Tuesday, December 7th (my birthday!) The fleet manager saga continues....
At precisely 7:30 AM (the moment my fleet manager starts his shift), I sent a Qualcomm message inquiring about my next load (it was unusual not to receive a pre-plan of my next load the previous evening so that I could start planning for it). I waited, and waited for the usual acknowledgement of my message. Nothing. Finally, out of a combination of boredom and irritation, I phoned him. He said that I was supposed to see Ms. J at the corporate/fleet management/HR/Payroll building at 8:30 AM. He was going to send me a message about that shortly (but my call beat me him to it) and made some excuse about being mysterious about the whole thing. Fine. At 8:30 AM (actually about 8:40 AM, Ms. J told me that I had been selected for a random drug test at a clinic downtown. Fine. Off I went and peed in a bottle. Arriving back at the ranch, I immediately phoned Mr. K who was surprised that I was already done with the test (Huh? What--did he think I would have failed it or what?). He said to give a couple of minutes to get something together. Once again I found myself fuming at Mr. K's incompetence, absentmindedness, or just plain laziness. I'm beginning to think that dispatchers at our company believe truck drivers get paid by the hour instead of by the mile. What else could explain the repeated pattern of failure for allowing me to plan ahead for the next load as quickly as possible. This is getting to be ridiculous.
So I waited, and waited; ate breakfast; called my wife. Finally, the load assignment came in. It was a good load with one additional stop (two loads on one trailer) to North and South Carolina. So I grabbed an empty trailer at the lot and headed toward the shipper. Oh, I had to sweep the empty trailer out. Company policy dictates that a driver sweep the empty trailer that was just unloaded so that it's ready for the next customer and the next driver. So, the previous driver who dropped the trailer in the lot must be brain damaged. He neglected to sweep the trailer out for the next guy. Thanks buddy (whoever you are). May your "retirement" years be spent as a janitor--sweeping up after people. Maybe then you'll finally learn the value of obeying company policy. (Sorry about that rant--Of all the empty trailers I pick up, I've only had one that I can say had been swept out by the previous driver.
Well, the trailer I picked up had one flat tire and one semi-flat tire. In addition, when the trailer brakes were applied, air leaked out of the system which meant that had to be repaired. Since I still could stop the truck safely, I decided to proceed down to our Gary, IN terminal. The flat tires would be OK since it was somewhat cold out and was raining (Plus there wasn't much weight to the load itself).
I got to Chicago just as rush hour was reaching it's peak. By the time I got to Gary, I figured that I'd probably spend the night there since I wasn't sure when the mechanics would get the trailer fixed. This would mean that I'd be late on my first appointment tomorrow. It would need to be rescheduled.
The ended well as I called home and was wished a very happy birthday by my son (my wife and daughter extended to me a happy birthday earlier in the day).
miles driven = 354
10:02:22 PM
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