Good Night From II

Cape Girardeau, MO. Dropped my load at Sears this morning and was actually told that even though I am bringing one in, can not have mt, so ok. Then I said something to the effect, pretty bad how they are our trailers and we can not get one. Understand about a trailer pool. Then this young rent-a-cop actually told me that once they are on their lot, they no longer belong to Swift, but to them. I just bit my tongue.

 

Here at my first stop in Tyler. Checked in to just let them know that I am here and then found out that I get to play trailer jockey in the morning. Nice to know this. Was talking to the MGR here and was told that Swift knows this, does not bother to tell us, and we are not paid any extra for it.

 

Brewton, AL at the Georgia Pacific plant, along with several other Swifties. All of us were dispatched here thinking it would be a quick drop and hook, and all of us were told it is a live load.

My student drove in and checked in at 6:00 am local time. Nine hours later we got a dock assignment and I docked it. That was three hours ago and we still aren't being loaded.

The load was originally scheduled to deliver near Milwaulkie at 6:00 am tomorrow. That ain't happening, and it will likely be that this "JIT" (Just In Trouble) load will end up getting our stacked load from Milwaulkie to York pulled from us.

Ah well, a good learning experience for my trainee, and a good chance to sleep in a motionless truck all day. Looks like we're going to have to swap shifts because I have a lot more hours than my trainee, so now I'm the vampire again.

By the way, one of the husband/wife teams said they had heard Swift is going to announce an across the board raise tomorrow? Anyone else hear that rumor?

 

I was told about 3 weeks ago when I was with a friend there in phx, YES, he did mention that one was in the works, and he said about 3-4 weeks. Just hope that it is not like Centrals, where they mess with the FSC

 

Our FSC is set in our contract. Swift CANNOT change it without our concurrence.

 

t/a in terrell tx. p/u load up in orange this morning and delivers in mesquite tx 0800 tomorrow. nice, lost the 1100 mile run only to get a 282 ld miler. got a preplan that p/u in dallas tx and was taken off me by time i got here. was pushing it to get here b4 having to take a 30 min. break. had me go mostly state 2 lane hwy to get here. have about 28 mile to go

 

At Ontario East, AKA the Petro. Came here after striking out at the Jurupa Valley terminal.

I grabbed a load off Mac 30 this morning, 26,000 lbs headed to Costco in Sumner. 26K turned out to be 44K in the preplan comments. The way it was done was outright fraud as the CSR KNEW the load's weight. I would have never grabbed it had I known how heavy it was and were it not for the extreme headache of getting a Mac 30 load pulled I would have turned it down.

After I pick it up in the morning I'll whine about it to my DM and see if I can get any more money, got an extra $50 the last time this happened.

 

I'll be there on Wednesday ... deliver at noon on the other side of the highway. Probably stay at the truck stop there.

Yeah, I've been seeing a lot of that lately, one weight in the plan and another in the notes.

 

At the J in Belgrade, MT. Still have about 730 miles to go for the final in Centralia, WA. This will be my first time through Seattle, hope to see my cousin for the first time since 1990.

 

Tyler, TX.

I dropped a load at about 2230 and snagged the only mt they had.
Then I headed for the Pilot and I think I might have gotten the last spot here.

They tried stacking me with 2 pplans this morning.
The first was picking up by 0800 tomorrow, when my delivery tonight was at 2200. I guess they figured I could pu tonight with around 2 hours left on my clock because mt miles were 'said to be' 27. But when I checked for places to park I didn't want to risk running out, so I adjusted the times and it was removed.
Good thing, too. Along 2 stretches of highway it was reduced to 1 lane, and it slowed to a crawl at best. I lost nearly an hour of time.

And it was not because they were working on the road... It was because some jerks decided to slow down traffic for no reason.
The first time I just wondered until I got through it because I could see no reason to be stopping for minutes at a time and then crawling at 5 mph and then stopping again.
When I got through it I noticed on the other side that a big rig had simply stopped, holding up traffic behind him. It was clear for half a mile in front of him.
The second time it happened I could see a truck up ahead doing the same thing. He would stop, then creep forward with no one in front of him.
This was in Arkansas, I-40 and then again on I-30. Both times the speed limit was 60.
So what gives? Is there a conspiracy among truckers to be jerks through construction zones?