Ashley Furniture? Good company?

i had one of those that makes you glad you have patience and a sense of humor. without it some days you just can't do this job.

called in at 9. call back in an hour. finally get a load at 10. drop in Richmond. no surprise there. that's been my lot in life lately on monday. I've been to this swift yard so many times now I should have my own parking spot here.

stick my head in and talk to dustin for a few and discuss the difficulty getting planned. he looks back over my trips and last 8 weeks 7 I don't get planned till Monday. call up arcadia and talk to a few people on speaker about it. sounded like a whole bunch of cya going on and not much in the way of real explanation but we'll see how it goes and he's keeping an eye on it. he reiterated that there's no reason for all of us not to be planned on Friday with the occasional exception. before we got off the phone they have a trip that needs to go to charlotte do I mind running it before I go to Richmond. pepsi load has to be there by 1400. no problem. get the information and head out to the truck. can't find it anywhere. run the whole yard. trailer isn't there. they're repaving everything at advance so it's a real pain getting around and takes about 45 minutes to do a yard check because you can't just go from one end to the other like you usually can. go back to the office. cerina and dustin do some checking. trailer doesn't show there but arcadia insists it is. dustin does some more checking, tries calling the driver who is from mississippi he isn't answering. do some more checking. by the time we're at 1.5hrs into it it's clear it isn't getting there anyway then dustin finds out the load is still in Mississippi. well it sure isn't making charlotte by 2pm lol not sure what happened there but they give me another one. pickup in Matthews bring back to advance then go to Richmond. need a 53. only one up on the hill. ####. it's got a couch in it. don't know why guys are dropping these trailers with returns in them up in the empty lot but it's happening a lot. finally get it worked out to take a 48. there's only 2 but I got one. roll on to Matthews.

recognize the place soon as I turn down the road. been there before with epes a lot. took forever to get loaded and the people were always really hard to deal with. roll in there get put right in a door and loaded in 15 minutes and sure got treated a lot nicer than anytime I'd been there before. pretty sure that wasn't a coincidence either lol

head back out and of course it's 1630 now trying to get out of charlotte so slow going all the way to Salisbury and then roll pretty good through the woods to advance.

get the Richmond trip and go and finally get here at 2300. burn up 11hrs for 400 miles. probably deadhead back in the morning and get something else out of advance. usually what happens out of here. at least I get my hours back right about the time everyone is getting there so won't be much waiting in the morning.

 

Yeah but at least it turns lol, however slowly it may be. the bigger ship I was on before is headed straight for the rocks and everyone is asleep at the wheel and you can't wake them up.

Call back in 30 minutes lol

 

lol-----------------lol

 

so I had somewhat of a slack week......2560 and 6 drops on 4 1/2 days out. but, when you don't leave until noon Monday and get in Friday.........

on the other hand, 2560 and 6 on 4 1/2 days is still good running so nothing really to complain about there....and they've been running me pretty hard so getting in early on a short week isn't so bad every now and then.

took a little different approach with planning today lol i was back in advance yesterday and knew that probably wasn't the best place to be on thursday. got stuck on a short one to Richmond today. tiny place. tight. had to drop the trailer in the entrance, pull out the empty and back it down the lane, then grab the load and turn around in the entrance and back down into the dock area. tight 90 hook into the hole then back out and grab the empty. down to Randleman and pick up a Baraboo load to drop on the yard. made the suggestion when i called in hooked and rolling from Randleman that maybe i could just stay under that load. had plenty of time to reset and make the delivery Tuesday. i could tell by the hesitation and tone in her voice she was a little taken aback and didn't hear that very often lol was curtly told she'd check with the planner but the planner was the one who decided what i would do not me......thought to myself okay so i won't make any more suggestions that make complete sense. that's happened a couple of times that i pickup and then drop a load on Friday i could have completed on monday and from an operational standpoint it makes more sense to leave someone on a load they pick up Friday and could do to start the week than to drop it and have to find someone else to put on it but i see they never do that here. maybe next time i'll suggest something unreasonable lol.

so i get back to advance and short on miles they plan me on a store unload for Asheville for tomorrow. then cancel it. then calls and says she's going to plan me on something sunday and send me out on recap. i say okay whatever you need but to myself hating that idea that would have really sucked being short on time and not gaining anything until Tuesday. i wouldn't have any cushion to carry over to the next day going into the actual recap. she calls back and cancels that plan and says go to hickory monday and pickup for leesport then they'll run me out of leesport all week. sounds like I'm going to get the Holland loop.....or may end up doing something completely different who knows. dustin warned me about the Holland loop when i interviewed lol go to leepsort on Monday then leesport Holland leesport Holland leesport Holland all week then get a load back to advance Friday. he said it would happen occasionally but once you do it then they don't put you on it for awhile. decent miles still i think it's 250 each way and getting there out of hours Monday i should start fresh Tuesday and be able to turn one a day. that's the plan but we know how that goes sometimes. guess that's my 'punishment' for actually taking the initiative and suggesting a plan and for yanking their chain on Monday about the planning. it's fine i get paid to drive the truck and not really picky about where i go. it's not jersey and not 95 into Baltimore, dc or the far northeast so i can deal with it for a week. it got me planned on Friday lol guess we'll see what happens at the end of next week. told her i could still run the Asheville trip and get back in time to reset before Monday and she wouldn't have to worry about covering it but said she wasn't sure she could get me back so that's why she cancelled it. i don't understand the reasoning sometimes and that's why i ask them things. they won't hesitate to run me 250 empty back to advance from Richmond or summerville but can't run me 126 back from Asheville ? like i told her today the more i understand the big picture the better i can do my job and make their life easier as well and that's why i ask these things. sometimes that big picture is pretty blurry.....but i am getting more comfortable with the process and settling in.


finally got my driver appreciation shirt today.....and some orange seat belt straps.

and finally a big 'note to self' moment. came into the fuel island before i got to Atlanta yesterday and blew a headlight as i stopped. note to self......let the #### thing cool before you try to pull it lol can we say hot hot hot? at least i didn't drop it in that little hole in the headlight casing lol.....

all in all i can't really complain about anything so far. even with the late starts on Monday I'm still running more miles and making better checks than where i was previously. best move i could have made coming here.

 

running to Holland isn't bad as long as you time it right. early morning running or late night. 279 miles paid. they are also covering Jamestown and Syracuse ny. ive been running back and forth to Syracuse for 2 weeks now. getting 20-25 dh a week. I ran 2700 miles this week.

 

Wow, you are cleaning up on the Drop and hooks----Dam----

 

yeah i'll take some of that lol

rotax what routing are you running to Holland and back? was looking at it this morning looks like one of those trips like leesport to Montoursville or Elysburg where there isn't really a good way to get there. timing is definitely going to be everything doing that run.

 

there isn't an easy way. like you said its all in the timing. 78 to 287 and depending on traffic either 87n to 84e adds 15 miles. or cross the tappan zee to 684 to 84. oneshot they have us doing backhaul out of ny to pa. and there is a bunch of suppliers within 50 miles of the plant. usually get 4 dh a day. they really do start to add up.

 

Yeah I kinda figured as much knowing the area as much as I ran up there before. I guess depending on the time of day I'll eat the extra 15 rather than sit in traffic from the split to 684 and back. Parking is going to be another issue if I get stuck in between guess I'll be stopping short. Found any good out of the way parking spots between Leesport and holland I might not know about?

 

Hopefully I am too far South in the South, to ever see that neck of the woods====LOL

Did have one of the 3 ptp drivers here (Brandon Fl.) about 3 mths ago, get stuck up there for a few days out of the PA area.

But you can never tell, especially when the Advance factory starts going at full steam-ahead.


flyingmusician:
Talked to another of your drivers from Advance in Ecru and he was concerned on the mileage being reduce when Advance starts running good. He said that they do get a lot of miles running back and forth to Arcadia.

rotax74: I have not been at the Pa location yet, I thought it was a warehouse setup-but its actually a factory right?