Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Boy talk about taking one for the team, I sure did and let me tell you, it hurts. My delivery was at C-S in Mauldin Sc for 8 am yesterday. Got there at 2am, appt for 8am, backed in at 10:30, empty at 3:30. I was able to take my full 10 hour break there. My Perdue reload? Nope, I was dispatched to rescue a load from one of our drivers broke down in Mebane Nc, load going to? C-S in Mauldin. It was due here at 10 yesterday morning, I never left here until 3:30 in the afternoon. Dispatch said to get there ASAP and they'll have to call to reschedule. I wasn't taking no ones word telling me to "get there" especially a C-S wholesaler. I'll give this place some credit though, they do run a somewhat normal procedure.

I spoke with the yard dude who stages the trucks and assigns the doors, telling him what the deal was. I gave him the new PO#, he looked it up then told me that when I got back in the am he would take care of me, right, I couldn't wait to get back. I got back here at 4am after dealing with this storm that arrived and got to the guard shack to check in. They punched my PO# in and told me to stage my truck and when the dude comes in at 6 he would come and talk with me. At 8am the dude showed up, same one from yesterday, and gave me my door assignment, unreal, a missed appt, a work in , and a door assignment just like that, at a C-S facility to boot. I was impressed, they are already unloading me, the same load as I had yesterday, a labor intensive, 35 pallet into 65 pallet unload costing $245 yesterday and today. What did this cost me out of my pocket? $10 to buy the dude lunch, well worth it to avoid the dispatch hassle to wait on them to reschedule this delivery. I did it my way, and it worked. Time for bed.

 

This episode might have me change my mindset about C-S.

 

I'm empty and sitting in the staging area here at C-S watching the clock click down. I have 50 minutes to go then according to the clock I won't be tired anymore, right. Since Thursday night I have no clue to what day it is or where I'm at. Today is going to be no different. I have to meet a driver in Florence and take his HP load and deliver it in Orlando at 8am.

 

I'm thinking some of these drivers would have yet one more thing to distract them. I sometimes wish it would go back to when I first started driving, only phone call you could make was at the phone bank in any truck stop, waiting your turn, or at the table in the restaurant. Seems so much less stressful back in 79/80 then today.

 

I'm home, not exactly how I had planned it, but who care's I'm home and will be until Monday. I was given the choice of starting my hometime early, or going back up to Richmond then coming home, I chose starting early.

I got to the construction site to deliver my whole trailer full of coolers. there was an Abilene truck just leaving as I pulled up and an Abilene truck just getting set up to back in to this disaster. There was no place for me to park, I couldn't stay double parked on the street so I gave the HP rep overseeing the unload my phone number and told him to call me when it was my time. He said sure thing and I went and found a WalMart to park at until they were ready for me. About 2 hours later I got the call went back and got positioned for my unload. As soon as I set my brakes everyone scattered for lunch. An hour later everyone was back and the unload commenced. As I was getting empty Tim called to talk to me about my hometime. He gave me the 2 options and told me it was my choice. The underlying factor was that I needed to be back in Richmond for next Tuesday to pick up my new trainee. I decided to go home until Monday. Tim had me on a 3way call with the load planner to make sure everyone was on the same page about me getting back for Tuesday. When it was over He sent me a deadhead move for 189 paid miles to go home. I left at 3pm and was hugging on my wife in front of my truck at 6pm. I would have been hugging a little earlier but I had to stop at Fort Pierce to scan my paperwork in.

This is where getting paid every 2 weeks comes in as being very beneficial. Just like last pay period, I'll be able to make up my short miles because of the extra few days off. Last pay period, with 5 days off I still handed in 6050 miles. This go around should be a little better, around 6400 miles.

I just realized that in about 3 weeks it will be my one year anniversary here at Abilene. As I did at Calex, I will be writing a detailed report card. Be safe all, God Bless, time to go buy a new computer, this 8 year old one I have with the obsolete XP operating system is just about kaput.