has parking always been this bad?

I'm not above paying for a spot at TA or whatever if I roll in at the wrong time and the place is packed. It happens...part of the job. Much rather do that and sleep easy rather attempt a "creative" parking job and risk getting hassled in the middle of the night. Some places are cool with you parking out front if the regular spots are packed solid, as long as you're not blocking access to anything. Depends on the place. Stopping at independent places you'll usually have better luck too.

 

Why would you think a SAMs DC would let you in early? It just doesn't happen at SAMs or Walmart. Why doesn't your employer reimburse for parking? Have you asked or tried to be reimbursed or are you just assuming? A lot of fail in the OP, and it's entirely OP's fault. I guess this is the new generation I've been hearing about.

 

And..When the locals also use the truckstops as their parking garage while their at home.

 

If you had enough drive time to get there, you had enough time to do a split break but you have to shut down at least eight hours plus 15 minute pretrip plus remaining drive time ahead of your appointment. Then if they take more than two hours to unload you get the rest of your hours back. That would have been the better option instead of driving there and hoping for street parking outside a DC which is rare to nonexistent because they don't want a bunch of trucks parking there.

 

Pre-planning and split sleeper berth is a Elogs must. Can do anything with just those two things.

 

I've had a Walmart DC unload me five hours early. I drove up and told them I knew I was early but wanted to see if they could unload it early. If not no biggie I would go to the truck stop. Guard got on the radio and asked and the receiving department said OK, they had a lull in appointments and had nothing else going on.

 

Wow that almost sounds like common sense at that Walmart there, packrat. I never experienced that when I used to go to to lots of their DCs

 

I used split sleeper on a recent load that originally had a 1330 pickup that got pushed back to 2200 due to a clerical error.

 

I know. I figured it was a longshot. My appointment was at 1800 and I was unloaded by 1400. Guess they decided to lighten their evening workload. One less to deal with when all the late day appointments get there.