Missed the Delivery Appointment Well sitting at the breakfast table this morning, my dispatcher called me up. My delivery was not at 5:00 PM later in the day. It was supposed to have been delivered at 5:00 AM this morning. Oops--my mistake and a big one at that. Mr. K did not hide his disgust at my not delivering the load on time. On the one hand I don't blame him for being angry with me. On the other hand, it was very amateurish on his part to express himself the way he did at me. I remember well my customer service days at a Fortune-50 call center. If I would have handled an internal or external customer the way I was treated by Mr. K, I would have been written up and reprimanded big time. Mr. K gets away with it just because he's in the trucking industry. To be sure, there's some great fleet managers (dispatchers) in the industry. However, Mr. K will need to learn a thing or two before being nominated as a great fleet manager within this industry.
The load was rescheduled for 10:00 AM (the earliest time I thought I could get the load to the delivery location). So, since my car was being repaired, my wife and I rushed off into a snow storm and rush hour traffic. We left our 7-year old and 6-year old home alone to wait on our neighbor to pick them up for school (our upstairs tenant was also home and she kept an ear out for what was going on as well).
To make a long story short, I made the 10:00 appointment by about 2-minutes. I breathed a sigh of relief! As I opened the doors of the truck, I noticed a big piece of cardboard with nylon tape straps holding a bulging load from falling out of the truck. I said to myself, whatever is behind that piece of cardboard may end up on the ground before I get backed into the dock. Sure enough, as I was gingerly backing down the sloped ramp towards the dock, the nylon straps broke and about 20-30 items fell of the truck. Great. So, I picked them all up, brushed the snow and slop from them, and handed them to the receiving people. I then proceeded to back the rest of the way in without incident. Could the day get any more exciting?
A few hours later, the truck was unloaded and I was on my way back to the drop yard to see what my next load assignment would be. I retraced my route to pick up a load near Miller Park (Home of the Milwaukee Brewers) and then went back to the drop yard at the start of more snow and the beginning of rush hour.
Tomorrow morning I'll be headed north towards the Green Bay area and pick up a load and take it back to the Oak Creek drop yard. Then I'll probably get a couple of more loads in the greater Milwaukee area before going home for the weekend.
My wife and the kids picked me up and we went home. Heidi went on to a business meeting and the kids and I ate supper (after they finished their homework), folded the laundry, and watched a 3-2-1 Penguins video (Big Idea Productions) before they went to sleep.
A big snow storm is scheduled to hit the south eastern Wisconsin area starting tomorrow afternoon and evening. Looks like the kids and I will be able to make a snowman--the first one of the season. Should be fun!
Oh, I talked to another company driver and he mentioned that time of year is usually somewhat slow for freight. That's good to know since I was wondering why I haven't been getting the miles. But he was surprised that I was averaging less than 2,000 average miles-per-week. Hmm...his reaction indicates to me that something is indeed fishy as to why I'm a national driver and driving less than 2,000 miles/week.
miles driven = 84
11:21:09 PM
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