Friday Night Fiasco

Just fine I was actually doing the helping.

 

Okay here it, is The Friday Night Fiasco as told in semi real time.

Friday 12-9-2016
03:52am-I log on duty accept my load and head out on my route.
13:52-I log depart from my last stop, walked over to the Cleveland Heights Wendy's for a spicy chicken sandwich and some chicken nuggets and head back in going home for the weekend. On my way back they were calling for weather so I stopped at the truck stop and fueled my truck up and then did some other odds and ends back at the yard grabbed my extension cord and a few other things, like filled up my windshield washer fluid and plugged the truck in so now it's nice and warm.
By the way no other trucks were plugged in.

When I was getting in my car to go home, one of our trucks from out east got back and he was telling me that the other truck out east was stuck at a bowling ally out there.

The driver of that truck was having trouble raising someone, couldn't reach management or something, I don't know if that's 100% true, but what ever, any how I called him on the phone see if he needed help, he said he had gotten him self out of his second last stop and was on his way to his last stop, but feared that he would not be able to make it into and out of there parking lot.

I told, him( @LoneCowboy ) that what he should do is put on the four ways get out of the truck and walk around the lot and see if he can get in the lot or not I.E. snow coming down to fast, they didn't plow the lot and he could get stuck...

Anyhow, I said if you cannot get on the lot do not do not pull in walk further to save time do not get your self stuck.

Anyhow he didn't like that advice and went and pulled right onto the lot and got the truck stuck on a patch of ice and then half jack knifed the truck trying to get out.

Anyhow it's snowing like the Coquhala highway and this was in Euclid, Ohio and Lake County anyhow, I figure what ever can't do anything about it and remember I am not a boss, so I left to go home.

Friday:
17:30-I get home I'm tired from all week and all this house buying business and I haven't eaten much. My mother was making diner we had chicken parmigiano for diner last night, and anyhow diner was fine and I went down to go on the computer and this was at 18:44 my phone chimes it's one of the assistant bosses, the main boss was out of town the other boss lives way far away in Medina, asking me if I could do some night work.

I called him up and he told me exactly what happened, the driver who we told not to pull onto the lot pulled right onto the lot and got him self stuck, because it was so after hours he had a hard time raising managers they were all off duty he had been sitting at the customers stop for a while and finally got a hold of the manager.

The manager needed help so I loaded up my truck with my supplies, snow blower and some shovels extension cord and some gas and headed out there.

The snow once I hit down town was Ice Station Zebra and just tons of traffic I-90 271 Interchange was a parking lot. Of course that was also where our truck was.

However I know a work around wasn't fast work around, but a work around, I took route 2 to Lloyd Road and that up to Euclid Ave...traffic was all backed up and slow and a 6 minute drive in real time was taking 1/2 hour if not more.

Guy in front of me was driving an old Infinity with an exhaust leak and blad tires and I was waiting for him to rear end someone...anyhow this will be continued.

 

So the man driving the old Infity with the exhaust leak was hitting his gas pedal every time traffic moved 6" and then slamming on his breaks, it was pretty stupid. So traffic is creeping along at a snails pace and I was getting quite annoyed with his behavior. Anyhow my telephone rings and a few times it was our ATM who was making an attempt to get out there and then another time it was our transportation boss at our yard. He is out of town for the weekend and he was asking me of the status of the situation and I said "Well I'll see what I can do when I get out there, but I told him not to pull into that lot." I then went on my spiel about why pulling onto lots with snow pack and hard to get out of conditions is bad.

My boss said "That conversation you had with him, sounds familiar to me, it sounds like the exact same conversation I had with him."

 

So I get to the stop where our truck is parked after sitting in traffic for what seemed like a fortnight and, it's snowing and there's an Old Dominion truck stuck out on the corner he can't get out and needs a tow and there's all kinds of cayohs, so I pull into the gas station and park where I thought would be an okay spot and it was kind of.

Anyhow I see a car struggling to get out of a parking space and sure enough it was the ding bat driving the Infinity that I talked about in Installment #1. So I said no biggie and pushed him out. Then I helped another guy and was unable to help push him out.

Our primary mission was to recover the truck well around this time conditions were deteriorating rapidly and the truck was stuck the stop we had to deliver was actually not really one of our better customers um this whole fiasco eventually led to a friendly disagreement between my boss and the salesman who has this account, of course our truck should have never pulled on the lot...but there was still a friendly disagreement will just put it that way. Pictures were sent to each other and other ugly unpleasantries...

The driver who got into this mess didn't want to take the extra steps and deliver from the street that would be to much effort and take to much time so figured pull on the lot and he got stuck and cost him self the entire night. Plus then two people had to come out and rescue him, of course I think the way it went down especially after fair warning was given the company was more interested in making sure there tractor and trailer was going to be okay. Well they wanted to get the driver too, but there was defiantly interest in recovering that equipment.

Anyhow it looked like the Coquahal highway out there and what I did was brought the snow blower and some shovels and our assistant boss who was going to meet me out there he did the same thing. Well one of us made it and one of us didn't. Our assistant boss said to me "I told my pregnant wife, don't wait up for me it'll be 3am by the time I get home."

So he was on the way and I was already on seen. Our driver had taken refuge inside the bar, but the bar due to slow business was closing early and leaving so then our driver took refuge inside the semi truck while I drove the snow blower up and down just to clear a walking path for my self.

The snow was coming down so hard and traffic on the main road and I-271 so backed up I thought, this isn't going to work.

Our assistant boss called me up said he was almost there, but stuck in the snow and had to dig him self out and traffic was still slow.

By the way this stop is on a snowy platou and you have to go up a hill, well the hill was covered in snowy ice snow pack and I thought "Gee even if we get the truck free, there's a great chance he might not make it up the hill and then traffic on the main road was so backed up and so slow it was not going to be pretty."

Well I climbed in the truck put it into gear and it was just shimmying the truck was stuck on a sheet of ice no traction at all spinning wheels for nothing.

Now our primary mission of recovering our equipment is going in the toilet fast, the assistant boss calls me up again says he' stuck in traffic and doesn't even know how he's going to make it and he asks me "Do you even think we have a legitimate shot of freeing the truck?" I said "I don't believe so no."

He said "That's what I figured."
Then the boss calls me on the phone and I asked me what's cooking and I said "It's like Jamie Davis Towing up here."
He goes "Oh for the love of God...well, just extract the driver and get him out of there, I already called my boss and they said leave the truck and will go out there on Monday and grab it."

I said "You got it."

So I grabbed the driver and we locked up the truck I took pictures of the tractor number and trailer number and sent those to my boss so they knew what equipment was stranded where. The tractor was one of our older one's the trailer though it wasn't brand new, but it wasn't that old either. Anyhow the assistant boss said he had turned around and was heading home couldn't make it.

The driver of the truck and I hoped into my 1995 Ford pick up truck and tires spinning and some pushing and shoving were able to get our selves out of the gas station and onto the main road where we just headed west, it was a slow crawl home, but eventually we made it and we hit the yard at about 12:25am.

Our mission was only half successful it started as one thing which was get the driver and equipment free and then just turned into me extracting the driver.

The assistant boss made it out to the abandoned equipment this morning and said the snow plow that plows this places lot had already came by and plowed in our truck.

Because of my house purchase I had a home inspection and other stuff so I didn't get to see all that, I wanted to head out there tonight, but I am to tired. Sounds to me like our truck is encased in it's own igloo lol!

6:45pm-12:25am or closer to 1:00am really so 8 hours to go and rescue the driver and leave the truck.

The assistant boss called our real boss Friday night and said "I can't even get to the truck there's no way we can free it." So anyhow it was a good first run of the year for the snow blower which I used to clear a walking path for my self and that was about it.

Got back home unloaded my gear then took my truck through the car wash it's still filthy, but would have been dirtier if I had not run it through the car wash at 1am early this morning.