My return to LTL... with SAIA

Well, this tropical storm today threw a lot of curveballs at me. While in a remote part of another state running heavily wooded backroads to a residential delivery, one of the bands of the tropical storm ran through. Torrential downpours, ridiculous winds... what I didn't think to anticipate today... downed trees and power lines.

Turn after turn that I made to get to a residential consignee after the band came through resulting in having to back into someone's driveway to turn around or back to the last intersection I came from. Pretty sure I can safely say I backed over 2 miles today.

Once I made it back to a major road, I pulled over, called dispatch and told him the skid could wait for tomorrow until roads are cleared and that I was tired of getting myself out of fuzzy situations. To his credit, not one bit of push back... his response? "There's always tomorrow, just be safe".

I don't smoke, but today made me want a cigarette with that debacle.

 

So why did you even entertain a corporate gig like Saia that’s known for the driver cams etc?

 

Still busy, although it seems that it isn't as hectic as it was a couple/few weeks ago, or maybe that is me acclimating to the work environment, who knows. I'm still running an average 250m peddle route every day leaving the barn with a full trailer and still average 3-4 pickups in the process.

I regularly seem to recall people in the employee BookFace group saying that the lack of straps is a huge problem company wide, I chuckle because we literally have 2 gaylord boxes FULL of them all neatly knotted up. Since I have the same liftgate pup trailer every day, on the left and right side of the trailer I keep a total of 10 straps strung horizontally on the wall and strap every or as many pieces of freight as I can that I pick up. The dock crew that works the outbound kicks ### at my barn because they picked up on this and when they unload freight, they replace the straps on the wall.

Figure I might as well take advantage of being well equipped to secure freight from the start, just unfortunate that it won't see such a tight ride to it's destination.

Tomorrow is my last day on the city board, and back to linehaul Monday evening.