Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

That's my route. I typically don't get many pick ups, but when I do they're always 20-30mins in the middle of nowhere; another 30 to get back to civilization.

Today was good. Made 22 delivers I believe, and grabbed every pick up that showed up on my Qualcomm hopefully makes my Friday like butter

 

Oh yeah well today I got an old Pottsville Clunker that has an electrical issue and stalled out in a customers dock this morning and I couldn't get it restarted. We've been heavy, I was way heavy last Friday, but they've also reworked stuff and routes and things and now my Friday route was totally changed. I've gone from heavy to light to medium to heavy for me right now everything seems to be balanced actually Thanksgiving coming up will start to slow a little the schools slow down. Our routes have been reworked a couple times my old Friday was a good money route it was a heavy route, but I was starting to get burned out on it, it was heavy and paid good, but it had a lot of stops with hard delivery windows and playing beat the clock every Friday gets old after a while.

My new Friday is actually much more manageable and dare I say even easier.

Even one of the managers said "Yeah I looked at you're old route and looked at you're new route and I'll tell you, you're new route is better, I wouldn't want to run you're old route, but you're new route is a lot better." He's right it is an easier route. It's almost like a mini chain route our largest commercial customer at our yard I have 3 of there restaurants on my route. The restaurant I even had dinner at with Katie at this time last year and I liked it very much. Actually the new route is better it's not as much beat the clock, nothings worse then getting a 23,800lbs pound load that you have to down stack to unload for the first 6 stops and you're load is just hemorrhaging time and no matter what that hard window isn't going away. Gets old after a while. The new routes not quite as heavy and the stops are close as in drive the truck halfway around the block and boom you're there and the timing won't have as much drama plus 16,000lbs is a lot easier to unload then 23.8K. Plus I had elevator stops and knock down stops all that has been eliminated it is a step in the right direction!

 

I do miss my old Saturday run when I used to throw beer. I'd wake up at 330 clock in at 4 clocked out at 1030-11. Oh, and the route had an hour drive from the warehouse to first account and last. So literally 1/4 of my day was driving.

It was sweet. All the accounts pretty much opened at 3am, or they let me in before customers could come in so it was gravy.

 

Well, I did FART a few times today.

Maybe that was it.

 

Do you have to load your trailer sometimes or it's ready and waiting for you everyday when you start? I saw GFS Volvo with a pup parked at the parking lot in Hampton In in Clarks Summit PA yesterday. I thought that was you for a second.

 

Well no call Today from city or road, so I gotta report to the dock at 14:00 Will probably work on the dock for few hours and then get kicked out to Newburgh NY for a turn road run. Time to finish this week strong

 

Actually that was me you saw there yesterday. First stop this morning at midnight was Uno's in Dickson City. They added Uno's to me starting this week. We eliminated a route out east and I got the Uno's(for now). I normally stay in Wilkes Barre since my last 2 stops are Dallas,PA middle and high school. Back to staying in Wilkes Barre next week, not impressed with the Comfort Inn. #### train that runs along the hill side behind the hotel is to loud, LOL

 

@Fuelinmyveins
Tractor Look familiar? My truck with a 36'

 

No no the warehouse packs the trailers that's an entire separate trade and job. My trailer is loaded and waiting for me in the yard every morning.

 

Well, been running daylight runs all week. Gotta do a night shift tonight but only cause it’s covering a bid driver run. Got to cover acouple nights next week for bid drivers. If I’m extra I’m back on the days. Seems like you only go nights on a bid or covering a night bid driver. You can manipulate it to run out in the day. If your 10 is up in the morning they’ll work you when you call in. It’s been freaking busy. Really only 34hr restart is what it looks like for days off. I’ve been home daily. But then again it’s only me and another driver on the System(Extraboard). We need like 6 more linehaul drivers or more. The rest of the system drivers are on covering bids. Looks like I’ll be on a bid pretty soon as long as we hire some folks.

Linehaul has its stresses then Foodservice. Yesterday I was setup with empties about to leave the gate. Took awhile to find empties too cause they were scarce that day had to wait for them to unload them. Call myself out and they switched me to a loaded trailers last minute. If I would of dispatched out the empties on my phone when I was hooking they couldn’t do nothing. Something I had to learn and everyone tells me I should do so they cant do that. Everything is online so you can check your phone and what set your taking that Central dispatch sends you. Didn’t check it and it got switched. Live and learn. It’s cool though you can see your trailers online. They set me up with trailers and gate time online before my 10 was up. They don’t call you you just check.

So I had to drive around the block go back into the terminal and break my set go get paperwork and rehook another set and finally get rolling. Walked acouple of miles doing all that. The yard at the turn point you have to drop set and rehook sets or even break down a set to get your trailers. It’s not that lazy of a job. Gotta do a little exercise.