Its Raining! It's Pouring!

So home time was really great, as usual. ;) I made it to PA Thursday evening, which was May 3rd, but when I pulled up to the customer, they told me they wouldn't take me until after 3 am. They advised me where I could park, and then I drove two blocks away and parked and called erin to let her know that I wouldn't be home that night, but instead would be home the next morning. We made plans to go to IHOP for breakfast. Then I changed into my sleep clothes and went to bed for just under 5 hours before I had to get up to head back to the customer. My hours were all used up, and I still had to be listed as in the sleeper for another 2 hours to get my time back, so I knew I couldn't "drive" back. So what I did is I literally idled my way back to the customer, which basically meant I didn't use the accelerator at all, and ended up going 5 mph all the way back. It was only 3 blocks, but going 5mph made it take about 30 minutes for me to drive back. Then by the time I was able to dock (because there was another trailer in the dock they assigned me and I had to wait for the yard-jocks to move it out of the way), it was like 4:30 am, then I was parked at the dock for another 2 hours before they got me completely unloaded.

Then, despite that the guard the night before told me "oh you can leave your empty here, that's fine!" So I got done, I disconnected from my trailer, picked up my paperwork, and drove to the guard shack. The guard working at that time was different and he was all huffy with me like "where's your trailer?! You were a live unload, you have to leave here with your trailer!!!" I was like "Sir, I was told you guys allow emptys to be dropped here." To which he just repeated what he said and was very snippy. Finally I was like "look, I'll go get my trailer. I 'm just telling you what I was told by one of your other guards." He was like "oh, ok.. Well I'm not mad at 'you', it's just we can't use the types of trailers you guys use." So I went back in and rehooked back up, and ended up going down the street to where I parked the night before which was owned by nestle, and figuring that we also deliver for nestle, I pulled up to their call box and was like "could you guys use an empty cr england reefer trailer?" And they were like "sure! You can drop it here!" then they asked me a few questions like "how much fuel does the reefer have?" which is very common for them to ask, but then they asked "what's your drivers license number?" I was like "seriously?" But I went ahead and gave it to her. I'm guessing it was so that if I ended up giving them a trailer with tons of damage or something, that they would have my information on file. Obviously I wasn't giving them a crap trailer, but I guess it makes sense to take precautions.

So I left home today to come over here to New Jersey to get an empty trailer and wait for a load. I got a message from my dm saying "hey, they have this short delivery to new york, would you be willing to help them out with that?" I was like "not really. I've been burned too many times in the past two weeks. I don't think I would be willing to risk it again." Then the load planner messaged and said "we really need your help. You are our only option. Can you help us with this load?" I responded "as I told my DM, I have been promised this and that the past two weeks every time you needed a local delivery and each time I was burned. So they assigned me this local delivery for tonight, and they stacked a 2200 mile load going to utah from here in pa on top of it, and at first I was like "ok, fine, i'll do it." I haven't officially accepted the loads yet, and I was sitting here remembering how they gave me a 400 mile load to dallas from Laredo, and made it more worth it by giving me a 2,000 mile load to washington state, but then I got up around midnight to take off for the dallas load, and when i woke up, I had a message saying that the washington load was pulled from my truck by a different load planner. I was like "WTF man?!" By that point, I had already officially accepted the short load to dallas, and the only catch was, i then didn't have the big load that was promised. So I took the load to dallas, and that's when I ended up going to colorado instead. 700 miles versus the 2,000 that I was originally going to do.

So I just called my dm back and said "i have a concern before I accept these loads." He was like "whats that man?" I was like "remember in laredo when I agreed to take the one to dallas and I had the one following that, going to washington state for 2,000+ miles?" he was like "yeah?" I was like "and then by the time I went to pick up the dallas load, the big load was removed from my truck. I'm concerned about accepting this local delivery and then the big load with awesome miles gets removed from my truck." He was like "i guarantee you no matter what happens that I will see to it that you get a great load with great miles out of there." So apparently this load i'm taking from the yard here tonight has 2 drops in new york, but they are having me take the loaded trailer to ny, go to the first drop right away *which it's a little over 100 miles away, so i will get there quick*. Do the drop at the first one, then come back here to the yard I'm at right now, drop the load, and pick up an empty, and then they will have a different driver deliver the 2nd drop tomorrow. I will then go to the location where i'm picking up the load for utah. I'm like "wow...why are they doing it like that?" He was like "i'm not sure... it's weird, but hey, atleast its only one drop and not two."

So my current class that just began this week is Finance. It's technically a re-take, because when I took this class last time, I was in 2 classes at once, and it was during my cdl truck driving school and I had to withdraw because I was so busy that I was having trouble finding the time to work on the homework. But it has made my assignments that I'm working on easier, because I technically have already been through the class, so I am familiar with the stuff to read and look for and how to answer. I was only failing last time because I was turning stuff in way too late because of time issues and what not, but i'm trying to make every attempt to get all my assignments in by the deadline so I can get the max points available to me.

So on that note, I'm going to call that it for tonight. I hope you are all having a blessed evening, and I will talk to you all again soon!