Good night from...

Got a message saying another truck was coming to repower this but no ETA. I'm out of Syracuse right now.

 

got to sams club in el paso this morning and what was suppose to be a live unload,ended up being a drop and hook. kinda made up for that 4 hr fiasco at the muanchan soup plant in irvine ca. p/u a load in el paso tx and going to preweitt nm for 12/05 0630 appt. got to lovees in milan nm with still 21 miles to final. when my 10 is up,it will be 0605. already called fontana and sewnt a mac 22 to give me an xtra hour with the possible snow and ice. was snowing a little on the way here. be safe all, gonna be hectic weekend with this cold freezzing weather

 

Never accept a pplan that has no delivery date and time.
Ever.

Never accept a pplan that has a time that is too tight for your own comfort.
Use Mac9 to turn down the load, but input the times that you can safely do it in - after planning the trip as best that you can, including extra time for any needed breaks, shopping, rush hour traffic possibilities, slow downs for construction, doing laundry... etc..

And never accept a pplan when you are close to your home time date, that has a 'special' message that they will tell you what to do with the load soon.
You might be thinking that they are planning a t-call or something.
The last time I took a load like that it set my home time back a full 2 weeks because of where I was sent. (SoCal, when my home time was in MN. And it took forever to get 'the loads' back there.)

 

Snow and ice is always a good reason to be a bit late, if you are able to use that reason.
It seldom results in a SF.

It sounds like you may have lucked out with the weather, what with being just a wee bit short on hours.

 

Noted. I've been hesitant to turn anything down being new. And I did decline one the week of Thanksgiving because it was JIT, I had the hours to pick it up but not run it that day, and it was 630 miles which would have been almost impossible to do given the route. As soon as I sent the MAC 9 with times I could make and explanation, the planner told me to call him, and tried to convince me to do it. Just go pick it up and you can run it tomorrow.

 

dont be scared to turn something down, at least adjust the hours for what you think is manageable and see if they accept it.


I took my first load from the Target Dc up to Tracy, was a ton of traffic coming through the back of the store, I had to drop my trailer on the side of the road then get under the one in the dock and get it moved and out of the way and then hook back up to the other trailer and place that one in the dock, the guy who is "training" me had to stand in front of cars and yell at them since they were being complete bassholes trying to fly around me etc in a tight dock I was trying to work. It ended up being a "sweep" trailer so instead of hauling back an mt it was filled with returned stuff going back to the dc which then splits my dispatch miles and pays me more. I get paid based on dispatch so 213 miles each way would of been 426 at 37cpm but since I got the return load it turned into 426 at 44cpm which gave an extra $30 for a trailer I was going to be hauling back either way. He said we pretty much always have a loaded trailer coming back rather its from the store or we stop at a customer for a drop and hook.

I love im getting paid more and I can count on always doing drop and hooks, I have to do a little more work when it comes to docking etc but this is much better than staying out OTR, once my lease is up on my apartment I will probably get a house back in Bakersfield then be home nightly and at that point will have a daycab which will make it easier for the few tighter docks. This gig as long as it keeps working out and they like me will keep me around longer.

 

Forgot to mention when I dropped my trailer at the DC and went back to unhook my lines the blue service line was cut in half, no idea how that happened and I had no brake issues tonight so shut down a few miles down the road then called onroad which just finally got me all fixed, now need to call and see what im doing tomorrow but will probably be starting at 6am this time, hopefully I can sleep better tonight.

 

Yesterday while coming back into Oregon through the weigh station, they had a message that I84 was shut down at exit 216 which is the exit I was aiming for. By the time I got there they opened up Cabbage to trucks wearing jewelry. I got backed into a spot right when my elogs showed 00:00. From there it was 500 miles to the final, needed to leave at midnight, was not sure about conditions would be at that time. Long story short, made it to final with 20 minutes left and a truck stop 3/4 mile away.

2 nights in a row sleeping in 12 degree weather with no bunk heater. Not too bad inside the truck, gets down to 39 degrees, about the same as camping up in the high Sierras in the summer time. Little truck shop here has the glow pin I need for my Espar on order, should arrive tomorrow.

Crackpipe planners at it again, offered me a load 40 mt 740 loaded pick up at midnight and deliver noon same day for live unload.

 

Your making .37 cmp? ####. That's way more then me . I made like .36 doing Walmart dedicated a few weeks but then back to standard pay after that. I have done several target loads. I hate that they don't pay for multiple stop since you return the trlr. Not to mention drop and hook twice at store. I argued with them about it in Colorado but they just go in circles and won't give me a solid answer as to why I don't get ah extra $15 for a multistop. I got multistop pay when doing Walmart. And Walmart was way easier. Just drop a trlr grab mt return to dc. Boom, extra pay for extra atop. Anyways smart rant there sorry. Do you have that problem with Target runs?

 

Whenever I receive a pplan that is preceded or comes with a "Planner's Special" message, it almost always means they effed up and need you to bail them out AND you are going to get hosed. Often these "Specials" are poorly planned and I haven't had the HOS available to complete the runs OR it will mean I'm headed to a freight dead zone or will need to sit on the load.

Beware "Planners Specials".... kind of like I never pay attention to "Important" messages (which have NO importance to the immediate task at hand)...