An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Ya know the suckey part about this delivery. Today, sunny to partly cloudy, high around 50°, tomorrow around my delivery appointment, rain and 40°. Does catching pneumonia fall under workers comp in this situation? . But I guess that if I only wanted to flatbed in sunny 70° weather, I would only drive in SoCal....oh wait...it rained there the other day, and they're talking about it getting down into the low 30's overnight after the next push of precipitation...welp, there goes that option...I guess this buttercup better suck it up then and be happy I am not unloading in Iowa below 0 this time of year.

 

Samsara can't leave well enough alone. After putting my own SIM card in the tablet, everything was working fine, until an update that came thru on Tuesday. Now, what it shows online is different than what it shows on my tablet

Tablet(which is accurate)





Online






And I rebooted the tablet, signed out and back in, I even started the truck to ensure the truck's ECM was communicating with the gateway. I hope we're next in line to get rid of these pieces of garbage units like Lonestar did.

And since they replaced the windshield and reattached the camera, the AI nag won't shut up. The other day, 68mph in a 70 zone and she was #####ing at me to reduce speed. My last act of defiance before I quit will be ripping that ##### off the windshield and throwing her in the sleeper. Although, I have found a way of not hearing her. I sync my phone to my stereo, fire up my music app and crank the volume wide open.

-addition- when I went from sleeper to off duty this morning, it corrected yesterdays online log to match the tablet. It has never done that prior to the latest software update.

 

Arrival at delivery 07:45, unloaded and back at the "World's Largest Truck Stop" by 8:30. To add insult to injury, the rigging crew said they had to come from the other side of the US route this customer is adjacent to...they shook their heads when I told them I had been sitting at the truckstop since Wednesday.

 

Got my next load. 180 mile deadhead to BFE, IA to pick up 2 hydraulic cylinders going to Southaven, MS for next week. A whopping 675 miles. This will be my 3rd 34 in 8 days. Apparently the overload of OD freight has been resolved, and apparently SPD has over hired for the level of freight available this time of year. So 3 of the 5 paychecks in January were under $1000 (net), now my February is starting out the exact same way. I could make better money driving a daycab getting home every night. I thought Daseke was the worst parent company I had ever worked for, it turns out W-TFI is even worse. I have hometime set for the 17th, there has to be a better option out there, I didn't sit this much during the '08 recession.

Update - and this #### load got ####tier. Load was supposed to be ready anytime. I get here and it won't be ready until after 17:00. Told my dispatcher that I am at my last straw, he may not need to find me a load out of MS, I may just deadhead home and let him know what terminal I will be dropping the equipment off at on my way out the door. I may have to swallow my pride and go back to Shaffer. As frustrating as that company is, with all the changes we've gone thru here, they're not that bad compared to what this place has become.

 

Not sure why they sent an RGN to pick up 2 10' long x 2' high hydraulic rams, that have to be tarped. Load needs strapped,(no winches on our RGNs) and it's so short that securing my tarp is gonna be a huge PITA because I only have a 2 pc set (because this professional open deck company doesn't stock tarps at their terminals, so you have to scrounge for your own when someone drops a trailer, like a vulture hunting down and fighting over a roadkill opossum.).

 

Now I have to wait for them to paint the god-###### thing, then wait for them to dry bake the paint before they load it....then I have to secure and tarp it. Really regretting putting myself on the OD board again. If I weren't on it, then I wouldn't be pulling this trailer and wouldn't have pulled that hazmat storage to Iowa and I wouldn't be here with my thumb up my ###. Before the We-lie partnership and the WTFI buyout, we used to have recession proof freight, now it's one scrap broker load after another. Really having 2nd thoughts about not only my decision to go back to pulling OD, but wondering why I thought coming back to a Daseke company was a good idea in the 1st place.