Discontent

DATELINE: HOME, Saturday, August 18, 8:00 p.m.

Miles Thursday: 402
Miles Friday: 131

What? Miles on Friday? I thought I was supposed to go home on Thursday. Well, I was, and I did. But there's more to the story. And here it is.

Thursday morning, as you know, I got up earlier than necessary and posted an update to this blog. Afterwards I hi the road to take my assigned load to its delivery just east of Indianapolis. The drive and delivery went fine, nice 'n quick, and afterwards I retired to a Pilot truck stop right nearby. I had to wait to get word from Dispatch about whether I could just head home, or if they wanted me to pick up a load on the way. After an hour or so of waiting, a load assignment came in. They wanted me to pick up a loaded trailer from the Vandalia terminal, the load destined for a Friday morning delivery in Howell, MI (the town I was born in, coincidentally).

Before leaving to head back to Vandalia to retrieve the trailer, I replied to the assignment, asking them to verify that I'd drop the load where I park my truck when I'm at home so another driver could pick it up and make the delivery on Friday. On the way I got a reply, to the effect of, "I'll check on that and let you know." When I got to Vandalia and picked up the load, I sent another message asking the same thing. No reply this time. When I go to my home parking lot I unhooked the trailer and sent in the required "Finished with this load" and empty call messages. The reply this time: "This load is not set up to drop. You need to deliver it Friday (at 10:00 a.m.), then go home."

OK, I was at least already parked there and would spend the night at home, and I didn't have any plans for Friday morning and afternoon anyway, so I figured I'd just go ahead and make the delivery. I also figured I'd get another off day n the other side of the weekend. More on that later.

So my daughter picked me up and I headed home to spend at least a little bit of my anniversary there. (I didn't get home 'til after 10:00 p.m., and Mrs. R.T. was working 'til 11:00, but we did get to spend some time together on our actual anniversary.)

On Friday morning I got up and drove the Mrs. to work, then headed back to my truck to deliver the load. Once again the drive and delivery went fine, though for an industrial park, there were some tight places to maneuver trucks with 53-foot trailers. But I managed. Upon completion I hit the road back to my Romulus parking spot.

En route a message came in to my Qualcomm box, so I pulled into a rest area to check it out. Lo and behold it was a load assignment for a pickup at noon on Monday. Since this was Friday and I was due 3 days off (for having been on the road for 3-1/2 weeks), by my reckoning I wasn't due back 'til Tuesday. So I replied, "No can do. I need 3 days off" and set back off for hometime parking. By the time I got there, I had a reply, "Negative. You're due 3 days." Well, USA's definition of a "day" is a 24-hour period. (Actually, anything from 20 to 30 hours, or something like that. Three days is 68 to 90 hours.) So this yahoo assigning me the load was being a stickler for the details. Never mind that I'd been on the road for 3-1/2 weeks AND had worked an extra day because they were too stupid to figure out how to get someone else to complete the delivery of that last load AND it was past noon by the time I parked on Friday. (It wasn't my fleet manager, who I'm sure would have been a bit nicer about the timing.) So I've been screwed out of a day off that I contend that I've earned. This from a company with a double-sided billboard in West Memphis, AR, right in front of our terminal, that says (if I remember correctly), "Get Loads, Get Paid, Get Home." Their actions regarding driver treatment in this instance are speaking a LOT louder than their words. Anyway, I'm not real happy this weekend. But I've been too busy to stew about it and report on it 'til now.

Anywho, that's my report for today. Thanks for your interest in my hum-drum career, and keep yourself on truckin'.