Stevens Transport aviary

The adventure begins. I get a door, have them cut the seal(heavy hauteur wire) then I open my door. That's right, singular. The one without the inspection door has two pallets worth of Tide leaning against it. I could not see it until I got the one door open. Apparently P & G stacked heavy product on top of flimsy boxes. All the boxes on the bottom pallet were crushed. I already spoke to OS & D and they told me to call back if they refuse anything. Had 3-4 pumpers hand unloading the one pallet ubtli they could get a load lock in to hold things up so I could pull up and open the other door. Now I'm being unloaded.

 

Oh. I took pictures just in case.

 

Gotta love it!!

Got a Limited load out of Columbus headed to San Antonio. We emptied out at Western Beef in Brooklyn and were dead headed the 550 miles to the shipper. Any dh over 250 miles on a Limited load gets them all turned into loaded miles. Load picked up at 0800 and was due the next day at 1300. Safety calls us and gives us approval to run 24 hours straight to make OTD. Running like the wind right now and its great!

Everyone be safe.

 

OK, I've been abandoned in Lubbock. Not physically. I spoke with OS & D this morning and they asked me to put the damaged product in the cab(done), resend my empty macro with no OS & D(done) so my preplan could get dispatched to me. After waiting a while I called and called and called trying to get someone in meat dispatch, I finally started dialing extensions at random, someone in produce answered and transferred me to meat. They said they would have dispatch send the load to me. Then I got a response to one of my QC messages I had sent earlier. "The planner is working at getting you dispatched". OK, so not being sure why there is now a planner involved in pushing the buttons to send the load assignment and afraid of a mis-communication I reply back that I have a load that just needs to be released or whatever. To which I get the answer "I am aware of this and as I said the planner is working on getting you dispatched". Ok, I get the hint, so I wait, and wait, and wait. rinse and repeat.

So, I still have no dispatch. The phone system is pretty much non-operational so trying to call seems like a waste of more time, but anyone who might be able to shed some light on what is going on has been gone since noon. I get no response to QC messages. When does layover pay start again? after 24 hours or 48?

 

I just actually got through to dispatch, I was told that I had not been dispatched because I need a dead head talk. Nobody bothered to mention that this morning. Now they expect me to drive to Cactus, 3.5 hours away to pick up a load with a DLD of 1800! Somebody really dropped the ball on this one. All I can do is head over there and grab that load asap.

 

So not a bad day... 610 miles in 10:03 in a 62mph truck... that's 1726 miles from the Arrowhead TS in Pendelton OR to Iowa 80 in 29:32 hrs drive time through mountains and fog for 7 hrs today... less than 200 to final and it delivers Monday am... easy day tomorrow.

 

JBS cactus always blew past the dld time for every load I picked up there.

saturday dead head talk, yea that will get you left stranded...
No jakes, No cruise, increase your following distance, and going into the panhandle of Texas, pay attention to the cross winds.

 

Well, the load is ready, I am actually hooked to it sitting in the dirt lot doing my trip plan. I don't yet have an appointment time, but the soonest I can get there on paper is 1015 the day of, thats CST. so 1215 local? probably will have an early am appointment. If I had been told to call in for the stupid deadhead talk this morning when I was asking what was holding up the dispatch I could have picked it up and run some with it today. That would've knocked 8 hours off my trip plan. With a plan showing me getting there 0200ish local I could probably push through by sacrificing fuel mileage. I wonder what would have happened if I had given up on the phone system this afternoon instead of trying one more time. Somebody would probably try blaming me because it didn't get picked up. Ah well, I'm so worn out now I not taking off until 0700 when my ten is up. The 3 hours I have left to drive won't help anyone if I fall asleep at the wheel. I have myself planned to drive sleep and drive again, hopefully I can pick up enough time to get it there on time. Whenever that might be.

 

Load assignment to p/u 2 drop load from Taylor Farms, Dallas going to Hutchinson, KS with final at North Platte, NE. Arrive at Taylor Farms, guy is irate!! Supposed to be 2 separate loads! While waiting on hold with dispatch, another Stevens truck rolls in, also with load assignment to North Platte. WTH???

 

As we used to say in the army... Just a SNAFU

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