ATS/school

Well today was uneventful, which is good since all I did was drive. Montana is beautiful, but the Eastern 1/2 may as well be Nodak. Which i'll traverse tomorrow. I highly doubt i'll be able to deliver tomorrow afternoon, I won't make the southern twin cities until around 5pm, if I could beat traffic. Yea, there is traffic in MN! I'll probably just stop at our terminal in St. Cloud(Waite Park technically). I really would like to get home for a night, I only live an hour NE of St. Cloud. Hopefully i'll get to run home after dropping off on Thurs. Who knows, maybe i'll get to sit at home for the weekend? If I didn't have to deliver in the SW metro I could run home, but then i'd have to run back across the city. After almost 20 yrs of new home const., trust me, there is no fast way to accomplish that! We'll see what happens. Talk to you all later!

 

Well here's the latest in a continuing line of mishaps. I get to go home for a night. Cool! See the wife and kids, go to Wallyworld to restock, sleep in own bed. Get up the next morning and head down to deliver. Goes great, traffic is even ok. On the way down, FM sends a message that I have a new load and its hot, so I won't be able to go back home. Hey , no problem, wasn't even expecting what I got, it was a bonus. I get unloaded and head to Maplewood, eastern suburb. I get to the 3M dist center just fine, by around 1000am. I admit to having a bit of trouble backing into the dock, meant for day cabs, not sleepers. The ATS guy loading tnext to me is also from school, we hada few orientation classes together. He's doing real good, and going to the same place so we'll run together. Then they start to load my trailer. Big reels of alluminum wire. Well the guy doesnt make it 4 feet on the trailer when the forklift wheels break the nailing strip, and the llift drops a bit. He's done, no way he's loading. Ok, so they find a more exp. operator. He has the same problem. Trailer is swaying and the lift is bouncing up and down as he drives on the trailer. Done. Pull the plug, whatever. The foreman says no way they're loading that trailer. The problem was actually that they usually load vans, and the lift wheels didnt line up with the main beems on the trailer. So after about two hours of "discussion", I am told to head back to our yard and switch trailers. I'll come back on Friday, load, and go home for the weekend to del. Tues. The delay came from trying to find a way to get a trailer to me before 200, when they left. So I helped the other driver tarp and then head to Cloud. I get there, drop the trailer,and hook up to a diff. one. Send the mess. to FM that I'll proced with the plan. NO, head back to Maplewood they are going to load you still tonight. Well, this message came while I was in dropping off my trip-pak. When I get back in the truck, its 5:10, no FM. Call nite dispatch, well, maybe she knows something we don't so go back. Keep in mind, I have already been told by the warehouse foreman they leave at 2:00. Yep, get there and the security guard say that there hasn't been anyone there after 2:30 for the last 15 years! So I drop the trailer back at the dock and head home. Yeah, I sent a mess. in to call me the next am and let me know how I was going to get paid for this. Now other than all the unnecessary running around i'm not too upset. Another unexpected nite at the house. Bet loaded the next am, and head back to St. Cloud to drop the truck and trailer at the yard. The explanation I get was that it was all being handled at higher levels and the info never filtered down to those of us actually affected. Seem that 3M was saying it was ATS's fault for sending a junk trailer and we would have to pay for the overtime, ATS was saying no it was the forklift. Whalla! Anyway, I end up thinking i'll be home until Monday, when i'll leave for IL. Saturday morning we decide to head up to the Duluth area and have a picnic. Needs to be a picnic because we need to take both vehicles, and the cost of gas is too much to also take 6 people out, especially since my boys are starting to eat like horses! Well, my wife goes in to tell her mom that we will be leaving, and finds that she died in the night. So the silver lining is that because of another load mess, I was home for this. I am planning on delivering still, can't do muh until the funeral. That will probably be Friday. This sort of thing really has me thinking hard about something local. That and seeing how much isnt getting done around the house! I'll let you know what happens, should be a short week. Maybe even just turn around and come home.