The rookie

Soo yesterday had my assignment switched from a unload to a relay because I had training for the preventable 2 weeks ago and I was actually happy. Instead of battling Chicago traffic twice and having to do a unload for a measly 35 bucks I dropped it for 20 with none of the headache and still got the miles as it was only 40 miles away(2 hour drive in Chicago morning traffic). Training today was fairly simple bunch of figure 8s while have to slow manuever through a set of trailed at each end. Then a little slow manuever course they set up which left about two inches of room on each side after word the osr said how in the hell did you hit something? Cause I went through and the only thing I touched was my mirror. He said they have people go through and panic and hit up to 15 times. It was really close. After I went back and forth explaining the issue with the tablet to the office and they told me to hit maintenance. Showed them the issues and they said that they couldn’t do any work without the approval of It. Now I’ve been on the phone with IT about 3x each week since I got the tablet installed and they still act like they don’t know what’s going on. I figured it’s an issue with the truck and not the tablet because when disconnected from the trucks WiFi the tablet works fine outside of hos. I’m guessing the WiFi controls the connection of the truck cpu to the tablet. So when disconnected it won’t switch into drive or keep up with location. This is a problem when you gotta go offline to in the system to say you arrived, then come out of the guardhouse to move the truck for the load, then back and taking off and doing paperwork and making sure you put departed and now youre halfway down the road and forgot to log back into the WiFi and none of the drivetime was detected. It’s a mess so I called again and just like always they gave me a work order number for a new tablet my guess was they was just gonna replace the tablet until I was 10 tablets deep. So I told the dbl and finally they wrote a letter to somebody up the supply chain who sent back a work order to just get it fixed so now I’m waiting on maintenance to replace the cvd they told me at 11 it’d be pulled in at 1300 and it 1500 now and ain’t moved .. so you know how that goes

 

Sooo...... yea...
They replaced the cvd and the antenna and whatever else under the hood and Called me around 9am and I got to the truck around 1030 from the hotel. Got in and immediately couldn’t sign in. Restarted the tablet signed out from the trucks WiFi and got in right away. Got the same errors immediately, so I took it and let the dbl look at it and was told to go and get a new one.
Now yesterday the story was that I needed IT to approve the maintenance for them to do any thing. Today they gave me a work order number for the tablet and maintenance is like before we can give you a new one we have to further investigate. After giving a thorough walk through with the other shop advisor yesterday Smh. He told me to bring the truck up front and he’d give it a look. Stuck the tablet in the truck and it worked perfect for about 2 mins.. got a dummy assignment did the first 2steps and bam timing malfunction, then workflow stopped and it all went back to how it was.. brought it around and that tech disappeared actually I’m sure he saw me as he was in the shop just it was getting close to lunch time.. and just like yesterday- “it’s about to be lunch time so after he only has 2 more things to look at and we’ll be pulling it in by 1. Told the dbl to just get me a rental- my countdown to a year is under 90 days so I’m calm but I just know when I get back Monday the same issues are gonna be there smh

 

I’m actually surprised they fixed the issues and I’m finally good to go a whole two months later. They told me they replaced the router which is what I told them was the root of my issues the whole time smh. Told them the tablet functioned just not when connected to the WiFi. Just for giggles they give me a local 120 mile round trip load for the day tomorrow so I’m back to making the big bucks

 

Today had to get loaded at nouryon in Morris il, then a drop in Gary the 120 round trip. Had a pre-assignment that turned in to flaming hot garbage. I’m supposed to deliver 300 miles away at 8 in the morning eastern time coming from central. Not that bad when I got the assignment still had 10 hours of drive time and it was about 1300. Got to the tank wash and it said the relay ready time was at 1600 but I still looked and my tank was sitting in the clean lot still. About 10 mins later the pick up driver shows up telling me his appointment isn’t until 1600 and it’s 1400 and he still has a 60+ mile trip to kankakee. Ain’t no telling how many hours he had left at 1400 it’s 2140 now and he’s still at the shipper according to extended. So I’m not sure if he gonna make it back. Which if he doesn’t ... then I’m not even leaving here till atleast 9 central. Bottom line for the miles and the assignment one of us could’ve took this all the way.

 

Had to kill a guy with kindness yesterday at the Loves in Kankakee.. basf wouldn’t let us relay the trailers there so we had to hit the loves and after I went to get in the fuel line and I passed two trucks who were sitting no where near the fuel lines a few moments later the guy come and knock on my door screaming about how he was waiting and I’m asking him if would he like me to move so he can have his spot he was too busy screaming to hear me so I smiled and asked him again and he was like “wha” so I shook his hand and as he walked all the way back to his truck the other lane opened up and I asked him did he just want that one. And he said yea but he had quite a far walk as I said he was no where near the lanes and as he got in his truck Pam came flying in and took the lane. The guy ended up just leaving

 

Schneider already trying to raise the blood pressure, lol I could tell me being nice really threw him off his game, but man I about died piecing it together as I seen him walking back to his truck and how fast Pam was moving through the lot lmao it was like instant karma

 

The last load had so many head scratching moments after I picked it up from the guy at loves. got it to the customer at around 2300 so Schneider made my appointment for 9am went to sleep with about 5 hous left on my clock(after I got hoses cleaned and tagged and bagged for this unload) I wake up and head into receiving which I wish I would’ve knew where it was at when I arrived(around a sketchy looking alleyway all the way on the far side of the building) they tell me 95%of the tankers loads they get are drops unless they are in immediate need of the product. So I could’ve dropped it last night and been on my way to cinci instead of waiting in their lot losing my other preassignment. Made it to cinci about 1300 got a relay that I’m delivering hopefully sometime soon and I say that because the appointment was for 1200 I got here at that time and the sign on the receiving door said everybody was out for lunch til 1230... they get back from lunch and tell me to head to the tank farms and she would call the unloader which she did right in front of me. Got to tf and nobody in sight luckily some guy with a walkie was working near me and paged a supervisor who had no idea I was here.. he came over just to tell me that the lady that unloads the tankers won’t be here until 1400. From the way things sounded she’s the only one with the keys too smh

 

Had the tablet working for a whole week and now back to having issues. Went to do my dvir’s and had a pop up error that prevented me from accessing anything on the tablet. Called IT and got the awesome news that they replacing the tablet again, and that I have a timing malfunction that’s not showing up on my end. And that it’ll need to go into a shop again... That’s not even including the fun stuff that happened this load