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

Two issues this past week with empty trailers at the Irving drop yard. Both have me scratching my head. After doing the Texas 2 step for 6 drops, 4 nights sleeping in that state, 1300 miles of 2 lane 75mph backroads, every major city rush hour and a refused drop, I’m directed to Irving to drop my trailer and grab an empty dry van to load the next morning in Seguin.

Here’s where the issue starts. I get to the yard, drop mine and start hunting for an empty. The only one there is what can only be described as the oldest sled in the fleet, a 64xx series. It’s red tagged. I read the tag, and the trailer has a laundry list of things noted, broken cross member, lighting, air and other assorted DOT out of service issues. So, I call into night dispatch to let them know there’s no empties. Dude tells me immediately to hook on it, call breakdown, and arrange to get it fixed. I politely asked him if he was serious. He said yes. At this point I’ve had it with my day, my week, him and my job. I told him absolutely not. I am not getting involved with that mess. He said in his most sarcastic tone that it had to be taken care of. I then told him that the only way that trailer was going to get fixed was either by him coming down here and dealing with it, or better yet, the driver that red tagged it and left it like that should come back and take care of it because I sure the hell wasn’t. That was the end of the discussion. I think he hung up on me. I sent a QC message in informing him I was going to bed. He wrote back and said daytime dispatch will take care of finding me a trailer.

7:30 the next morning, parked 3 miles sitting at a QT having some coffee, the phone rings. It’s dispatch telling me to go back to the yard and pick up an empty that was just dropped there. Cool. Drive over there, at the gate there’s one of our trucks leaving. Dude rolls his window down and asks me if I’m picking up trailer 7778. I said yes he tells me it’s way in the back. I said thanks and went and hooked up to it. Here’s what was left for me. At this point I called in, texted in a picture, then went ballistic. Dispatch said don’t do anything, stay put. 20 minutes later, here comes the dude that dropped it. He was told to go back and clean the trailer out.

 

I keep telling my wife that contrary to what the mass media is telling the average citizen, drivers are treated no differently today then we were prior to March. In fact, I think we’re treated worse. Shippers treat us like leppers, recievers don’t want us anywhere near the office, no bathrooms. I get yelled at at 5am in a truckstop for not having a mask on, which I do wear 99.9% of the time, but this one time I forgot it was because I was running to the bathroom hoping not to drop a deuce in my pants. I say time and time again, I still love my job, but boy do I despise this industry. And my fellow drivers, especially some that I work with, could give a rats arse about doing the right thing for the next driver. I get it, we live in an all about me society, especially trucking. I’ve spoke from time to time about retiring, I’ve started my planning for that day. I turn 65 in February, I have to sign up for Medicare, but of course I need to see how our health insurance comes into play. I took care of that when I was home this last time. Thankfully my retirement is not dependent on SSI, so, we’ve decided to not collect it until I’m able to collect the full amount when I turn 70. In the meantime, we’ve set my retirement date at December 1, 2021. 14 short months from now. Nothing is going to change for the better, hell, the last 10 years it’s gone down the toilet. There are days I hang on by a thread, then there are days I question just what the hell I’m doing out here.

I read up on this industry, that rage going on about driveless trucks? Please, bring it on. In the meantime, with freight rates going through the roof, the national spot market rates going up, lack of trucks to haul the freight and the lack of drivers to fill these seats, I’m wondering if we’ll be getting an increase in our base CPM that we haven’t had in 4 years. My rant is over, I’m on my way to Los Angeles and Oakland for Tuesday and Wednesday. Sitting in Dickson Tn for the night. Safe travels everyone.