starting roehl on Feb 25th

These planners are sucking lately. I was north of the Iowa border in MN and I heard the beep. My dash showed "WE MAY NOT BE ABLE" or something like that, so I figured they were just filling me in on the fact I might not get home on time. Finally pulled over at the Diamond Jo casino just south of the border and the consignee apparently changed their mind and doesn't want it tomorrow at 8am--which I rushed my ### off to meet. Came back up here to our "loading service" and picked up a nice big Cat to go to Eau Claire. Of course, now I have to wait until daylight to run. And get my WI permits.

 

The planners have been driving me nuts. I emptied in Frostproof, FL and waited four hours for a load. No big deal, but then the assignment had me picking up almost 400 miles away. I didn't have the hours to make it that day, so I told them and they changed the p/u but not the delivery date. There was no way for me to run from the Panhandle of Florida to Central Ohio and be on time for the original drop date. Then when I called to tell them it wasn't happening (again) they acted like it was my fault.

 

Strange, I've always had a preplan on me in FL. They send you to SC to pick up spools of power line?

 

Yeah, Prysmian is usually my home load. I think the problem I run into is I am always trying to get out after home time. So they don't have anything lined up. It's not like they have many choices, really. Baldwin, Ocala, and Hosford are usually the extent of it.

 

Heading to Marshfield tomorrow. I hate pulling curtain sides.

 

Well I'm up here in Gary, finally getting my Load Securement class done. I've been pulling boxes for 2.5 weeks. I told my DSR that I learned I'm not interested in bumping docks; at least not for now. I figure after the 2 years of Honor Program is up, I may change to Refer. That is what I wanted to do in the beginning.

I'm learning that this can really be a challenging job. They pretty well routed and dispatched me to the very edge of being legal. I've had several very tight windows for delivery. I found myself driving more with the pedal to the floor, rather than using the cruise. Hopefully my windows will be a bit more open when I'm pulling Flats. I'm ready for a little more rest between deliveries.

Perhaps that is just the way their going to run us Honor guys. Heh...at least I'm learning things.

I appreciate knowing that people read my posts. I think I find myself using this Forum for mostly venting. I've not found anything to be truly fustrated with Roehl. I have had many challenges so far. I've had to learn a new method of dealing with my light sleeping. Everything pretty well wakes me up. I'm slowly starting to settle in to the sounds. Now I can sleep through it all.

I have started to learn the patience of this job. You really have a lot of time to sit and wait, as well as a lot of time to think. Heh...the last one is the one I shouldn't be doing much of. The more time I have to think, the more I start thinking about income, career choices, military time, and of course family relationships. We truly have a tough job, if you have a lot of extra baggage. This would be a great job for the single guy/gal, providing of course you can tolerate the alone time. Its a good thing I'm here just for the money.

OK time for bed.

 

Was that you in the red polo outside BSing by the fuel island earlier?

 

Well I have a question for you Roehleans...
How hard is it to have maintenance put on a small decal. I have waited at three different terminals to have my Honor Program decal put on my truck. I turned in a maintenance request when I first arrived to Gary for Load Securement. Here it is my day to roll out again and it still hasn't been done. I even turned in another request for the decal last night. It still didn't happen.

I went as far as to have them give me the decal so I could put it on myself. The silouette for the orginal decal is still there, maintenance said they weren't allowed to do that. It seems that maintenace is the problem that everyone has with this company.

Well I was given my load dispatch through the house. At least I can see my girls tomorrow evening. I get to pick up my first, "Load Securement" required, type of load. Heh...its just a curtain-side relay. Guess I need to get going. Till Later.

Dr Venture - If you were in Gary, IN; then yes it was probably me. I was the guy in the green Interstate Batteries hat.

 

That's BS. They will give you the decal, unless some new rule just popped up in the past several days. At Gary, your best bet is to wait for the night crew. They are the best ones to deal with.

Yeah, I was in Gary a couple days ago. I was hanging out down next to the fuel island waiting for my pizza shooting the s*** with the guys going through l/s training.

 

Ok not trying to be a jerk here, but if you can't put your own sticker on your truck you are in trouble. I asked my DSR for my honor sticker and she got it for me and I put it on myself. Do you know that keeping trucks on the road is the object of maintenance and maybe they had things they had to really fix that day and your sticker just didn't make the list.