Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Bh Longwood,Fl for 0130 in the morning ahh.

 

Delivered my grass seed load Monday then got a HP load to Staples in Terre Haute for yesterday. Drove the required 200 miles then did a reset since I ran my hours out going from WA to VA. Dropped that then picked up a load from stitch fix in Plainfield IN this morning and dropped in WM and got a Volvo load going to Reno for Monday. Finally glad to get a Reno run instead of the Maryland one I always seem to get when I come here....and the trailer has a light out in top rear and shop closes at 1630, guess Ill stop at a Love's somewhere on the way.

 

Had a delivery to Middletown, VA. Due anytime between 7:00am and 1:00pm. I was rolling in with an 11:00am ETA, so I was feeling good.

Phone rings. It's our Safety Department!

"Where are you heading?"
"Middletown, VA"
"Why do you have a load? You've got a safety hold."
"They have not yet given me the authority to dispatch myself, so you will have to ask someone else that question. I just work here."

At this point, HQ was about an hour behind me. So I turned around, figuring that if I'm going to get fired, I'd rather get fired early in the morning. However, turning around would mean that someone else would need to take the load to the receiver to have any chance of making on-time delivery, and they'd need to hook the trailer as soon as I got there and dropped it on the yard.

No clue what I had done to arouse the interest of the Safety Department. Perhaps they read the forums and found out about me dumping an empty trailer on the ground last Friday? Perhaps they've been spying on me with the spycam and have seen me practicing my cat-juggling while I drive? Who knows?

Arrive at HQ, drop the trailer, go in to tell them I'm here. Nobody in dispatch. They're all at a meeting. Welp.

Head down to Safety. Perhaps this will be quick. Find out whatever I've done, sign the paper, get back on the road, make on-time delivery.

Random drug test.

Get back from Concentra an hour and a half later. Trailer still there. So that one isn't getting delivered today, because the receiver shuts down at 1:00pm. They had already assigned it to a local driver for tomorrow, so now I'm on a trip to Americold in Belvidere.

I know there are Rules(tm) they have to follow, and there are reasons for those rules. But man, it woulda been a lot more useful for HQ to just say "Keep rolling, deliver the load, deadhead back when you're done, it ain't that big of a deal."

 

I agree. Had this pain in the butt broker call me three times today. Never answered it once.

 

When they said nothing was going to change... You just have to love that dispatch is about the only thing that hasn’t. Still as unorganized as ever. No, I’m not surprised. Yep. Get paid by the hour. I’ll sit here all day.

 

Nope. Was only there about an hour before was told to go pick up a load.

 

This popped up in my memories on Facebook. It’s what can happen when you NEVER do a pre-trip. This was my trainers truck when I was at Wil-Trans. She did not do pre-trips. She did not let me do pre-trips. She always said,”No time for that. The truck will let us know when something is wrong.” Yeah, it did. It let me know big time. I will never forget this. OKC exit 136 is where I pulled off because the drives were smoking. thank God I did because as she tells me to limp it down to the TA, the drives walked out from under the truck. If that would’ve happened at 60 mph, it would’ve been the end of my just beginning driving career. I had been on her truck for 4 weeks. I guess she figured that since Prime had the inspection lanes, she didn’t have to do pre-trips. Dunno. But, it taught me to ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS pre-trip! So I guess I can thank her for that (even though that was the only thing she taught me-oh-and how NOT to drive).

 

When I started driving,I was that guy,fire up the truck and roll,until my trl got broken into near Chicago.

Now it seems Im the guy fixing the other fire it up and roll drivers stuff.