Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Joseph1135 has a thread, "My new adventure with Gordon Trucking," under 'Favorite Trucking Companies' with over 21,000 views since April of this year, 2013. Wouldn't it be great if he started posting his trip and pay details! Another set of eyes! Vic


When I decided to get into trucking in the early '70s, trucking schools were not well regarded and at least in California many trucking companies had authority to sign for your CDL. My plan was two-fold. First, I would call truckers who had listed their trucks for sale in the LA Times and talk to them, explaining that I was interested in buying a truck, which was true. Sometimes I would go along up the California coast, etc.

Second, when companies were hiring they'd announce road tests for new drivers. In those days your application was secondary to your road test. We didn't have PSP, CSA, HireRight, DAC, etc. It was pretty much an eyeball-to-eyeball world. I recall once when I went in to check on an advertised job and a guy handed me a clipboard with an application on it and I asked, "What's this for?"

"For your application," he says. "What-for?" I asked, "I'm-standing-right-in-front-of-you.-Are-you-interested-in-hiring-me,-or-not?" He says, "Dunno. Have to see your application first." I walked out. I figured if he needed to look down at a piece of paper rather than up at me to tell if he wanted to hire me, I didn't need him. He wanted to hire an application, not a person. Last time I checked, I was a person. Not a piece of paper.

I had been talking to a guy who had a small trucking company in Van Nuys for a while. He had promised me a job because he thought I had a CDL but it never seemed to materialize. Mind you, I did not know how to drive tractor-trailer, did not have a CDL. I figured I would have a CDL, somehow, so it wouldn't hurt to try line up jobs right away. I'd take road tests--you can imagine the results--what made it worthwhile was that every time I'd learn something new about the knobs, gear shifts and all. I had a California CDL learner's permit and a Minnesota Chauffeur's License--qualified to drive a cab. I was legal to drive a truck with a fully licensed driver. No more than that.

Finally I called the Van Nuys guy up and asked if he had a truck going out of town, told him I was restless and wanted to get out of town, for no pay was okay. He said, "Sure." That night I met his driver and down the road we went. It's a long ways from Van Nuys to Ontario, CA, which was just fields at that time, early '70s.

As we passed Ontario Truck Stop, I decided I'd better say something because I didn't know how I would get home much beyond there. So I said, "I need to tell you something." He says, "Yeah? What?" I said, "Dunno how to drive one of these things." There was this long, long silence and we kept rolling and rolling, further and further and further away from Ontario Truck Stop and he just looked at me with this dumbfounded look.

Finally he said, "Kid, that's the craziest thing I ever heard. You really must want to learn to drive to pull this. What a stunt! You really don't know how to drive this truck?" I shook my head, no. "Well," he said, "When we get back from Buffalo, you WILL be able to drive this truck! Okay?" About two weeks after we got back I got a call from the secretary asking me to come over. "What for?" I asked. I was so embarrassed for having pulled one over on them. "Just come over, okay?" she says.

The trucking company owner had signed for my license. I never did go to work for him. I was just too embarrassed. But I had my CDL and I could shift a ten-speed RoadRanger, forerunner to our Straight-Ten. I had driven all the way back from Buffalo, NY as the driver had kidney trouble and could hardly get out of the sleeper for the pain.

 

Dispatch #22--Grove City, OH E to Columbus, OH L to Melrose Park, IL
383 miles........................................................................................... 118.73


Trip and pay details of my first 3 weeks..............on page 2, message 17.
Trip and pay details of my second 3 weeks..........on page 9, message 81.

I don't recall much about this trip. The next trip up into Wisconsin I have a much better, clearer memory of because of high winds and the hill country of southwest Wisconsin and northeast Iowa. This load does bring up one thought: rookies get low value freight as much as possible and some of the so-called Service Watch loads that rookies get have more to do with practice than any real urgency. You can call a load a Service Watch load all you want; when Gordon has truck after truck bringing the same low value freight somewhere, the urgency of each load of the same pallets like this is doubtful. Good practice for rookies to arrive on time, though.

Low Value Freight

Yuppo, these loads from Columbus to Melrose Park figure to be pallets. On any given day trucks line up to deliver pallets from sprawling DCs (distribution centers). The pallets arrived at those DCs underneath all the assorted goods we buy at big box retailers like Wal-Mart. Then they fill 53' trailers that return them for re-use. A vote against Wal-Mart, and many hate Wal-Mart, is a vote against large scale efficiency.

I've counted 7 or more Gordons at any one time while I delivered to Melrose Park. There's nothing especially scenic about the drive to Melrose Park, either. It's standard Gordon, though. From Metropolitan Columbus you run the interstates to Melrose Park and you're ending up in Greater Metropolitan Chicago.

Typically you climb a stairs, step around a corner, climb another stairs and line up behind other drivers to check in at the shipping/receiving office and window, hopefully get or wait to get assigned a door, bump the dock and wait in your truck until told that you're empty, unloaded. Pull out from the dock, see if the trailer needs swept out, shut the doors and pull out. If they don't bring the bills out to your truck, and most receivers don't, get completed bills from the shipping/receiving office and then get on down the road. Nothing to write home about, eh? Just another load.

Here, at Melrose Park, you have lots of company and lots of companies. Truck after truck sits, parked, backed up to the long, long dock for unloading, a line-up of stacked trucks wait to get in, a few have finished up and have started to pull out. Swift, Gordon, independents and others bring this relatively cheap freight here. Forklift drivers pull stacks of pallets out of trailer after trailer and stage them for shipping right back out to the various manufacturers that sell goods to Wal-Mart, other big box retailers or for industrial goods.

Most all of this activity is fueled by some kind of dinosaur blood, the petrochemical remains of eons past despite that between solar power and hydrogen in the air some day we probably don't need to touch this stuff for transportation. You could probably just as well argue that dinosaur blood is just a by-product of solar anyway, through photosynthesis. Old photosynthesis. Very, old photosynthesis.


Written July 17, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. Gonna be hot today again. All rights reserved by author.

 

Peewee Pay in a Smoker's Paradise

Before moving on let's take a better look at this last load. 383 miles. It deadheads a short distance to Columbus, OH, then a drop-and-hook that takes about an hour plus (not less) on average by the time you get through the guard shack, drop your empty, find the pallet house and your bills and hook your trailer and back out the guard shack.

I got paid my 31 cents a mile (my Mythical 5-and-5 rate) to Columbus. In Columbus Gordon had the old Gordon donation cup out for at least an hour of my time, requiring that I donate this huge, wealthy, family-owned company my free labor and time to drop-and-hook this load. Once again Gordon guidelines figure 50 mph, since Gordon trucks top out at about 63. 383/50 = 7.66 hours.

Gordon wants you to add an hour for each 250 miles, 383/250 = 1.532. So a total projected (by Gordon) of 7.66 plus 1.53 hours or 9 hours driving time Grove City, OH to Columbus, OH to Melrose Park, IL.

Melrose Park is a live unload. You're going to be there two hours. Count on it and once again for that two hours Gordon has the Gordon donation cup out. It's called servitude when you have to work for free, you know. Servitude. S-e-r-v-i-t-u-d-e.

So, 9 hours driving time, 1-hour forced donation to Gordon at Columbus and 2-hour forced donation to Gordon at Melrose Park. So I put in about 12 hours total to make this run and I make $118.73. Divide your pay by your hours: 118.73/12 = $9.89 per hour.

That's a lot better than a 0-300 mile stinker load, but it's still pretty peewee pay for the backbone of the Republic. Compare it to if you signed on to a good LTL company, made $18-$24/hour plus overtime and went home to your sweetheart every night. And, ironically, this load is probably my Gordon 'reward' for pulling the Intimidator's fat out of the fire and timely delivering the Monday night load.

That's after I had driven an hour up to Indy from my place, got there by 8 a.m. and futzed around all day for no pay, unloaded my gear from 3579 over at Cummins, had lunch with the almost-owner operator, retrieved 3579 from Cummins, loaded my gear back into 3579, overcame my disgust at seeing the truck I had cleaned up the day before smoked in by a Gordon trainer and doing the Good Samaritan thing for another smoker to whom Gordon was handing over a fresh, unfouled brand-new $140,000 Cascadia so that he could pollute it with second-hand cigarette smoke, convert it into his personal smoking room. Yeah, smoker's paradise.

Smokers and truckers both die early, truckers in general 16 years early, at 61, according to my Gordon Orientation. Consider stinky, cigarette-fouled, trash-filled Gordon tractors...

This is as 'Gordon' as anything else that is 'Gordon'. What's more, there is a pecking order to Gordon tractor assignments, if you haven't noticed. Just as Gordon determines who are the financial winners and losers with regard to loads, ditto for trucks.

More on this later.


Written July 17, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. Please note that I continue to make edits as long as Truckers Report allows (takes editing away). The first draft I posted of this page was severely flawed. Sorry. All rights reserved by author.

 

Looking Deeper at Columbus, OH to Melrose Park

Let's look a little deeper. On Monday, November 12, 2012 I take the dispatch to Columbus, OH (actually Grove City) for the Intimidator that I hook off the Indy yard sometime after 6 p.m. It has to be in Columbus by midnight. It's a Service Watch load. Okay, fine. It's almost a favor from me to the Intimidator.

I have a scale ticket for that load from the Pilot off 465, exit 4. The load weighed in at 78,360 before 75 gallons of diesel and 78,920 after and 33,920 on my tandem after pushing my fifth wheel all the way back. I'm good on both steering and drives.

The delivery is made in time to make the Intimidator happy. I have to take 10 and spend the night somewhere. Don't remember. But we know I did spend the night... somewhere.

Tuesday morning when I send in my Mac 8 ('ready for duty') call, or shortly after, I get a Pre-Plan for Dispatch #22, Grove City E to Columbus L to Melrose Park sometime after 10 a.m. I deadhead over to Columbus, drop-and-hook there and proceed west on I-70 loaded. It's only 77,000 when I scale it but it's loaded with pallets to the tail and I'm 37,160 on my tandems. Whoa! Got to slide the tandems way back. The second weigh I'm still over, now 34,920 on my tandems. Okay, fine. Third time's the charm, right?

Ugh! I miss it again! 34,180 on the tandems. Grumble, grumble, grumble. I end up 33,280 on the tandems and am still good on steering and drives. Experience counts and my inexperience across the scale shows. All the same it takes time. You can bump that 12-hour transit time up to 14 hours with a congested truck lot, parking, going back inside, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. Every so often I do need to pee, too, you know. Now let's check my hourly rate again! I'm up to 14 hours on this load now, not 12. Bumps me down to $8.50/hour. ($118.73/14 = $8.50)

(I need CougFan here to help me get my DM to bump me up to $12/hour for some of this unpaid time.)

A standard work year is 2000 hours (40 hours/week x 50 weeks). $8.50/hour x 2000 yields $17,000/year. What? You say OTR drivers don't work 40-hour weeks? Good, God, man! Why the Dickens not? And that's Dickens as in Charles, the greatest author of the Victorian period, 19th Century England... a social critic who railed against, against, well, working conditions just like OTR drivers work... long hours for peewee pay!

Okay, okay, have it your way. Let's take the full 5000/OTR hours we calculated on page 12, message #115. 5000 OTR hours per year x $8.50 = $42,500 the hard way. The. Very. Hard. Way. Keep in mind, this load is my 'reward' for bailing the Intimidator out of a tight spot! I think you're looking more at $4-$5/hour and $20K-$25K if you consistently work 100 hours/week. At best. And Gordon controls who wins and who loses load-wise and miles-wise... 'Are you feeling lucky,' or peewee?

Houdini isn't going to squeeze much more into Tuesday no matter how you cut it and the delivery actually hit on Wednesday morning. By then there's another Pre-Plan and I'll be proceeding 176 miles to Wisconsin.

Another stinker.


Written July 17, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. Dogs are really quiet, inside. Hot and humid outside. All rights reserved by author.

 

Dispatch #23--Melrose Park, IL E to University Park, IL L to Franklin, WI
176 miles........................................................................................ $54.56


Once I got 3579 out of Cummins on Monday afternoon, it still had that thump at the front left fender and pulled right, had all new batteries and the engine cooler had undergone the SuperSeal process with no guarantee of success. It would go back to Cummins, if not.

Just look, though, at this $54.56, 176-mile load. Is this a stinker load?

At first blush this could be a nice shorty to same-day deliver and use up what's left of Wednesday and set up for a better Thursday. If we peek, the next dispatch is 532 miles, $164.92. Not too shabby. Even at 31 cents you could gross $750 with five days like that. The loading/unloading time doesn't carry such a penalty on 532 miles either. Both Gordon and I make money. Even if the days are long.

Who benefits on the 176-mile load? I recall a stiff, strong head wind and side wind enough to cut down my speed to 45 mph for safety and stayed there as I got closer to Wisconsin. And hills. I had not realized that northeast Iowa had such hills. Funny how you remember the bad things so easily.

The 532-mile upcoming trip loads in Green Bay and delivers in Gas City, pays $164.92 to the driver with a pickup appointment of 1300 (1:00 pm local, Central time) on the 15th. From Franklin, WI to Green Bay is 130 empty miles. But we peeked. In reality, I don't know about this load yet. For all I know, the next load is another peewee load.

Who makes money here, me, Gordon or both? It would have been better, faster for me if Gordon paid me empty miles straight to Green Bay, skip the 176-mile load, the loading in University Park and delivering in Franklin, Wisconsin. Of course, Gordon won't do that. Someone has to take that load, right? It's right on my way, isn't it. Gordon wants me to take that load that benefits Gordon and for me to absorb my labor and time. Work free. Why?

How does it affect me? It slows me up. I have to take the time to load in University Park and deliver in Franklin en route to the load I want in Green Bay tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. Why couldn't Gordon help out more on this? The driver doesn't get 10 cents more to deliver this load than to simply run empty to Franklin and then on to Green Bay.

Gordon gets paid for this short load that takes my time and slows me down. Why does Gordon not feel obligated to pay me at least something for my time and labor loading and unloading this short load that benefits Gordon? Does that sound fair to you? Force dispatch, you say? Fundamental fairness, I say. Gordon pays when the wheels are rolling because Gordon 100% controls the 'where'--those wheels belong to Gordon and roll to Gordon's benefit.

At a Gordon pickup or delivery Gordon controls where the wheels stop, too.

If Gordon demands work there, Gordon should be prepared to pay fairly for that work.

Anything less is forced servitude.


Written July 17, 2013 partly in Bloomington, IN and partly at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. (Too hot outside to work on that strut in the sun, tow614. It'll wait for cooler weather!) All rights reserved by author.

 

Dispatch #24--Franklin, WI E to Green Bay, WI L to Gas City, IN
532 miles.................................................................. 164.92


This dispatch, Dispatch #24, is the cross-over point, seems to me. Up until now the likelihood of my arriving at a shipper/receiver I've been to before has been small. From here that starts to slowly move up. Although I had never been to Franklin, WI or Green Bay, WI or Gas City, IN to load or unload, a month has passed since I started Orientation. I've had the experience now of 24 Gordon dispatches; that's more than a mere handful.

If this were a dedicated job with a couple shipper locations to learn and a handful of receiver locations, I would have crossed this point the first week or two after Orientation. The ramp up time to cross-over point varies from trucking job to trucking job depending on the size of the territory served and the number of possible stops. That's a big number with Gordon.

If you drive just in Greater Indianapolis, for example, as you get familiar with Indianapolis you reach this cross-over point faster than if you drive all over the Greater Mid-West, what some carriers call the Mississippi Valley Region. Different trucking jobs have different learning curves. It's as simple as that. The learning curve at Gordon is not trivial. It's very steep.

I recall that I got mis-routed as I got closer to Gas City. My Garmin took me off onto some state roads but it didn't matter. I made my 1300 appointment in Green Bay on the 15th (Thursday) and delivered in Gas City the next morning (on Friday).

Let's look at Gordon's break down for this load.

Gordon figures 50 mph and an extra hour for each 250 miles for drive time. (532/50 = 10.64) + (532/250 = 2.128) or (10.64 + 2.128 = 12.76).

So figuring the drive time Gordon fashion, 50 mph gives 10.64 hours of drive time plus 1 hour per 250 miles, or 2.128 hours for a total drive hours of 12.76 hours, 12 and 3/4 hours.

This exceeds the 11-hour rule so it'll take at least one allowed 11-hours of driving, followed by a 10-hour shutdown and another 1-3/4 hours of driving. Make sense? I need to allow 11 plus 10 plus 1-3/4 hours plus any loading/unloading and fueling or scaling to figure out my ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) to Gas City. (Gordon wants a frequently updated ETA. You update your ETA as conditions change.)

The load happens to be light, just over 15K so I'm not taking time to scale this one. The optimizer had me fuel 165 gallons of diesel in Franksville, WI and I'll try to get everything I need to get done outside of the truck there. I kept all my fuel tickets because I was interested in leasing from Gordon but I don't really need to look it up. I figured an hour to fuel, which brings us up to 13-3/4 hours on this load.

Let's add in an hour to drop-and-hook in Green Bay plus a quarter hour for local construction (which there was) and an hour to drop-and-hook in Gas City. Pretty conservative. Any unexpected delays could bring that up. That brings me up to 16 hours on this dispatch which pays $164.92.

Divide pay by hours. Here's the result. (164.92/16 = $10.30/hour) This load, which is a better than average load by Gordon standards, pays me only $10.30/hour!



Written July 18, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

 

Is Gordon a Bad Company?

Does peewee pay make Gordon a bad company? Not at all. In fact, Gordon is a very good company with excellent equipment, a great CSA score, lots of freight and a support system for you, the driver, that won't quit. Literally. 24/7 you've got support. It's especially good while you're learning the ropes.

You'll learn the right way at Gordon. Gordon is so good, in fact, in some ways I think driving for Gordon is a privilege. For a new driver, or an experienced driver who wants to learn, say, the Greater Mississippi Region, you could pay Gordon to work for them and make out. Really!

Gordon, as a company, will not compromise on safety and running legally. I personally witnessed the Safety Guy terminate a driver who had just acquired his third ticket for following too close. (See page 6, message #57, paragraphs 4-5.) Want to get fired from Gordon? Drive when your hours are up. Is that not enough? Exceed 65 mph. You won't get an attaboy for running illegal to deliver a hot load. You'll get fired.

The things that lesser companies, the bad companies out there, ask their drivers to do and risk their CDL to deliver loads just does not happen at Gordon. Your CDL is safe when you drive for Gordon. Could Gordon be a better company? Sure. I'm convinced that Gordon needs to up the ante with regard to 0-300 mile stinker loads and figure out how to pay better money to drivers who pull these loads.

Will the 'Say-It-Ain't-Sos' argue that you can't compare OTR (Over the Road) with home daily LTL (Less Than Truckload) work, for example. Sure. Will they wave their pay sheets and claim to make big dollars trucking for Gordon or another OTR company? Sure. Can they do the math? Maybe. Do they do the math? Probably not.

You know, they're cramming two years of driving into one standard year. Let's ask them to provide their trip and pay details. Does Gordon pick dispatch winners and losers? I think so. You darn betcha!

I come from Minnesota (or at least grew up there). So did Sven and Ollie, who went to California to seek their fortune. They knew something about farming so they bought a truck. They bought watermelons in Southern California for 35 cents each and sold them in the San Francisco area for 25 cents each. A loss of ten cents per watermelon sold.

After 3 months of this they sat down to consider how they were doing. Sven says to Ollie, "See, I told you. We shoulda bought a bigger truck!"

Gordon and the larger OTR industry is gifted with drivers who just think the problem is that they need a bigger, longer week, with more hours that they can drive. That, they figure, is how to make more money. Drive more. They don't see the hours they work and don't get paid for as a problem. Maybe they don't see a problem working 100 hours a week for less than what they should get paid for 40 hours a week. Funnee!!

On my next dispatch, I got thoroughly hosed.



Written July 18, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by the author.

 

Dispatch #25--Gas City, IN E to Marion, IN L to Lebanon, IN
75 miles.............................................................. 23.25
Short Haul Pay..................................................... 20.00


Drive 80 miles north of Indianapolis and I-69 brings you to State Road 22; you can go west into Gas City, population 5965. Why don't I remember the Mississinewa River? The Mississinewa runs across the I-69, through west Gas City and Marion, population 29,948.

The Mississinewa dumps into the Wabash, which dumps into the Ohio, which dumps into the Mississippi. A girlfriend and I canoed the Mississippi from St. Anthony Falls in St. Paul, Minnesota to New Orleans. 85 days. In the early 70's. Another story. So I have canoed on waters of the Mississinewa--that is, after it flowed into the Wabash and the Wabash flowed into the Ohio and the Ohio flowed into the Mississippi.

When trucking companies talk about running the Greater Mississippi Valley, that's what they mean. This huge watershed. The Ohio River, for example, joins the Mississippi at Cairo, IL and you can plant your canoe where they join with green water to your left and muddy Mississippi/Missouri water to the right side of your canoe. Yes, I did that. The Missouri joins the Mississippi just north of Pontoon Beach, by the way.

If you've done any local driving, LTL or other, you also know that if you stay within 100 air miles of your terminal you don't have to run logs. At 80 miles out, both Marion and Lebanon are within that arc. I mention this because Gordon took the opportunity here to make a buck at my expense. (CougFan, we need to talk!) Gordon sent me next door to Marion, where Julia Roberts married Lyle Lovett where, after running the load through the scale, I could take it to Lebanon, IN, transiting into Indy, 465 west to I-65 north, total 75 miles.

A load that should ONLY run hourly.

Again, I went 4 times to weigh before I got this 79,000 pounds legal, though still 34,100 on the drives; legal only due to the APU. (With an APU, you're forgiven 400 pounds on your drives.) This load took so long that I ran out of hours and had to spend the night at the Flying J when I should have gone home for home time. When I got to Lebanon I turned right instead of left. Wrong. My Garmin took me to an address on the wrong side of Lebanon. A helpful young cop got me back towards I-69, turning around via two-lane roads not fit for a big rig, but I made the turns somehow.

As I'm heading the wrong way into Lebanon, the Intimidator (who should be able to see where I am and that I'm lost) begins QCing me about my pay. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR PAY. CALL ME. She repeats and repeats this message, which I ignore, because I'm lost and that's my first concern. I'll deal with her when I get stopped and find my stop, I thought. My, but she is persistent when she wants to be. She wants to be.

She continued to badger me on the QC. YOUR PAY IS WRONG. CALL ME ABOUT YOUR PAY. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR PAY. When I FINALLY find my destination, there's a guard shack and you line up behind all the trucks backed up deep into the next door Flying J. Drivers are out of their trucks, standing, talking.

This will take hours, they tell me.



Written July 18, 2013 at the Subway, Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

 

Plenty of Time to Call


Indeed it does take hours.

I QCd the Intimidator that I wasn't interested in talking about my pay. That tomorrow's Saturday and I'm going home to Spencer and play with my dogs. 5-and-5. If you've got Michigan, again, forget it.

THERE IS NO FIVE AND FIVE. YOU'RE ON TRADITIONAL. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR PAY.

I QC her that 'you guys' sent me to Michigan last weekend and I'm going home this weekend. This stop should pay hourly. It's going to take hours to get into and out of this place. I could be here all weekend. (I was joking; little did I know I would be there until the next day... ) I'm on the 5-and-5.

CALL ME. WE NEED TO CHANGE YOUR PAY.

I QC her that if Gordon thinks Gordon can reduce my pay from 31 cents Gordon can go jump. I QC her that I turned down a $24/hour job to pull for Gordon. What's the Recruiter's number? I need to talk to the Recruiter.

She provides me the Recruiter's number and it surprises me that he answers. "Vic, you signed for traditional." "I-don't-care-what-I-signed-for.-I'm-on-the-five-and-five." "Vic, there is no five-and-five, where did you get that?" "I-got-that-from-you!-You-said-it-was-no-problem." This back-and-forth goes on until he suddenly says, "Vic, you're right! I'll straighten it out." "And-this-stop-I'm-at-is-hockey-puck!-This-is-local-shag-work." (Recently I noticed that I have an email from the Recruiter that specifically references the 5-and-5. That's why he folded, I think.)

When I finally did get up to the window at the guard shack I didn't have the load number the tall, fat guy demanded. "If you can't come up with that load number in 15 seconds, you have to get out of line, find it and go to the back of the line. I've got trucks waiting!"

I've been there hours already. My notepad has fallen and it's lost somewhere in the cab. I grab the QualComm. "Too late! Too late!" He hollers and slams the window. "Wait!" I holler, "I've got it," and I shout the number at the closed window. I shout it again. I shout that I'm not going anywhere. I've got the number.

The window opens. Okay, fine. "All right. But it's lunch. We close for lunch. See you after lunch." The guard shack window slams shut and the guard shack shuts down for lunch. You can't make this stuff up. I can't. This really happened just as I'm saying. When the window finally opens, there's a different guy there. "Where's-the-other-guy?" I ask. "We switch sides at lunch," comes the reply. Means I have to deal with that same jerk going out. "I'm-dropping-this-and-bobtailing-out," I say.

"Oh, no. You're not!" comes the reply. "We've got too many trailers here already. Park towards the back out of everyone's way and when we get a door for you, you'll be told." Sheesh! Wait hours to get in, wait for their lunch, now wait again. Does this never end, I wonder to myself.



Written July 18, 2013 at Wendy's, Spencer, IN. I had the $2 meatball sandwich at Subway. Here at Wendy's the senior drink is free if you buy anything so I get a 99 cent crispy chicken sandwich. Iced tea. All rights reserved.