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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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200623 WI-WI 1 garbage truck from Somerset to Eau Claire WI, 71 miles... spending the night at home Before dispatch opens, we finally get an emailed receipt for the rental car we returned, over a week ago. And it is wrong. They billed us for an extra hour because they 'assumed' that even though we picked the car up an hour early that we would still return it at the original set time. We didn't. We had returned it 18 hours before it needed to be returned. It's only $10 but it's the principal of the situation. So I sat on hold for customer service until it was almost 8 AM, no one had picked up so I'll try another day. Called this AM at 8 AM and had to leave a message, called back at 8:05 and got dispatch. Very short conversation. "I'll take the run," "How much fuel do I leave in it?" and gave them my driver number. 10 minutes later they had emailed me my paperwork, I printed out one copy and we were headed out. 30 minutes later we are in Somerset WI and found the right address but wrong building. We headed in the back way and found the right building ... and the right truck. BUT the truck only had 4 of 12 tires and the wiring for the cab was all torn apart. That was 9 AM, finally at 11:30 the truck was ready to go. During that two and a half hours there were lots of phone calls and questions. No one seemed to know if the truck was supposed to go or why it was supposed to go. I was making phone calls, this shop was making phone calls, my dispatcher was making phone calls. And all I knew was a pickup location, a drop location and the VIN. By chance, Pomps / the tire people, showed up with tires so those got put on. Then they put the wiring back together enough so I could head down the road. Not sure why they were putting all new tires on a truck they just bought with only 204 miles. It seems what happened was that the shipper shipped the truck directly to the customer. Trucks for this customer are first supposed to go to the closest dealer for PDI / pre-delivery inspection. That was my guess based on other locations and had suggested that was the reason but everyone had to find that out from the person who made that decision. Once we knew everything was a go, the location said they needed another 30 minutes to get the truck ready and fuel it. So BB and I went into town and had Subway. No one we saw there was wearing masks and we didn't either. We did see one Apple River Shuttle on the road but it was empty. Not sure who their business is going. Another good lesson on CALLING AHEAD to make sure the truck is ready. Opps. Been a while since I've moved anything other than brand new, 1st leg stuff. Did a quick pre-trip and we were rolling. BB was going to follow and make sure the tires didn't fall off but it wasn't too long before cars got between us and I didn't see her again until I was at the drop. Been on all these roads many times before today. Lots of changes over the years in most areas. A lot of I-94 that I was on today is new concrete. Very rough ride in a cab over truck. That was one thing I was wondering about, what kind of truck it was going to be. But I didn't ask, this dispatcher doesn't seem to know more than is showing online. Turns out this was a normal/left steer drive and a cab over. And because it was going to a Mack dealer I had guessed right, it was a Mack truck. 10 miles of the freeway is road construction right now and most of the way no one passed me, but one truck did, and just as he pulled out to pass there was debris in the road. I ducked when he hit it as I thought the thing would come flying my way. It didn't. All this where the lanes are narrow and there are concrete barriers on both sides, no shoulders. As I got closer to the drop I realized that I had never looked at a map to see where I was going. I know where the Mack dealer used to be and just assumed it hadn't moved. If it had I would just have to pull over to the side of the road and look for directions. It hadn't moved. The dealer did a 'check in' inspection and when they mentioned what they checked, I asked if I was supposed to bring it back to the shipper right away ... No, this was just the 'check in' inspection. I'm just not used to them doing quite this complete of an inspection. I asked how long it takes to do the inspection or when they would get to it ... they should have it done tomorrow ... but the dealer will deliver it back to the customer so I don't need to look for it on the load board. What we thought would be a three hour trip turned into a five hour trip. No extra pay as far as I know. I need to get some lab work done today that I didn't think of doing yesterday so BB drives so I can be on hold. I'm on hold 10 minutes when dispatch calls me back so I put my hold call on hold and take their call. I'm guessing the hold call finally picked up because it was gone when I was done with dispatch. So I call and am on hold again for 5 minutes and lose the call. So I call back a third time and finally after 10 minutes someone does answer ... but needs to transfer my call. Now I'm on hold another 10 before a person who can help me answers. So almost 30 minutes on hold to make an appointment that will take less than three minutes from the in door to the out door. Back to dispatch. I'm not sure what is going on, my paperwork for today's trip shows in process on one screen and completely NA on others. But I haven't been paid yet. Called local dispatch. Still no work. I told them that if they didn't have work for me by Friday I'd be NA after that. Would like to be out of town over this weekend so we have a chance of getting a round trip. Did make to to my lab appointment later tonight. First we stopped a Byerlys, a local up-scale grocer for something from their deli. Unlike this AM at Subway, we did not see anyone, customer or employee, who was not wearing a mask. So we did also. They were out of the chicken salad sandwich I had stopped for so I got a wrap that was close. Beats another fast food sandwich. Sort of? IA loadboard is at 53. Plus two non-RV's and one of them is going to CA. The longest RV trips are going out near Seattle and there are two no-tows. MN loadboard is at 8 and one of those is going to Mason City, about a half hour from Forest City/the RV's. WI loadboard is 6, all mixers out of Oshkosh. And they have been adding some each day so it might be a new account. Total load board is at 150 so that seems about right. Total board is usually double or triple the IA loads. Tomorrow we will just hang out, watch the load board and call dispatch ... again ... after 4 PM if they haven't called us. |
