Central Refrigerated Truck Stop II

I resemble that remark.

 

Ready for some more news that hasn't been passed along to us? Remember when I said I had been seeing trailers without the first 5 and a c substituted? Well shockingly there are trailers that have changed in the system and not been changed decal wise. How will you know? When you do your Mac 2. If you get a message back saying invalid trailer number please send vin and plate number. Try resending it with the c. For example instead of 552643. You would put c52643.

Glad we were told this. Lol

 

Our card doesn't work for scales either. If you want to pull money from the card for it, you have to write a Comcheck. I don't have enough patience for that, so I'll request the money for the card, pay with my bank card, then deposit the money from Comdata to my bank. Also, oddly, when I requested $10 to scale they sent $15. I guess in case I had to reweigh?

 

Actually the did tell us this. It was a confusing message, but they did send it. Now that I think of it you never know who's sending anything, so it might not have gone to everyone.

 

so i have to write myself a comcheck? or can i transfer the money from my comdata into my bank. God what a pain. ifi dont get paid i wont work. done deal

 

Given that I'm snowed in here, with 2 inches of ice and compacted snow on the roads, I needed this. That's hilarious! Did you get a chance to get lunch?

 

As far as I can tell... #1 = when you get to the starting point (shipper)... #2 = when you leave the shipper... #16 = temp check on refer ... #3 = arrival if you have more than just the two stops (our old 02,03,04 etc) ... #4 = leaving #3 with a #16 each time ... #5 = arriving at the last stop ... #6 = done at the last stop ... #32 = pre/post trip to be done daily (each driver)...

 

I was told by a swift guy in Phoenix that when you get to each stop after picking up, that you're supposed to send a macro 15. That's the "I bumped the dock!" message. It used to be a mac 36, and no one ever used it.

 

So, the switchover process hasn't been all that smooth for me either. I did one load while on the new system, before my Qualcomm switched over, and so I couldn't get macros. I didn't even get the load info until after I'd delivered the load and dropped the trailer. Then I did my second load with the new system, and the macro 2 kept getting stuck. It had snowed, so I sent a message "I can't get the macro 2 to go, I need to get driving or I'll be late" and took off to my delivery. Had to skip my fuel stop because a truck jackknifed right in front of the offramp.

Get to my 99 (90 now?) and I have this message asking me to call some number, speak to a guy. So I check in at my delivery, and as I'm pulling in, I call the number. Turns out he's a Swift guy, and several people in Phoenix are helping the Central switchover by also watching the Qualcomm messages and helping out. So I find out from him the computer work for my load was done wrong. Surprise, Surprise. So he had to take almost 8 minutes to sort it out, and fix it, and then I could send my arrived at the end macro.

The next big adventure was trying to fuel a reefer. I ended up in 3 different places to get fuel, and involved probably 6 people to get there. Turns out we can't fuel at the truck stop nearest to my yard, Swift doesn't get a big enough discount. I was sent to a terminal, can't fuel there, they have no alpha numeric keypad. finally went inside and got one of the office guys to open up a fuel stop for me. However, he couldn't open up truck fuel, it was reefer only. I still haven't tried getting truck fuel. I'm pretty much afraid to.

And it's snowing. And I'm stuck at home, and despite the party line of "if it's too dangerous to drive, park and wait it out" I was told I needed to go to work. I tried getting out of my driveway, almost didn't happen (half mile driveway), and my road is 2 inches of snow and ice. I'm hoping it melts tomorrow.

 

I took a couple of weeks off while the changeover was going on and thought that the worst would be over when I returned. WRONG!!
I have been out for 3 days now and managed to be able to approve my logs once without an error message "Try again later". . . . I put on my IFTA stickers and trying to get to Conley to pick up a student since last Friday. I will probably arrive on Tuesday. They seemed to think that Salt Lake City and Denver were close to Georgia. Instead I got a load from Ohio to VA, then deadhead back to Ohio and down to FL and get student along the way. I will get him upgraded and then turn in my truck.

I am done with this craziness and am tying down a local job. Home on the weekends - minimum.