CRETE - A Year in Review

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WEEK TWENTY NINE​

Monday, July 14th through Sunday, July 20th​

This week finds me at home. I had put in for home time for some time around the 9th, which was a Thursday so that I could be home for my Nieces baptism on the following Sunday. I had hoped that would be enough cushion to get me to town by then. It actually worked out that way; I made it by Saturday with the help of two perfect loads. What threw me was that I never get two perfect loads and when I found myself sitting in Baltimore last Tuesday I called my Sister to let her I know I wouldn’t make it back in time so that she would have enough time to reschedule the event for the following Sunday.

Then, surprise, I find myself in Phoenix on a Saturday and I am now in a position in which I must be here the following weekend (the wife and I were the God Parent’s), it was just one of those things I have to be around for. That means that I will have to be home for 8+days. I was sure I could call my Fleet Manager and arrange for the additional time, but I really hate to take that much time off. And if I do, I would rather spend in on a Caribbean beach than in Phx in the middle of summer. It has been hitting 110° and more on a regular basis, not fun.

With plenty of time to think while I was making my way to Phx from Columbus I had hatched a little plan to avoid a prolonged, unscheduled vacation. What I had in mind was to park the truck in the yard Saturday afternoon, and then instead of contacting dispatch to Tcall this load I would simply stay attached to the trailer so that the load would remain dispatched under my truck. I then spent the remainder of Saturday along with Sunday and Monday at home. My plan was to call dispatch first thing Monday morning and let them know that I was in Phx with my load that was scheduled to deliver in the LA area Tuesday afternoon. If they were not opposed to it, I would go ahead and deliver the load and then PU another load somewhere in the LA area that went through Phx so I could then Tcall it at that time and begin my official time off. Since I was technically under dispatch for the first part of the week, it would not count against my home time. This would also allow me to make a little extra money during the week while the wife was working.

By doing this I kept my official home time within reasonable limits a was able to remain in town long enough to make it to the baptism and everyone would be happy.

The only problem I had with this plan was when I tried to call dispatch. Mondays are notoriously bad days to talk to anyone in person. They tend to be very busy and are pron to ignoring the phone. You are expected to use the Qualcomm to resolve problems of this nature, unfortunately it’s in my truck some 30 miles away.

My first attempt early Monday morning was on my cell phone and after 15mins of being on hold I realized I had better use a land line to avoid using up too many of my minutes. My second call, just like the first went on hold automatically (bad sign). I had a hand held wireless phone, so I hit speaker and set in on the coffee table and watched a Deadliest Catch marathon while I waited for someone to answer. That attempt failed when the battery on the phone went dead an hour later. Not to worry, I’ll try in a couple of hours. That effort went a little better, sort of. I called the driver services operator and managed to talk to California dispatch, I wanted to make sure I would be able to get a load back through Phx after delivering my original load. That answer to that was a “sure, plenty of freight going through, but you might have to wait until the following morning to get a load out”. I had no problem with that and asked him to set me up. At that time I was told I would have to talk to Ohio dispatch because they would have to pull the planed Tcall off of my current load, “Let me put you on hold and forward you to them”.

That whole plan didn’t go so well. Once again my call went directly to hold music and that’s all I heard until the phone once again died. Grrr!

Later that afternoon I was able to talk to a dispatcher once they had a chance to catch up and were answering the phone again and the Tcall was pulled off the load and I was set to deliver the load tomorrow. All I had to do was show up at the yard in the morning and make a quick run out to LA, Fontana actually, and I did just that. I had a 2pm appointment and made it there a bit early and was very please to find out it would be a drop and hook. I had expected a live unload which would have made it impossible to make it back to Phx by tonight because of the 14hr thing, but with this new develop I could see a glimmer of hope. If I get the perfect backhaul I’ll be able to make it back to the yard. I’m in Fontana and have just enough drive time to make it back if I pickup a load in the immediate area (strong possibility of that, we have a number of customers in the area). If, however, I have to head into LA I will be spending the night somewhere in the Arizona desert.

I send in my MT and receive a single load offer going to SALT LAKE CITY! OK, that definitely doesn’t go through Phx so I send off a message to dispatch. “I need a load going to or through Phx so I can Tcall it there for my home time, I must be home this weekend, load offer is going the wrong way. I can wait until morning for a load if necessary. Please advise thx.” A few minutes later I got a message, “working on it”, and I waited. Shortly there after I was sent a load that picked up in Redlands (drop/hook and ready to go) going to Houston along with a message, “how about this one”.

Well I’ll be, doesn’t get any better than that. Redlands is on the way back to Phx and I will be able to make it back to the yard within my 14hrs as long as I’m not held up at the shipper. Once there I was simply told to drop my trailer in the middle of the yard and wait for the yard jockey to bring my loaded trailer from the off site yard and 15 minutes later I had my trailer and was in prime position to make it back to Phx.

I was able to pull into the yard with 15 minutes left on my clock. I let dispatch know they could Tcall this load and I would be back Monday morning.


When all was said and done, I had spent 9 consecutive nights, 7 complete days and 2 partial days at home, or at least not working. The wife and I spent some time at the Omni Resort down in Tucson. Priceline did it for us again, $180 room for $75 per night.




WEEK TWENTY NINE RESULTS
Monday, July 14th through Sunday, July 20th
Miles include deadhead


Phoenix, AZ to Fontana, CA(final leg)…………………………300mi
Redlands, CA to Phoenix, AZ………………………………….....324mi

Total Paid Miles……………………………………………….624 Miles (One day driving, home time week)

Actual Miles………………………655 Miles

624 Miles x .42 = $262.08