6/21/16 Is the beginning of my Schneider career!!!

I've got so many good ideas to post on here when I'm driving. Then I stop to wait on something (this time apparently the only planner Schneider has went to lunch. Had he planned a little better I would have had a preassignment vs waiting after my NAT has come and gone) and I can't think of any of them. I'm trying to probably stay out until next weekend and take a camping weekend or something. So this may work to my benefit in 8 days. I'm getting really confused about the time difference relating to my assignment and ETA and NAT. I've been told by both DBLs that I've had that delivery, ETA and NAT are all based on the time your home office is. In this case my ETA was 1230cdt. I put my NAT at 1300cdt. I arrived at 1230est. When I arrived I just went through and clicked ok. Then when I dropped my trailer and the assigned time that popped up was an hour earlier than my arrival time it basically said. Now before (been a while) I had done basically the same thing but was on time but with the time difference it showed me an hour late (I think it was really 6 min but just illustration for purposes of clarity). Should I be paying more attention to what comes up on arrival time? If I change the arrival time does it affect anything? If I can change the arrival time technically I'll never be late, right? I'm a little lost and not getting much help from the ones that are supposed to be helping. Last week (can't remember if I posted here) my DBL had me call the EFS card and go through about an hours worth of stuff to set up lumper payment. I called back and DBL was busy and got another one. They told me to call the lumper hotline. OH MY JESUS TAKE ME NOW........ I get better advice in here. I'm no longer calling my DBL. I'll be referring to yall and expecting the right answers from now on to come from here. Hell, could someone call the planner and cut his lunch short? I'm officially bored.......

 

Just to clarify, both my ETA and NAT are to be local time? I originally was doing that and after delivery not having an assignment I would hear "well your NAT is saying such and such time. That's why you don't have an assignment!" When in reality I was in that actual time. Now is a little different outside of 90 day DBL. I 99% of the time have an assignment before I drop. Today just happened to be one of those times. Usually, and I did this today too, especially if I'm a couple hours early, I'll text my DBL about an hour before delivery asking for a preassignment. I didn't get a response today. Usually I get one in the next hour. I try to stop, especially for assignment reasons, about an hour before delivery and text in. Today I had fuel stop 10 miles away so less time. But I still had to take 30 min break and 30 min or so for check in and drop and hook. I hope this all makes sense. Thanks for help.

 

Ok that's the way I thought it was. Logs based on home location, everything else local time. Then they had me convinced it was the opposite. It just wasn't making sense that it was correct for it to be all home location time. Thanks.

I'm starting to not be surprised and learning to question almost everything I hear from the office. The clown music is stuck in my head when they talk..... lol

 

Couple of crappy days so far this week. Yesterday I waited to get an assignment. It was from Columbia SC to Camden NJ. First time driving up the east coast in a truck. I've heard some nightmare stories. I'm completely out of what they considered my territory but I'm not complaining. I'm all for experience. Just out of the norm puts me on high alert. I was getting used to driving 39 57 55 70 74 and so on up north to where I'd been there so many times I knew what truck stop was where and pretty much quit looking at every bridge clearance as I was driving where I had already been before. They had a driver that couldn't make this pick up so put it on me. I got there right before they closed. After I was loaded I pulled forward and shut the doors as the guy got the paperwork for me. I looked at the weight and saw 46k and I told the guy it was going to put me close to gross. The load was scrap metal loaded all the way to the back door. I asked him how it was loaded as far as weight distribution and he said he did the best he could. Ok so my next thing was to figure out my tandems. I'm trying to figure that out and he asks me to move so he can lock up. Well crap. I move out the gate. Find out the hole requirement 41ft for Jersey being the furthest back I can go. I'm probably jinxing myself but I say no way. Head to the pilot 10 miles away. And I'm 700 lbs over gross. Something like 11880 on steer 29200 drives and 39620 trailer. 38700 gross. Crap. I try to do the math to figure what needs to be done but I don't know anything about it. Never loaded a trailer before lol. So I do all the work stuff. Report it. Talk to 4 different people and so on. Then park with 5 hours left of drive time. And I can't get in there till 8am the following morning. I'm up at 5am usually lol. And I'm heading up the east coast where I've heard parking can be scarce and to park early. So I get in there at about 0745 and wait for them to open. Guy that loaded me is there I tell him in overweight. So I open up and the last pallet on is 2870 lbs. He says, so if I take that off you'll be fine right? Ummm I don't know. This really isn't my area of expertise. I just drive. I was hoping you'd know, I tell him. He takes some others off 800 lbs and 1000 lbs and another 780 lbs. He had to help someone with something so I break out the calculator on the phone. I looked at where I was loaded to with those ones off. It's now loaded to the 45 ft mark inside. I subtract the trail weight that he took off. Guesstimate that he can put only one small one on. So he comes back and I tell him that. He says ok and asks if I'm sure I can't fit the others. I told him if my calculations are right he could put them on but they'd need to be toward the front. He said he wasn't going to unload anything to fit more on. I said ok and took off. The whole way to the scale I'm second guessing myself. Thinking I forgot to add this or subtract that. Then I remembered, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I get to the scale, 11940 on the steer 30640 on the drives and 33380 on the trailer for a gross of 75960. Not bad for a complete guess lol. I was at 3/4 of a tank of fuel. No need to mess anything up. Easy to make in 660 miles on that. Easy day though. Put up 438 miles in 9 hours clock time. Previous 2 days were at about 7.5 so I'm not burning through hours this week. I'm used to working 11 or so hours a day. I'm going for 12 days out so hopefully this will help. Funny thing happened though. Guy on the phone was saying he needed to correct my assignment so I got paid for the mileage to and from scale. I told him I'm not worried about the 9 miles but that in worried about the 5 hours I had left to drive that I'm losing. Having to wait till the following day pushes me back a day for delivery. Had I gotten it yesterday and scaled right I could have made delivery tonight and been ready for another load. He didn't seem to care about that. I think it's the same as detention isn't it? Wondering if I should push for it or not. Maybe it's not worth it.

I've got 3 different routes to choose from from where I'm at. Was wondering since I don't know the are if anyone that does would mind weighing in. From basically I95 near Richmond VA going to Camden NJ basically Philly. Would you take I95 through DC or the 301 to bypass? There was another but I'm not remembering off the top of my head in the Pilot right now....

 

Man, I love stress. And need a haircut. 95 it is. But the wife did just say she likes my hair long. Booty wins again. 301 it is.....