parked for ten hours. Then I could leave before sunrise and still make the delivery on time. The shippers were happy to load my trailer shortly after I arrived, so score one for the good guys.
I dragged my 43,000 pounds of pickles out of Georgia and into Alabama, where I unfortunately was reminded that US-431 has a shit-ton of hills and red lights. Tedious. Upon arriving at my consignee and finding exactly one open parking spot, I was told that I couldn't stay there. I could, however, go to their other drop yard on the other side of the highway. Good enough for me.
So now we come back to our word of the day. If I was bumped from my old fleet because I didn't want to be a regional driver, only for my first assignment on my new fleet to be a chickenshit regional run... with what began as a semi-questionable schedule... to pull a wicked heavy trailer... across a pain in the ass route... to a grocery warehouse... then I'm not sure I like this kind of welcome. Call me a traditionalist.
On the positive side, it appears that the folks at Google have gotten their Blogger system back up and running. I don't know exactly what sort of business arrangements they have with the various people who write these blogs, but mine is completely free. I've never paid them a dime and I even managed to collect $100 for the first two and a half years' worth of ad clicks. In this context, I was amused by the absolute indignance that I saw from people when I clicked on the support forum to see what was going on. "This is ridiculous!" "You people should be ashamed!" "I'm switching to WordPress!" You get the picture. The modern world in a cyber-nutshell...
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
6/6/10
I think we might have a problem here. At some point this morning, the air inside my truck started to warm up. This woke me, naturally. I didn't feel too tired though, so I got up and checked out the overnight news inside the internets. Then I headed in for the traditional haircut/shave/shower routine. Then I stopped by SubWay and got myself an Italian BMT with double meat. Then I headed back out to my truck and hung out for a while as I enjoyed my lunch. Then, when it was time to check the truck over and hit the road, I looked at a clock for the first time all day. 9am? WTF? I must have been up by 7:30am at the latest. On a day when I was free to sleep as late as I liked. This is unacceptable.
Anyhow, I hit the road for what was supposed to be a nice and easy drive. Someone dumped a whole tank of stupidity on I-81 in Virginia today though. Absolutely no flow to the traffic at all. It only takes a few asswipes driving 50mph in the right lane, combined with a few more asswipes constantly speeding up and slowing down in the left lane, to make for a frustrating day on the highway.
Frustrating or otherwise, today found me getting through all of Virginia and North Carolina. I've set up shop for the night in Duncan, South Carolina so I'll have something less than 200 miles to cover by tomorrow afternoon. I'm due to deliver in McDonough, Georgia at 3:30pm. Given the fact that Atlanta pretty much sucks balls, I might try to scoot past there a little earlier in the afternoon. Then I can take a break somewhere along I-75 until it's time to make my delivery.
If you're reading this post, then I suppose it's safe to assume that the Blogger 'post by e-mail' function has worked. I can't seem to access the site tonight for whatever reason. If you're not reading this post and you're still somehow on this sentence, well, that would just be weird, wouldn't it?
Anyhow, I hit the road for what was supposed to be a nice and easy drive. Someone dumped a whole tank of stupidity on I-81 in Virginia today though. Absolutely no flow to the traffic at all. It only takes a few asswipes driving 50mph in the right lane, combined with a few more asswipes constantly speeding up and slowing down in the left lane, to make for a frustrating day on the highway.
Frustrating or otherwise, today found me getting through all of Virginia and North Carolina. I've set up shop for the night in Duncan, South Carolina so I'll have something less than 200 miles to cover by tomorrow afternoon. I'm due to deliver in McDonough, Georgia at 3:30pm. Given the fact that Atlanta pretty much sucks balls, I might try to scoot past there a little earlier in the afternoon. Then I can take a break somewhere along I-75 until it's time to make my delivery.
If you're reading this post, then I suppose it's safe to assume that the Blogger 'post by e-mail' function has worked. I can't seem to access the site tonight for whatever reason. If you're not reading this post and you're still somehow on this sentence, well, that would just be weird, wouldn't it?
Saturday, June 5, 2010
6/5/10
You're welcome.
Despite whatever crazy thunderstorms blew through in the middle of the night last night, I caught decent weather for today's entire drive through New York and Pennsylvania. The skies are looking pretty cloudy down here in Hagerstown, where I'll be spending the night, so maybe some more rain will come in and cool things off a little. I wouldn't mind that at all.
I'm not terribly skilled with Microsoft Paint and the folks at the Fenian Godfather Art Institute are off for the weekend, so that little demo took me a little while. Therefore I do believe that it's time for me to go inside and get an Italian BMT with double meat. Good day to you.
UPDATE (8:22pm): Guess I forgot to put my usual weekly summary on today's post. 2,652 miles plus holiday pay and over $80 in northeast pay. Solid week at the office.
Friday, June 4, 2010
6/4/10
I think we might have us a true 'man bites dog' story developing today. Two days in a row where everything went perfectly according to the script? Could it be?
I managed to sleep for a few hours last night. That's always a good start. Then I got past Burlington before the traffic kicked up, reaching my consignee in Essex Junction shortly after 6am. By 6:45am I was empty and ready to roll. Beauty.
My pickup in Champlain, New York was scheduled for noon (according to my dispatch), so I had plenty of time to take a long break and get some lunch at a little truck stop along I-89 before heading over there. I rolled into the shipper's lot at 11:15am, learned that my appointment was actually for 1pm, and rolled out of there with my full trailer at 12:30pm. Not too shabby.
Another ride down through the Appalachians is normally sure to include a heavy payload, especially since my last two loads have been a little more reasonable. So upon seeing the pallets stacked floor to ceiling and all the way to the back of the trailer, I was prepared for the worst. A quick peek at the bills showed a total weight of 10,000 pounds though. Excellent. That'll be sure to save me at least a little bit of frustration before all is said and done.
An afternoon appointment in Georgia on Monday means that there won't be any alarms in my future between now and then. Since I was a little tired today, following this morning's early wakeup call, I didn't do a whole lot of driving after I picked up my load. I stopped off at the big truck stop in Wilton, New York and tried to take a nap. No luck getting to sleep, so I basically just had a lazy day of filling out online surveys and listening to mp3's. I think I completed about an hour and a half worth of surveys and earned $8.50 in the process. Yeah, that's right, I'm a high roller. I do have a $50 focus group tentatively scheduled for next week though. Spend an hour telling people that their products suck? I can handle that.
Hanging around and waiting for the ballgame was getting pretty boring, so I did some reading on various financial sites. Oy. I can't really fault the president for trying to put a happy spin on that debacle of an employment report. He has to try and save his congressional majorities by whatever rationale he can muster. My beef is with the damned economists. I've spent the last four days hearing that there would be at least 200,000-250,000 new private sector jobs and a minimum of 500,000 including the temps for the census. Epic fail on both projections. I'm not talking about political hacks here either. I'm talking about respected economists. And then today, after a shitty jobs report, these so-called experts go straight from "Happy Days Are Here Again" to "Sell Everything?" What changed fundamentally in the last 24 hours? Absolutely nothing. That's what.
The long and short of it is that they don't know anything. You don't know anything. I don't know anything. We're dancing on the edge of a razor here and there's really no way of knowing which way things are headed. I'll just echo what was once said by one of the most brilliant analysts of the modern age - "I would encourage everyone to do as much reading as possible regarding the relationship between financial risk and financial reward. I would venture to guess that the historical correlation isn't quite what you've been led to believe over the years." Damned near two years later and, in my opinion, the other shoe still hasn't dropped. I hope I'm wrong. Still hedging against both directions though, just in case.
Speaking of hedging... it's a good thing we didn't go full tilt with ole Max Scherzer's campaign for the Cy Young award, eh? He's back to his true form, stinking up the joint tonight. Luckily he's facing Kansas City so there's a chance he might win anyway. Not looking too good at the moment.
I can't end today's post on that note though. Today was a good day, by golly. So let's talk about juice for a second. I'm not much of a juice drinker, to tell you the truth. I can handle an occasional glass of OJ but it's really not my thing. Too sweet for me, generally speaking. I grabbed a bottle of juice this afternoon and I am thoroughly impressed. The folks at Naked Juice have a product called Red Machine. Fan-freaking-tastic. No sugar or any of that nonsense. Just a wicked good blend of various berries and other fruits. Not too outrageous on the calories either.
I managed to sleep for a few hours last night. That's always a good start. Then I got past Burlington before the traffic kicked up, reaching my consignee in Essex Junction shortly after 6am. By 6:45am I was empty and ready to roll. Beauty.
My pickup in Champlain, New York was scheduled for noon (according to my dispatch), so I had plenty of time to take a long break and get some lunch at a little truck stop along I-89 before heading over there. I rolled into the shipper's lot at 11:15am, learned that my appointment was actually for 1pm, and rolled out of there with my full trailer at 12:30pm. Not too shabby.
Another ride down through the Appalachians is normally sure to include a heavy payload, especially since my last two loads have been a little more reasonable. So upon seeing the pallets stacked floor to ceiling and all the way to the back of the trailer, I was prepared for the worst. A quick peek at the bills showed a total weight of 10,000 pounds though. Excellent. That'll be sure to save me at least a little bit of frustration before all is said and done.
An afternoon appointment in Georgia on Monday means that there won't be any alarms in my future between now and then. Since I was a little tired today, following this morning's early wakeup call, I didn't do a whole lot of driving after I picked up my load. I stopped off at the big truck stop in Wilton, New York and tried to take a nap. No luck getting to sleep, so I basically just had a lazy day of filling out online surveys and listening to mp3's. I think I completed about an hour and a half worth of surveys and earned $8.50 in the process. Yeah, that's right, I'm a high roller. I do have a $50 focus group tentatively scheduled for next week though. Spend an hour telling people that their products suck? I can handle that.
Hanging around and waiting for the ballgame was getting pretty boring, so I did some reading on various financial sites. Oy. I can't really fault the president for trying to put a happy spin on that debacle of an employment report. He has to try and save his congressional majorities by whatever rationale he can muster. My beef is with the damned economists. I've spent the last four days hearing that there would be at least 200,000-250,000 new private sector jobs and a minimum of 500,000 including the temps for the census. Epic fail on both projections. I'm not talking about political hacks here either. I'm talking about respected economists. And then today, after a shitty jobs report, these so-called experts go straight from "Happy Days Are Here Again" to "Sell Everything?" What changed fundamentally in the last 24 hours? Absolutely nothing. That's what.
The long and short of it is that they don't know anything. You don't know anything. I don't know anything. We're dancing on the edge of a razor here and there's really no way of knowing which way things are headed. I'll just echo what was once said by one of the most brilliant analysts of the modern age - "I would encourage everyone to do as much reading as possible regarding the relationship between financial risk and financial reward. I would venture to guess that the historical correlation isn't quite what you've been led to believe over the years." Damned near two years later and, in my opinion, the other shoe still hasn't dropped. I hope I'm wrong. Still hedging against both directions though, just in case.
Speaking of hedging... it's a good thing we didn't go full tilt with ole Max Scherzer's campaign for the Cy Young award, eh? He's back to his true form, stinking up the joint tonight. Luckily he's facing Kansas City so there's a chance he might win anyway. Not looking too good at the moment.
I can't end today's post on that note though. Today was a good day, by golly. So let's talk about juice for a second. I'm not much of a juice drinker, to tell you the truth. I can handle an occasional glass of OJ but it's really not my thing. Too sweet for me, generally speaking. I grabbed a bottle of juice this afternoon and I am thoroughly impressed. The folks at Naked Juice have a product called Red Machine. Fan-freaking-tastic. No sugar or any of that nonsense. Just a wicked good blend of various berries and other fruits. Not too outrageous on the calories either.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Visits to this here blog dohickie.