More Hard Lessons From The Road. LOL

Well here I set outside of Columbus OH on a "forced 34".

Yeah, it was my fault. A rookie mistake. I didn't keep a close enough watch on my 70 hour clock. After two 14 hour days. Two 11 hour days. And a couple of other long days, yeah I should have been keeping a better eye out. My fault.

No good reason except to say I was trying to make a good impression on my company. The loads they would send, if they were do-able, I wouldn't change them. Knowing in the back of my mind it would come back and haunt me. Well it has.

While I take all the blame, I won't say it was all my fault. Yeah, I know all the puzzled looks right now.

After setting at 3 docks this weeks that took over 4 hours each to load. And of course the weather. I missed the freezing rain that hit Arkansas by one day. I came through the day after. Which ended up a good thing. I-55 and I-57 out of West Memphis was riddled with semi's in the ditch or off the side of the road. I said a silent prayer for each one as I passed.

Later on that evening, the wind picked up really bad and started blowing snow back across the road. It wasn't long before we were driving on ice all over again. I don't know how far I traveled before I found my first open spot but as soon as I got to the truck stop, I shut down for the night. About an hour and a half before my planned stop. Hey, stuff happens right.

But all went well. I was safe and parked. The next day was a new start. I started out early because I didn't know how the roads would be. They were in great shape. I even got to my drop an hour early. I was there at 6am. They didn't open till 7am.

I already had a load leaving Chicago and heading back to Front Royal, VA. Did I ever mention, I HATE CHICAGO.

Anyway. I get unloaded. I have about 3 hours to kill before my pickup. I get on the internet to try to find a phone number. See if I can pickup earlier.

All of the sudden my Qualcomm beeps at me. I have been unassigned that load but assigned 2 new loads. One was a relay. Trailer was already there. 12 miles away. COOL. I didn't have to wait. Plus these two loads give me more miles that the one I was unassigned from.

Did I mention, I HATE CHICAGO.

I have been to Chicago 5 times in my life. At all times of the day and night. While NYC and Washington DC have their moments with traffic and rush hour. There is no time frame with Chicago. It is rush hour all times of the day or night.

It took me over 2 hours to get 12 miles. Then it took another hour and a half to just get out of town. As I said, I made my drop at 0700. I left there at 0800. I got to my pickup at 1030.

Then I had to beat on the landing gear. It was frozen. The trailer had been there for 3 days. Don't you just love it.

Driving my first winter in a semi. I still have to say I do love the winter time. Snow, I love. Slick roads, not so much. But fooling with frozen landing gear is not my idea of having a good time.

So now, I have my trailer finally getting the landing gear to work. I am now 3 hours behind. And I still have to leave town. That adds another hour plus to my trip. They close at 1430. I had full intentions of getting there by noon at the latest. Now I might not make their closing time.

I do make it, but only by 15 minutes. Now I am late for my pickup. I was suppose to be there by 1400. It is only 40 minutes away. But guess what. I get there at shift change.

I think I said it in a prior post. "The best laid plans of mice and men.". NEVER, NEVER think any of your plans are set in stone. As Brett calls them. The "Trucking Gods" will always step in at the wrong time.

I think it is "Murphy's Law" that says something like, "If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. And usually at the most inopportune time."

After having such good plans for my day. I end up having just enough time to make it to a truck stop 14 miles from my pickup before my time runs out for the day. My original plans were to make my drop, my pickup and still have enough time to make it back to north Chicago before stopping for the night. That way I get up early and try to get through Chicago without too much of a headache. Did I ever mention, I HATE CHICAGO.

Well I start out my new day with plans on making it to such and such before stopping for the night. It would give me a short day for Saturday. Where I planned on stopping was only 3 or 4 hours from my drop. I knew I didn't have much time coming back that night so I would need a short drive for a drop. Well, I didn't make it. Chicago traffic again. Did I ever mention.... yeah, I think I did.

So now, I am 7 hours from my drop point. Well GPS and Google maps say 6 hours, but I am loaded to 78,000 and I am going across I-68. You don't make good time with that kind of a load on I-68.

Some interesting news I found out the other day at one of my drop points. But I will post that in another post.

Keep it safe out here, the life you save might be your own. Joe S

Keep trucking Joe! Mistakes are inevitable just don't hit anything and you learn from them. There's so much to keep track of. Just learn and move forward! I'm not a fan of forced days off either. Haha

Joe, I've been keeping up with you with interest. I haven't had a whole lot of time to respond lately, but just wanted you to know that you're doing the right things. I know you've heard us all talk about how the learning curve really kicks in during that first six months of running solo, and you're getting a full dose of it. Most people think we are talking about learning to handle a big rig, and there is certainly some of that going on, but mostly we are referring to learning how to handle the job itself in a manner that enables you to make a decent paycheck. Trucking has a large share of naysayers as you well know, but most of those whiners and complainers are the people who never really get the hang of how to make yourself more productive in this career. It's the one that "get it" that go on to have satisfying and productive careers.

Brett gave such an excellent response the other day to someone along the lines of what you are going through, but I don't have the time right now to look it up. Basically he was saying that even though companies have their stated policies about not wanting you to contact the shippers or receivers they usually look the other way when they realize you are doing it as long as you are getting things accomplished. Moving freight is the way they make money and when they've got a driver that can get more freight moved than his peers, they don't really care how he's doing it (as long as it's legal and safe) they end up rewarding him with more to do and are grateful they've got a person with some initiative.

I know I've shared this story before, but for your sake I'll risk boring others with it. One time I found my self at a receiver early, but it was at the end of the day on a Friday. I contacted them to see if we could move my delivery time, only to be informed that their policy was that it had to be done by my dispatcher. I already had a pre-plan for Monday that I had gotten the pick-up moved to Saturday morning. I contacted weekend dispatch to see if they could move my appointment for me, and then waited about two hours. I made several phone calls and sent in Qualcomm messages trying to find out if they had done anything yet, all with no response. So, I finally just called the receiver and told them something like this: "Hello, this is Dale at Western Express, we've got a driver sitting five minutes down the road from you and need to see if you could work him in." Their response was "sure, there's not much going on around here right now, so send him on over."

Joe, I didn't have to lie, or do anything that I felt was in-ethical, but it worked, and I even got a curt., but comical message from weekend dispatch about six hours later saying how they had tried to change my appointment only to find out I had usurped them and was on to the next job.

Keep up the good work Joe, I can see you're not afraid of long hours and that will benefit you greatly. This is definitely one of those careers where if you've got some initiative and a willingness to really give your all you will come out on top.

OS,

Maybe that is the way to approach it from now on?!? Call a shipper / receiver and say, "Dang it! I got this driver that is calling me every ten minutes to get loaded / unloaded. Please, help me out here. This driver is a maniac. Can ya help me out and push the time up for him. This driver in nutz!" Then when they do the dispatcher a favor and you show up, they are like, "Just get this guy loaded or unloaded and get him out of here. His dispatcher said he was a nut!"