Trans Am Still

Oh lord have mercy... I'm skimming the thread to see what I missed while on hometime and y'all go from the usual chatter to dropping a deuce in the truck?! LOL. I, of course, have a solution to that but am NOT taking this thread back to potty talk. I should be asleep anyways and Avett is crawling up on my face because I think my phone is bothering her. So bedtime it is!

 

Didn't know that Pam trained at TA, bet she was a good one. Michael probably trained her and he was a good trainer.

 

My wife is curious as to your solution on potty talk , you can pm me if you don't want to take this thread back to potty talk ,lol

Although this is something real and important but not fun to talk about.

 

I barely had her three days, but she was great! We clicked the first time we met and had I been on the truck more than 3 days we would have run as a team because I took to it naturally. She said I was the only student she would have ever teamed with. Pam is running with Hirsch Bach nowadays.

 

Not to take this back to the bathroom stuff but I do have one of those mini porta pots for camping so the other half does not have to use the woods and they do get kinda nasty, then you have to figure out where to dump it at and you will have that smell filling the truck. If you really want that emergency bathroom for those times that you cannot find a place for number 2 I would suggest one of those cmaping ones that uses a bag that you could at least close store in a storage box outside of the truck until you can dispose of it, not to menton it folds up for easier storage.

 

Everyone, including myself is sick of my complaining.... but here is the story:

- load info shows my 1 delivery at Ralphs in Riverside for 3:30am today.
- After hustling it up to make sure this swap load is on time, I set an alarm, wake up and check in at 2:30 am
- Ralphs tells me my appointment is for 6am
- I send a message to dispatch to tell them the difference in appointment time, I get a message to try again at 6am (duhh, I just wanted to let them know why I might be later getting empty)
- I go back to Ralphs at 5:30am, check into the receiving office, etc.
- I see there has been a phone message on my voicemail at just before 6am to tell me there is another stop to this load. First stop should have been at Walmart down the road! (No paperwk, nothing on the load information, just that there is stuff for Walmart on the tail of my trailer).
- I talk to Ralphs, they say my paperwork has already been "rang up", what every that means, they want to just move the Walmart stuff, unload their stuff and then let me go on my way.
- For what ever reason I now have a red light on my sat, so I try to call my DM ... u know how much fun that is ... no way to get in touch, I leave a message.

To make this stupid long story shorter, It gets worked out, Ralph's is cool about moving the stuff, no extra charges. Walmart takes my load late (not a real Walmart here but a cold storage contractor). Load is fine, all ends well.

Here is the super annoying part: At some point in the process, my DM calls, same DM I have had for the last several months, balls me out that I should have gone to Walmart first. Says it may be marked down that I delivered a Tyson load, late.

I blasted back that I was at the exactly right place at the time the load info. called for. Pointed out that I was the one to notify something was wrong with the load and yet, night dispatched confirmed for me to check in at Ralaphs at 6am.

I guess it is over, I sent several follow on messages when I had a green light telling her to back off. I think I made my DM sorry she took a tone with me but she never said anything about dispatch, customer service or TransAm being accountable on any of the problem. I think she still feels I am just the dumb driver who did not get the deliveries right but nothing more will come of it.

 

That sucks that these people cant get it together , I feel your frustration

 

Ugh that sucks Passport. Not your fault at least! Funny you say you had a bit of a satellite prob this morning. I was having issues with mine all morning and wondering if it was a fleet wide glitch. Anyone else have issues with the Treq today?

I'm staying in Tupelo tonight. Got loaded earlier and then came up to Loves for two new trailer tires and that took long enough I will just leave later tonight and go to Duncan. Honestly, I didn't pretrip this trailer when I got it in Jax. I looked and saw there were 8 tire that weren't flat and two mudflaps and then I went home lol. I left at 0300 this morning and was barely awake enough to put oil in the tractor. And my trailer was parked in knee high thorny weeds. When I was getting loaded I noticed that two trailer tires were blowouts waiting to happen so here I am at Loves getting them fixed. It's looking like my DM might be trying to get me close to Greensboro, NC this weekend because it's good miles from OK and I'm due for some PMs that I'm assuming are filters, but I want to take the dog and hang out with my ex for a while so Greensboro it is!

 

Thanks buddy, the first San Miguel light is on me just for being such a supportive dude!

Thanks also Badger. The satellite thing was weird. I was in Riverside, CA, a place I would expect a strong signal. It was switching back and forth, green to red and I was not changing location.

I know it was not may fault ... lol ... but thanks for your nice comment. If I did not send in the message at 3:30 to say that Ralphs had me down for 6 am ... I don't think anyone at TransAm would have known about the problem. Would have found out about it when Ralph's load did not match the bills and would have to sort out the mess from there. Because I sent in the message that must have gotten through to Customer Service, someone figured out there was another stop, I could tell Ralphs in advance what was going on.

This was the swap load that HTQ and I where discussing. I did get a bad swap. I am not freaking about it so much as I did not end up loosing a day over it. I got very lucky that 1) Ralphs just moved the Walmart stuff without a stink. 2) The Walmart cold storage contractor accepted their load late without a stink.

All is well that ends well. Except I used to think my DM was just inexperienced, now I think she is an idiot.

 

On the bathroom stuff ... NO! we are not using our trucks as rest rooms. You stop at a truck stop, a hotel with parking, rest area, any place with indoor plumbing and you make sure you are squared away before you camp out at a shipper or receiver.

If something comes up unexpected, you take a walk, find a business with indoor plumbing. Outhouse or construction site porta potty if you have to. Google maps is your friend, you walk and find something. If you can not find something on foot, you go on PC and drive to a place. This is not an in the book use of PC but you use it. If safety calls you about a 10 minute use of PC, you tell them in detail why you used it. IF they give you flack, you tell them in great detail, TMI detail of why you used PC. If they want to write you up for a log violation, you take it. Take the violation and have the dignity of knowing that you did not take a dump in your truck!