 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
221013 MN-MN 1 roll-off truck to Hopkins MN - picture in prior write-up (delivered) 1 trash truck to Milica MN (delivered) 1 tanker to Lake Elmo MN (staged) ... spending the night at home Went 'down for breakfast' early this AM. (Our fridge is always open :) ) 7 AM local, 8 AM eastern, I called the rental dispatcher to get short trip from his load board. Dispatcher calls me back in a few minutes with the pay. ??? Less than half of what we got paid for a similar trip last year. But this one is right on our way home from a prior trip. Right, we will be going through both towns either way. We get outside and have everything loaded into our car and ... opps, we do not have the keys. After we started loading the car, BB had laid the keys on the table so 'I' would have them when we were ready to go. Nope, that didn't happen. 1st stop - Kwik Trip - On our way to the office we stop and put air in the same tire on the rental car again. It is before hours so I message dispatch that I am available to do the 2nd leg today. Yup ??? they had put my paperwork out last night for me. I didn't know that. We hadn't talked. 2nd stop in the office. Quick pre-trip and we are ready to go. Sometime about now I realize that I not only had forgotten the key ... I had forgotten my phone. Do we get it now? After this trip? At the end of the day? Not now, I had said I would delivery this early AM. 3rd stop is the Kwik Trip in South St Paul for fuel. I had estimated this truck getting 8 mpg but I was 50 miles shy of the drop when I ran out of 'that fuel.' I am supposed to leave the trucks on 1/4 of a tank of fuel. Gauge drops faster this AM so I use 6 mpg for the miles from 1/4 to the drop. When I first get back in the truck I think I am still going to be short but the fuel keeps climbing and I end up OK. As often, I never look at directions or a map if I think I know where I am going. Not even the exit numbers. Today I miss one of my landmarks and almost miss one turn, and I was watching, or I thought I was. 4th stop was the drop. No issues. I have to work quickly to get my stuff before they pull the truck away. We had taken my preferred way to the drop. On the way back we follow the computer. Traffic on the freeway was backed up for a mile and I was not in that lane early enough. No gaps to jump in so we went the other direction and made a u-turn at the next exit that was a few miles up. We still made it home by the original time estimate. Home. 5th stop is home. We realized we needed the dispatcher from this AM to send things to me that only go to my phone. Nothing for me. Not even the trip. When dispatch called to set up my pickup he was told it would be ready Tuesday (not today) That doesn't work for me. One less thing on our to-do list for today. 6th stop is back at the office. The boss must have a camera pointed at the entrance. As soon as I walked in, he met me at the door. He has some work out of state that may work out in the future. And then a dispatcher comes up to me with a trip offer. Longer than any chase trip we have done for them so far. I turn it down, it is 'out of my six hour window.' ;) When I look at my paperwork I realize that what we are required to put on the outside of the truck got wet from the rain. They always do. But the laminate is coming loose and water is collecting on the inside and then leaking back to other things in my back, including other paperwork. That now needs to be dried out. This truck still has enough fuel to get to the drop so it is a non-stop truck. 7th stop is the drop - I've been there before so I don't look at a map. Once in the town I know where it is, from the distance I see some trucks, but not enough trucks so I keep going. Then I realize I have gone too far. I didn't ask, but I think their office is now across the street from where it was and the old building is gone. When I get there, someone was backing a truck out of the building. They go park the truck and walk past me a couple of times before someone from the office stops them ... then they come and inspect my truck. Yes, they have a roll off truck coming also, it was likely the one I drove this morning, going to the dealer first before getting shipped up here. No issues with the truck. We go park at the Kwik Trip down the street so we are out of their lot. ... and put more air in the tire, third time in less than 24 hours. And we call dispatch to tell them I have delivered. They have another trip for me ... I do not commit. We talk about stopping to eat at the Frontier Steakhouse but I'm mostly staying away from salad's and BB wants less greens and this place has a lot of 'salad bar' items but not many hot food items. ... and we decide that IF we are going to work tomorrow we should keep moving. Two of the trips we have been counting on are now gone :( 8th stop is Culvers. We tried last night but the drive thru line was too long. Today we are in and out quickly. Shortly after we leave Culvers, we get a call from dispatch. They have a truck that is in route that we can pick up today and take back to the office. We are 10 minutes from the shipper. Dispatch will fax the paperwork to the shipper. 9th stop is the shipper. I've been here many times and know the contacts. No issues with the pickup. The only interesting thing is that there was a police officer parked in their parking lot right next to my truck as I am inspecting it. We do our inspection the usual way. Truck has enough fuel to get back to the office. 10th stop is the dispatch office. When I park I notice that a 'super sucker' truck that is parked there has is hose almost touching the ground. It looks like it is supposed to be fully retracted for travel. Also there was another tanker like the one I brought already in the lot, not sure why they brought one back and not both. I have four sets of paperwork that I need to get turned in to the office before we leave town. It takes a while but no one stops by to talk. Did see one driver walk in, wearing a jacket from a local farm dealer. Didn't think quick enough to ask where he was from. Once done, we move our luggage from one car to the other. We are done with the rental. 11th stop is the rental car shop. We return the car. We had reserved it for the rest of the week but between the issue and not knowing where we are going to end up on Monday it is best to get rid of it now. By now it is 4:30 and the rental dispatcher is gone home. I do call the trash truck dispatcher and find out what the one remaining trip pays. Also find out that he does answer the phone on Saturdays. But snow is in the forecast, 30%, and BB doesn't want to commit. We also don't know which trip we want. The trash truck will pay slightly better than a rental but will leave us a couple hundred mile further from the RV's when we drop. And the rental truck we can now call on one hour before we can call on the trash truck. Options. We did make above our minimum, only because we did not pay for a hotel last night. So not great money, but better than sitting at home. Load board US - 246 IA - 6/3 MN - 9 WI - 9 We still hope get a pair of RV's that pay. Same as we were hoping for the last two weeks. Until then we do short, local trips.
|
