I called into dispatch mid-morning. I was offered a Chicago, IL area load whose appointment time (noon) would be very hard to make since I had to fuel on the way. I accepted the load after telling Mr. T. that I needed to fuel on the way.
At the warehouse, I noticed that the truck had been washed by a company that comes in and washes the tractors and trailers from time-to-time. They did a pretty good job at getting the truck clean--nearly as good as when Blue Beacon does their best job on the truck.
After picking up the trailer, I fueled on the way to Chicago. I arrived late to the appointment. The guy in charge asked me if traffic held me up since I was late (I think dispatch called them and said I'd be late due to traffic). I said "yes." I lied. Sure traffic held me up--but that wasn't the real reason for failing to be on time. The real reason was that I didn't have enough time to deliver the freight on time in the first place. I do not enjoy lying--once you start, it becomes easier and easier. Besides, what you sow, you eventually reap. So, the next time I'm presented with a similar situation, I'll either decline the load or let dispatch deal with the fact that the load will be late. If they want to make excuses and/or lie about why the freight was late, that's on their conscience. And I won't go along with their lie. When a company (or a person) doesn't own up to the fact that they made a mistake, they begin a process of deception that impacts both themselves and the customer. And sooner or later, it will come back to bite them in the butt. I do hope that the company will at some point take action so that they can both admit when things go wrong and take steps to prevent the same mistakes from happening again.
Because I was late to the appointment, the people helping unload the truck had gone to lunch. So, by the time the truck was unloaded, traffic was starting to build-up in the Chicago area as I began the return to Milwaukee, WI. I ran into quite a few bottlenecks along the way.
Monday I'll have an early morning start and head to Rockford, IL as well as around the Chicago area.
miles driven = 229
8:52:24 PM
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