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

Your sources are more in the loop than mine.
Going to suck being caught up in more turtle races
Must get new sources... lol

 

Came back to work from a weekend off. Got to the window around 9:30am. Was given a load assignment, but was told "Trailer is in the shop getting fixed. Should be ready in an hour." Load assignment specifies an 8-hour delivery window, tomorrow, 6:00am to 2:00pm. Eight-and-a-half hour drive, and I've got 28-and-a-half hours to make it. Easy peasy.

However, as one might expect, that one-hour repair turned into five hours. Repairs on the trailer were not completed until 2:30pm. Well, no worries. Still got 23-and-a-half hours to make an 8-and-a-half hour drive. One 15-minute pre-trip later and I'm rolling out.

A survey of Google Maps satellite view indicates that there's no place to park at or near the receiver. So I'll have to park offsite and take a 10-hour reset before traveling to the receiver. I figure, worst-case scenario, I'll arrive at the receiver at 10am. Well before the 2pm deadline.

Five minutes into the drive, I get a qualcomm message asking me when I'm leaving, because the delivery has to be there at 6:00am.

Well, that ain't what my load assignment said. And it ain't what the BOL says. Both sources of info indicate a 6:00am to 2:00pm delivery window.

Oh, but apparently this load was supposed to deliver last week.

Had they told me this before I started driving, I could've sat on the yard and left at 9:00pm and drove overnight to make on-time delivery. But I had already started my drive clock by the time they gave me this information. Which makes it impossible to legally deliver this load at 6:00am.

In the past, I have certainly used personal conveyance and other ELD-manipulating tricks to deliver such loads on-time anyways. But these days they're completely removing the "Personal Conveyance" option from the qualcomm of drivers who "abuse" it. And since I do not want to lose my Personal Conveyance option on the qualcomm, I am going to make certain that I do not "abuse" Personal Conveyance. Which means that I am gonna play this 100% by the book and will not be delivering this load via Personal Conveyance during the middle of a 10-hour reset. Which means that the load will not be there at 6:00am.

Given Atlanta traffic, I figure I'll have it there around 9am.

 

Rant.
It's Ridiculous!
Sometimes they expect you to be like "Felix The Cat" just open your magical bag and come up with a great incredible magical solution.
Sometimes I wonder if DM or Planners get written up for such nonsense?

 

Which trl # and what did they have to do to it? Seems no drivers are really checking the trls (not y’all, of course), so when they get brought back in to the yard, there’s all kinds of issues (that we catch), which have overwhelmed our trl shop. Have you noticed the # of red tagged trls sitting on the yard? I personally have red tagged 4 from Friday-Sunday. Trls that were picked up at receivers once they had been unloaded so I could go get loaded, but couldn’t because there were really bad issues that definitely didn’t just happen. That doesn’t include the ones with minor issues. Another thing I do is leave a note inside the bill box with the bills with what I found so the driver that picks it up will know it was turned in. The pink copy goes to dispatch so they will also know something was found. BTW-everyone should do that. I also annotate in my records every trl I pull (that’s A LOT of trls!) and what issues, if any, are found (just to CMA, don’t ya know!).

 

Probably not. But screw up big enough and you’ll get canned.

 

Vacation is over. Got back home last night. I was having lunch yesterday with my wife when I got a phone call from the mothership asking if I could come out early and repower a load. I told them no problem, but it might not be on their time frame. When questioned, I had to explain that I was still in Barbados. Next up, a little more work then Italy and the Greek Isles in September.

 

Byhalia to Jacksonville for tomorrow. Down pours and lightning all day today. I swear ppl get more dumb behind the wheel when the weather gets bad. Too many ppl floor it to get in front of me and fill up my cushion of space and slam the brakes on. Ill take warm and rain over cold and snow though, which is what Ill probably see on my way to WA for hometime next week. Shorts for now and back to pants next week, lol!

 

Did those stops about a year and a half ago. Was a nice trip. Spent a few days in Rome after the cruise.

 

We were in Italy last April for 3 weeks. Been to Venice 3 times over the years. I’m looking at a 12 night round trip cruise out of Venice on Celebrity in September.