Day by day adventures of a new solo OTR driver

Yeah I hear ya man it really sucks when they don't update their ETA and you get there thinking "ok perfect it'll be ready" then end up waiting for hours on end for the thing to show up, then the driver finally shows up and gets out of his truck and says "yeah they're always getting on me about not updating my etas, I just look at it and am like ehh thats close enough". Actually heard that one before.

Checked them out, will definitely look in to them more! They have some nice trucks for sure, the 389s look great but those mid-roof FL Coronados... man... bad-###. Unfortunately I think I would probably have trouble getting financing for a new truck, however it won't hurt for me to look in to them more. Thanks for the info! I'm not a huge Detroit fan mainly because I'm more familiar with Cummins and CAT... but there is no doubting the S60 is a good, reliable engine that's super easy to find parts for just about anywhere.

Unfortunately I don't think any truck of mine will would be allowed anywhere near California


SO, to wrap up today:

Took Wingfoot about an hour and a half to replace the two tires at their shop. After that I took the load and scaled it, thankfully it was OK. I sure as hell wasn't about to waste 3 hours trying to fuel at PILOT #AVOID AT ALL COSTS off of Old Gate Lane, so I fueled at the Loves as well. Sorry fuel compliance, you're not really something I care about. I fuel when it makes SENSE to.

Finally got moving. The usual adventures over the GW Bridge. Traffic. More traffic. It just DID NOT SEEM TO END. Spent about 4 hours doing the "slinky" all the way up through CT. Finally broke through CT and hit MA and everything cleared up. Engage hammertime. Made it to the delivery 27 minutes late, but that's close enough to being on-time according to the Qualcomm, so GOOD ENOUGH.

Customer was super nice and allowed me to park for the night and told me where their bathroom was, etc. That was good because I have never had to drop a deuce so bad in my life, and I ran out of hours at this consignee and had planned to try to sneak to an abandoned warehouse I saw about 1/4 mile down the road without waking the Qualcomm up. I'm fine using a piss bottle if I have to, but no, I will not take a dump in my truck.

Oh, GUESS WHAT MY NEXT PREASSIGNMENT IS?

Drive TWELVE MILES.

Pick up ANOTHER RELAY.

Drive 8 MILES.

Sit FOR 3 HOUR LIVE UNLOAD.

ARE YOU F****** KIDDING ME?

 

The best part is the load was pulled from that drop yard up here in MA where there are 5 billion intermodal guys staged out of. You can't tell me Schneider couldn't have gotten one of those guys to deliver this load that was literally 7 miles from the drop yard. But, they would have to pay one of the intermodal guys by the hour, instead they can pay me for a total of 15 miles even though I'll spend my entire morning here. What do they care? In the remarks it was a "hot load" too, the delivery had already been rescheduled 3 times. According to the ETA on the relay drop it has sat there for 2 or 3 days. Seriously? Of course I get here and the customer is all pissed off going "oh well about time you showed up, its already been rescheduled 3 times". I just bit my tongue and told him sorry, I'm just the driver that brought it from 7 miles down the road and I apologized on Schneider's behalf.

What a joke.

My next preassignment had better be out of here otherwise I'm going to fricking lose it.

 

Yeah man, I know. I guess I just accept it and try to be happy otherwise because I don't want to be unhappy with my job. The day I wake up and am not happy to be driving my truck would be a real bad day for me. I would kill to have it set up like you do, with an awesome DBL, awesome loads, and being able to take 6-8 days off in a row. With mine (both starter DBL and current), I can count on one hand the number of >1000 mile runs I've had, and last time I stayed out 5 weeks my DBL wouldn't let me go home for more than 5 days.

So I might as well just stay out for 3 weeks and then go home for 5 days. Its not like I'm really making money anyway so shoot I might as well enjoy the time off. At this point I'm just chalking it up to me at least getting experience... even if its not much else.

So to add insult to injury with that 20 mile relay delivery this morning, a few cases of the product were damaged and refused. I called in and asked what to do, then wasted about an hour and a half getting all that worked out. That of course set me back for my pickup of my next load, which is going to make me late for the delivery in a town north of Detroit. I made it as far as I could today blasting across I-90 in New York (Qualcomm didn't want me to take that route because of the tolls, but I've run it before and never had any problems, and no ones ever told me that I CAN'T run it). Called after hours and informed them of my issues and gave them an updated ETA. Of course the customer shows as being closed several hours prior to when I will make the delivery, however CS tells me to go ahead and show up then. Why do I have a feeling that I'm going to get there tomorrow and not a soul will be around? I asked if I could have permission to run the Ohio Turnpike, they wouldn't give it to me, said if I ran it I'd be paying out of my pocket, so I'll be playing stop-and-go through the stop lights on what I believe was OH-2 until I hit I-75. Hopefully it doesn't slow me down too much.

Another day, another penny or two... at least I'm (sort of) out of the Northeast.