Do you normally pick up a load when going for home time

That would be a great question for your company recruiter/dispatcher/planner.

 

I always did. Pick up a load. Drop it at the terminal. Hook to mt, if there was one. If not, park in bob tail section. Laundy & sleep at the yard. Leave out early Saturday. Stop at the J by the yard for shower and breakfast. Make trek 100 miles south. Stay for 2 and a half days. Head up Monday night.

Next load off hometime usually was a Tuesday night pickup. Head to customer.

 

I don't. Even when I was a company driver and could park the rig outside the house, I wouldn't bring a load home.
1. If the load is on your wagon, it's your responsibility. Two safe places for a load...Shipper, Receiver. Keep in mind that some of us pull high end freight.
2. Lots of time, when you go home, some issue arrives on the home front. If I need an extra day or so at the house, I'm taking that extra time. With a load on the wagon, you can't. Well, I can't. Sitting with a load on the wagon drives me nuts. Well, unless they're paying me to sit on a load.
3. That taking a load "thru the house" is BS. If you have time off scheduled, DO NOT take a load home. You get home, and suddenly the travel agent is calling you because suddenly the customer 'wants/needs/is concerned about the load.'

If you agreed to a certain amount of hometime for a certain amount of work, and you live up to your end of the bargain, make them live up to theirs. Prove yourself to be a spineless doormat and they will walk on you.

 

True. One weekend at home, my daughter had an MRI. The doctor gave her a sedative, but the dose was for somebody weighing 250. She wound up in the er. I was not leaving a 9 and 7 year old at home while her mother was at the hospital with her.

 

We have a scrap paper place near our main terminal. That is often what people are loaded with heading home after 2 weeks doing Regional/OTR

 

At the last “home most weekends” place I worked (flatbed), 9 out of 10 times, home would be between the shipper and the receiver. Sometimes going through the house added extra miles but that was just the way it had to be (and we were paid percentage)

But a lot will depend on where home is.

 

I took loads home. However I lived out in the sticks and most if my neighbors had guarded by signs and they all knew me and helped me keep it safe. The biggest problem with taking a load home is the delivery times never allowed me to have a load there much longer then at the most 24 hours. Honestly most of the time I dropped.

 

Only time I will take a load home is if I need a 10 hour break before delivery and home is between shipper and receiver.

 

I always pick up a load..even when I go home. I like to deliver something on Monday. I take loads home all the time but I park in front of my house so I can keep a close eye on it or I'll take it to the terminal. I am a firm believer in keeping a trailer loaded.