What if you pulled a load and were't paid for it?

Curiouser and curiouser. As it turns out, this load of salt I brought up to Omaha yesterday has two stops: Omaha and Grand Island. Now, when the broker who "owns" the load set it up it was to deliver first in Grand Island at 0400 Monday morning, then offload the rest in Omaha at 0830. It turns out that somewhere along the way the actual loads were reversed, with the Omaha pallets in the back of the trailer.

I wasn't really aware of all of this, as my orders were to pick up the load and bring it to our Omaha HQ then drop it off. Once I got the paperwork I started getting suspicious, since it shows the load going first to Grand Island which is about 130 miles to the west of Omaha. There was some back-and-forth with the weekend dispatch crew while I was en route, but eventually it was settled that I would drop off in Omaha. I was told that if we don't deliver the load as it was originally set up then we won't get paid for it. I still get paid for pulling it, though.

Weekends can be a bit... hit-and-miss as far as loads go, so I wasn't entirely surprised that I had the rest of the day off. Not much of a day, given that it was freezing and windy, but I got a shower, restocked the food supply and played for a while on the computer.

"Glad I ain't you, bro"

This was the pithy comment a homeless guy wandering around in the middle of the street made to me as I was sitting in Chicago last week with my busted trailer.

Salty

Last night I found myself outside the Morton's Salt plant in Hutchinson, Kansas waiting to pick up a load another driver was unable to handle due to weight. My Volvo isn't a light truck by any means, but I was dispatched to nearby Lyons, Kansas to grab an empty van trailer there to use for the load. The 44,349 pounds of salt and the pallets they rested on still left me 2,500 pounds below the limit, though my fuel tanks were nearly empty.

My orders are to take the load up to Omaha and drop it. The load itself doesn't deliver until Monday.

Overnight runs suck

After an interesting delivery yesterday in Kearney, Nebraska, I was sent to nearby Lexington, Nebraska (home of my favorite super Wal-Mart -- great truck parking!) to a Tyson plant. My load was supposed to be ready by 1830 but they were having problems and I didn't roll out the gate until after 2100. It was due this morning in Emporia, Kansas, a drive of about 360 miles.


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The departure delay took my estimated arrival time from between midnight and 0100 to something more like 0400. This is the difference between stretching a few more hours past my regular bedtime to the pain-in-the-ass tired overnight trips I love to hate.

The weather wasn't cooperating, either. Strong gusts of arctic air and snow flurries punctuated the first half of the drive, eventually devolving to just cold weather. I had to pull over to take three or four power naps as I tired out since I don't use caffeine, nicotine or other stimulants.

Some poor schmoo must have peed in someone's cornflakes, as the weigh station between Nebraska and Kansas along a state highway was manned at 0200 or so when I drove by. Poor guy.

Delivered early this morning and sent an admonition in to my dispatcher: "This driver is exhausted, grumpy and sleepy. Do not disturb until 1200."

Revelations

It turns out swinging trailer doors, sliding tandems and getting a washout at a meat packing plant when it is freezing and the winds are blowing with gale force while gagging from the stench really isn't very pleasant. More later. Perhaps.

10.5 and 15 Freaking Signatures

So, I made it home the day after my last post and came back this morning. My dispatcher got me a kinda lame load out of Carthage heading to Nebraska that loaded mid afternoon and delivers tomorrow afternoon. Tried to get it tcalled in Kansas City or Omaha but that wasn't happening, so I'm stuck with it.

I loaded in a different area of the cave system in Carthage that I've been to before and the paperwork was formidable. Fifteen pages of bills for the load and I had to sign every single one, and put the date on four or five as well. Turns out, it is a government load of food products going to some outfit or other and the requirements are strict.

The weather was warm and very windy as I left, with a 20-30 MPH tailwind. On the way up to Kansas City I was getting 10.5 MPG, which eventually dropped to 8.6 on the hills north of town. Spending tonight in Nebraska City, Iowa then heading over to Nebraska in the morning.

Can't quite make it home

How did yesterday's late and delayed loading screw me today, you might be wondering.

See, if I had been assigned the load in time to arrive on time at the shipper I would have been loaded in less than two hours or else they would have had to pay detention. Coupled with arriving at least an hour earlier, I would have had three extra hours to run after I was loaded which would have let me avoid the masses escaping Chicago around 5 PM on a Halloween Friday. Those extra three hours down the road would have helped today getting to Omaha, then on down to Carthage, Missouri with my usual Americold load. I would have had just enough time to finish that trip and get home today, Saturday instead of sitting tonight in the last rest area north of Kansas City until the morning.


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In short, I've lost most of a day off because of something that happened yesterday.

On the plus side, I am taking off until Wednesday the 5th of November for some long-overdue home time. I've been through the house occasionally for short 34-hour breaks and a few days here and there but nothing this long since I started my lease this June.