My new experience with Gordon Trucking, post-buyout

Or insanity, really. And you know what? They still don't work!

 

Taking my 30 in Menards, Texas, home of the loudest, fastest, least considerate trucks and drivers I've ever met. Who knew an 18-wheeler would pass another 18-wheeler on a 2-lane, 75-mph road, on a hill, in a curve, going uphill, with a solid yellow in your lane and not much forward visibility? Not me...until today. Happened twice...once with another 18-wheeler coming opposite direction.

Good grief. I know I'm pretty much a freeway kind of driver, but this scares me. A lot. And they are LOUD. Welcome to rural West Texas, I guess.

 

Nasty words, no doubt.

 

I have arrived at my drop on Temple, Texas, 24 minutes early, it turns out. So I have to return to the booth at exactly 3:00 or I will lose my place in line. How that works, I'm not sure, but this is a very large place, so you know I will be on the step in 9 minutes 15 seconds.

 

So I appeared on their doorstep exactly on time, much to the surprise of the loss prevention agent. His response to seeing me? "Oh! You showed up." Like I wouldn't?!?

Anyway, the products were deposited inside the belly of the large Walmart DC beast, and I headed for the nearby Pilot because I only had 38 minutes left on my 70. And I learned something by leaving before sending I the Empty Call...once you are more than 25 miles from the drop site, QC will reject the Mac 4. I did not know that, so here I sit at the Pilot with only a preplan, not the assignment. I sent a free form msg to my DM and got a "roger, dodger" back. But no assignment.

Tomorrow, I take this brand new, very fresh, strange-looking trailer to the nearby HTLD terminal to drop before heading for my PP pickup. I get to experience yet another one; it's an unusual fact that I've been to more HTLD terminals than GTI terminals. Strange, but true. Perhaps, if I work the timing right, I will be able to give my poor truck a bath. The road grime is baked on and getting quite hard, what with the high temperatures I've experienced, and I'm just afraid that soon much of it will be permanent.

If not, well, it will have to survive some more. I just plain cannot afford to pay $70 or more for a truck wash nor do I think I should. I've been out 6 weeks; I think the company could spring for one wash. But I knew beforehand they don't.

 

I do get your point, but oh, they are the same only in the legal sense. There are major practical differences between them, ownership aside.