Snackbar's new adventure at Moore Freight Services

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Well, the unload went fine. 46k lbs or 3mm glass, and it all made it safe and sound. When I got off the IN toll road, I took a peek at my delivery customers lot, and the gates were open at 9:30 am on a Sunday. Thinking that they were going to stay that way, I proceeded to the Love's south of the toll road for a shower and a break. I had enough time on the load to get a full 10 at Love's then drive to the customer where I could get another 10. Sunday evening, I proceeded to the customer as planned using the toll road instead of going back thru town, which was a mistake. Got to the unmanned toll booth at the customer's exit and the prepass wouldn't open the gate. Another truck went thru the cash/credit lane and his transponder worked, so I moved over, and mine wouldn't work there either. Pushed the 'help' button and read the lady my transponder ID and she remotely opened the gate. Get to the customer, and now the gates were closed and nobody was around. Fortunately there is enough room to park off to the side of the driveway so other vehicles can get by. I parked, put up my curtains. Put on my jammies(which closely resemble the same clothes I had on already) and went to bed. At 5 a.m. I opened the curtains and the gate was open. I made coffee, and waited until my clock showed 8 hours in ths sleeper, then I eased in and lined up to back in and waited since receiving hadn't showed up yet. Got backed in, untarped and unloaded in an acceptable amount of time and headed for my reload. This building is so new, there is still the blue painters tape on the floor where they layed out the cut lines so the construction crew knew where to cut the concrete.

I got to the reload a couple hours early. They let me in, and I staged off to the side. I saved some of the long pieces of styrofoam from the earlier delivery so I could pre-pad some of the trailer while waiting. At 14:30 they had me back in (15:00 appt.) and I finished prepping the trailer and waited....and waited.....and waited. Finally after 16:30, the loaders show up and informed me that the delivery customer requires double layers of foam padding on the trailer frames(would have been nice to know that info ahead of time)...which sucks because the foam I saved from my delivery was 2 x 3 foam, that plant only uses 2 x 6 foam, so I had to strip off one side of the trailer and repad it instead of just adding a 2nd layer. Finally, after 17:30 we finally had me loaded and I could start securing. Got everything done, and the loader helped pull the tarp with the crane, but the tarp was off center for some reason. When I picked the previous load up, I noticed that it was off some, but figured it was because I had an off balance load (more packs on one side than the other). While I was fighting to square the tarp so I could lace it up (I have a balanced load now) the other loader asked if I could lace up my tarp outside, they had another load to do...wait, you wait until after my appt time to tell me that I need different padding, take your time loading me, and now I have to rush getting out? Which I did, mostly because it was actually cooler outside than inside. Got everything straightened out and tied down. All told, it was only 4.5 hrs past my appointment time when I was pulling out the gate, I have sat at the dock in Rossford and Decatur longer than that, so it wasn't too bad. Managed to get N.Baltimore by 20:45. The Love's was full, so I went to the Petro, scaled the load and parked for the night...will only have an hour or so to spare to my delivery tomorrow, but at least I will be going thru Hotlanta at the wee hours of the morning.

 

Yeah it was Carlton. I loaded on the back side at the east rail dock. Dark as the inside of your hat, but a good breeze blowing in. So much so that it made putting the layer of plastic on the load like flying a 48' kite without string.

 

Glad I have a 6 am appt on this load. The local forecast says it's gonna be 96° today around here. As warm as it was when I shut down yesterday, it would be 'heat stroke Wednesday' if I had to unload during the day today.

Update*. The sun is up, and I am still in the customer's parking lot. Turns out, I am #4 to be unloaded. 3 Wylies(well, 1 Wylie and 2 of us Wy-Moores) and a Maverick. The positive though, the other 2 Wylie's are very tight on hours while I am getting 10's back for 3 days, so hopefully that'll help Mascot decide which direction to head me.

 

Sent to Laurinburg after Covington...finally. Asked on Tuesday afternoon which way I was headed, and Mascot never made up their mind. Then once I got empty Wednesday, I asked again...and never heard a word. So, I went up I-20 towards Augusta and stopped at that Love's before the scale. I figured that if I was headed to Church Hill instead of Laurinburg, that would be the last decent place to stop before cutting thru the woods. Sat there a couple hours, then told to head to Laurinburg and pick up a load to northern Jersey. Told him that now that I blew a lot of my 14 waiting, that it would be Friday before I got to Jersey. He said he would inform Mascot. Yesterday, just after 8 he calls and asks when I will be able to deliver...my reply was 'what ever time they open on Friday, as long as it isn't before 4 am'...he said he would check what time they open and that they are in need of this glass so don't waste any time...my reply, I'm not the one wasting my time, you need to tell Mascot to quit wasting my time. Got here 1st thing today and backed in before 7, and they are still unloading at 9...

Then, it's back to Laurinburg for a load to Perrysburg for Tues. which is fine because I could use a reset. Will have mid 8000's for the month by the time I get to OH Sunday morning...so a little extra time is a bonus for me.

 

I made it to the Toledo area and parked. I have my next load already, Rossford to Laurinburg. However, I deliver this load Tues, but the Rossford picks up Monday afternoon. I may have to call Sherman and Mr. Peabody and borrow the way-back time machine. They were Shanghai'g drivers to preload in Rossford, underpaying them by the hour, but not sure if they ever got that set up as a permanent thing or not. Either way, I ain't gonna make the deadline of 7 am Wed in Laurinburg if it takes my delivery past 9 am to get me empty Tuesday.

Traffic yesterday was a huge nightmare. In Lumberton they had 95 southbound shut down. Heard reports of anywhere from 1 to 5 semi's involved in a wreck. I stopped in town and went to Wally, then took backroads all the way to Maxton. That's one advantage of driving a 45' double drop, you can pretty much use any road that isn't weight restricted or has a low clearance obstruction. Then, on the way out with this load, the exit off I-74 in Rockingham was backed up for 3 miles...just too many a'holes, not enough asphalt. As busy as the roads were yesterday, you woulda thought it was the last holiday weekend before school started.

 

Spoke to dispatch, he said my load may be preloaded, or it may not. It all depends on how much time the person loading had available. The way he explained it, the agreement with the driver who loads is, he has a limit on how many hours a day he can work, when those hours are up, he is done.(kinda like drive time on the HOS). It would be my guess that they did that so the person doesn't turn into a dairy farmer and milk the job for everything it's worth.

He also said, don't worry about the delivery time to Laurinburg. They reset that based on when you can legally deliver, especially if the load didn't get preloaded and you have to use hours and hours off your 14 loading.

 

I have to admit, with the increased steady miles (and improved paycheck amount that goes along with them) my negative feelings towards We-lie had eased up a bit....until yesterday. So far this week, I had a Rossford to Laurinburg and a Laurinburg to Statesboro and back. Told dispatch on my way back from Statesboro Friday morning, that since I hadn't been preplanned on anything yet, I was guessing that there was no huge rush to get the next load moving so I planned on stopping at a Thermoking dealer and have my Tripac service done that was overdue. (they don't do their own maintenance at the Wylie shops on the APU's yet). I even went thru the streakin beacon for a truck wash. Dropped my empty trailer at the Laurinburg plant, then PC'd to Wally and was about to walk into the Lowe's across the street when my DM called. He told me that there wouldn't be a load for me before Monday, but they needed me to move some new trailers from Sanford to Laurinburg. He wasn't sure how they pay, but he would make sure it would be better than layover pay. He gave me 9 trailer numbers to move, all 21's. So, I proceeded, which will probably pop up on the PC Nazi's radar because I PC'd to Wally from the plant, but went on normal drive time from Wally to Sanford(the Walmart is at the exit you take when heading from the plant to Sanford). I get to Sanford hook up to my 1st trailer, and it has a gladhand lock. Get a mechanic to hunt down the key, and he hands me a phone number of the shop manager and tells me to call her. I call, voicemail. I wait a minute, call again...voicemail. so I leave a message with truck number and the trailer I am pulling out, along with my phone number and a "if you really do need to talk to me, feel free to call, but I don't have time to wait here at the yard". I head out thru the inspection carport, and there she is just standing around shooting the bull with the mechanics. They check me out, I tell her that I left a message on her phone and give her the 9 trailer numbers I was told to pull this weekend. She says 'no, you only pull the 1st 5"...whatever, I'll do what my DM says, not some Equal Opportunity Employer statistic employee that wouldn't know a crescent wrench from a torque wrench. I call my DM and leave a somewhat heated message about the typical Wylie miscommunication foul up and tell him that I was just informed about new trailer numbers. I no sooner get to the end of the drive, and the lady in the shop calls me(the same one I spoke to on the way out). "You have the wrong trailer, you're suppose to be picking up 20### not 21###, you need to come back and get the right trailer". Let's just say, Mt. Vesuvius' eruption paled in comparison to the eruption I unleashed including several references to ####ing up a wet dream and the management having their head so far up their ### they chew their food twice, and this level of disorganization is why I left my last bottom feeder company and is a prime example of why this place can't keep good drivers. All she could say is if I am unhappy, I need to talk to the Op's manager...which prompted a 2nd minor eruption about his effectiveness in solving problems...so now I have to find a place to turn around. She says, in her ineptitude about driving a truck, just to back down the driveway and turn around. Now, Sanford isn't a small terminal, but the distance between the shop and the fence isn't big enough to do a u-turn with a sleeper truck and a 48' brand new trailer. Fortunately, they have round-abouts on the road out, so, I just went around the merry-go-round and pulled back in. Then the mechanic just gave me a WTF look when I pulled back in the inspection carport. I explained that the shop ##### said I pulled the wrong trailer, even though this is the one I was told to pull. I was suppose to pu 20### not 21###. He said, we don't have any 20's on the lot, and you have the right trailer, she is just a ####### woman.... boom...eruption #3. I proceed to call my DM again and update him with the new confusion, apologize for my rant because I know it isn't him doing this and unload another unflattering opinion about the management here, all with a rather anti-Wylie tone (knowing that the landline calls are recorded). Before I get out of Sanford, a load comes across the Peoplenet, that delivers in TX Monday. He calls back about 10 min after that, and we have a chat...he and I get along really well, and I would hate to lose him because he is about the only person in this company I trust. And part of my loyalty to him is because he let's me vent about the latest Wylie screwup. I apologize to him again for the heated messages and verify that I am now off shuttle duty. He asks if I can do one more trailer and still make delivery on time, and I said, if the traffic and weather coooerate, yes. 5 min after that I get a call from 'E.W. Wylie corp'... that's all the caller ID said, no phone number..so I don't know if it's Fargo management, Mascot or the PC Nazi...I let it go to voicemail because I was still in a major F'em mood. I can't wait to get this kidney stone treatment over with. Yes, I am making good money finally, but it isn't enough to put up with this 3-ring circus and the clowns running it.