Good Night From II

Bobtail at the T/A in Council Bluffs IA.

Got into Lee's Summit MO, east of KC, to pick up the second half of my load to Omaha and the shipper was buried in a huge cave inside a small mountain. With the bright sun I was half blind when I eased in. Lots of tight left and right turns with parked cars. Found the shipper but had to navigate the maze of roads to get to where I could sight-side the back into the dock. No way I was gonna fool with a blind side in those tight quarters. Was certainly one of the more challenging pick ups I've ever made especially after all that work to pick up 2,000 lbs of stuffed animals.

Made my drop on time in Omaha but receiver had no empties. Got sent a ppln to go up to Sioux City for an mty. Easy 100 miles in the morning.

Looked around mac30 during the ride up for a load to head south for home time Monday in Houston. Only two loads, one to northern WY and the other to the central MN border with Canada. Both were very heavy. I let them die as I would never make it back to TX until midweek. As soon as they expired a planner tried to force the WY load on me. Denied via mac9. Then sent another 45K lb load to northern WI..denied with mac9 again with a hometime note. Got sent the WY load again and I declined again! Jeez!! Got a note saying accept and we'll see if we can find one heading back. Haahaa!! Like I'm falling for that line of bull. I replied back it up and I'll accept. Load removed. Yeah, ok.

 

Houstank I've finally figured out that planners don't give a #### about home time etc. they just want to get you on a load and out of their area. I had one send a garbage load with the comment "stack will follow". Sorry, I'm not going 1600 miles in the opposite direction. Go ahead and "stack" now. Lol. (Of course I was polite on my Mac 9, but I still was 4 days late getting home.)

 

One of the perks of being an O/O, I have to pay for my Qualcom so I'm rarely polite!

I've asked planners if they need a geography lesson and have reminded them that I do not drive a day cab.

 

I replied to a crap load pplan with , "I pay for this Qualcomm . I'd appreciate it if you would stop dumping your trash in it . " My PTA suddenly got changed to 4 days out at 2357. Go figure !

 

Petro in Laramie, WY. I haz teh munchies! 😁

 

Just east of Kansas City at the TA.
I was glad to be going through here as I still needed my 2015 IFTA stickers. It was only a small detour to Edwardsville.

I deliver in KY tomorrow night, then back to the P&G in MO, then back to KY for a 1900 delivery the next day.
Feels like a Ping-Pong ball... But at least I'm slowly getting off the night shift.

I really lucked out when I got to the TA.
There was one open spot just as I rolled in at around 2300. It was a spot right next to where the reserved parking began.
It was very nice to find a spot up front when I needed both a shower and laundry done.

 

Well, I can't entirely disagree with that one. Just got sent another 45k lb ppln, this time from central SD to SoCal. Declined as well, with another home time note. Last time I looked SoCal on Feb 1st is nowhere near east TX on Feb 2nd.

I guess the planners for this area never received the Company memo, from a few months ago, on home time policy changes and what steps at this point they should be striving to take. It was part of the new pay package and "rolled out" after the driver satisfaction surveys with the exclaimer "We here in Phoenix have heard what you said and so on and so on..." I'm not sure but I think the planners for this area would be Inver Grove or Menasha???

Usually they HAVE been pretty good at heading me in that general direction, from wherever, after the first mac9 decline. This time however they seem to be trying to send me in every direction BUT there. I think I'll have to get my DMs influence involved this morning.

 

Well...just received a stacked package. After picking up my mty this morning up in Dakota City NE come on back down to south of Omaha for a live load to tcall in Edwardsville...then pick up a preloaded trailer in Spring Hill KS for a live unload on the 1st in Houston TX. Perfect!!!

Kudos to THIS planner for making the effort to get me home on the day requested. I must admit a "Thank You" is in order.

 

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God I'm free at last!

My trainee got off the truck here in Gary.

Yesterday he hit 200 hours. Yesterday we got a load offer to take a juicy run from Minnesota to Calexico, but he refused to stay on the truck because he considered trainee pay to be "an insult". Okay, fair enough. I delivered our load last night in Illinois and sat around until my DM got in back in Jurupa Valley to explain the situation that my trainee refused to drive anymore on trainee pay, so get us a load to Gary so he can get off the truck.

Got that load and arrived in Gary around noon and t-called the load. THEN, true to form, it took my trainee FOUR HOURS to get himself prettied up, logged off the truck, and get all his stuff out and into the DM offices and arrange to get his testing done tomorrow morning.

THEN, I get hooked to an empty and get ready to sleep when I get a preplan, picking up a live load in Milwaulkie from MOPAR running JIT to Ontario. 2000 miles in two days. Then I get a message to come see the planner in the Gary office, so I go in and they ask whether there's any way we could get my trainee back on the truck to move the load and have him test out in Jurupa Valley. Well, I said he refused to work anymore at trainee pay, so they backed off of that.

THEN my trainee saw me and asked what's up. I explained they asked me to have him get BACK on the truck to pick up a hot team load to Ontario. He brightened up and said, "Jurupa Valley!!?? SURE! I'll get back on! Go see if they can still do it!"

Then he went outside yacking on his phone. I waited in line to get back into the DM/Planning area and got to thinking, "Do I REALLY want to run another 2000 mile JIT load with this guy?"

I turned and walked out and told him they already assigned it.

I'm going to run solo back for home time before I take on another trainee. Need to clear the head and be present for the next one. Hopefully someone that is motivated to WORK!!!

 

Still at home here. In another 15 hours start this long 23 hour flight and that includes layovers. Actual flying time is almost 20 hours. At least free booze on the last 2 legs of the flight. Flying on Japan Air Lines and at least some eye candy to look at and a it will be exit row seat. Return on the 22nd and already transferred back to my terminal. Everything is coming together this week, like heard from my bank for a refi on my car and approved, dropped from 11% to 2.7% for the remainder of the note and 2 nice new credit cards, AMEX and a Capitol one rewards card with some sweet limits.