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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2024 08 28 MN-MN 1 truck to Baxter MN (Thursday) spending the night at home Today was a fair day. As in we went to the State Fair. OTR dispatch called and asked if I could do a IL to OK tanker truck. 'Sorry, not this month.' And local dispatch called twice. The first time was to 'ask' if it was OK if I just brought the Baxter MN truck back to the lot instead of running it all the way to the drop. They are short of shuttle drivers and it will be a new dispatcher that is driving us. Then I get a second call from the local dispatcher saying they have found someone to move the Rochester to Cottage Grove truck so I will only be doing the Dodge Center to Lake Elmo Lake. SO it has gone from a long 14 hour (?) day to a four hour day. ... but the downside for me is still the '6 AM' leaving the lot. So up at <> 5 AM. Load board US - 344 IA - 53/47 MN - 0 WI - 14 2024 08 29 MN-MN 1 truck to Baxter MN (Staged) 2 trucks to Lake Elmo MN (Saturday) spending the night at home I was awake about 5 AM. Alarm was going to go off at 5:15. Out of the house at 5:35. Got to the office before 6 AM and all other drivers were in the van and waiting for me. Shuttle driver was out of the van right then and it was 6:02 when we pulled out. It's been 4-5 years since I have ridden in their shuttle. Today, none of the other drivers said anything. For the whole hour and a half. Sometime after an hour in the van I said something to the shuttle driver about not having to go to Baxter today. He had no idea what I was talking about. A few more questions and I found out that today's driver was not the dispatcher. It was a usual shuttle driver who had the same first name as the new dispatcher. That explained a few things. Having not ridden in the shuttle for a few years, things have changed. We got to the shipper and I had no idea what the driver was talking about. Until he told me that HE is the only person to go in the building. He has to go in and get our keys, he has to go in and drop off our paperwork before we leave. My truck is the third truck in the first row. I never even see who the other drivers are today. It was dark when I got in the van and I rode in the front seat and got out before they had their keys. I'm closest so the shuttle driver checks my out first. Pretty much the same thing BB does. Before I'm done, there is another driver taping placards on the truck next to me ... my OTR company. So I go and talk to him. After a while the shuttle driver says he is supposed to wait for all drivers to leave, but today he has one more driver to drop off today. So he leaves and the other driver and I talk ... and talk. My next stop is the Kwik Trip in Kasson for fuel and scale. This is a front loader so it needs to be weighed. I weigh OK so I was good. From here I called the head RV dispatcher. We can not sign up for a trip until Friday AM ... but watch the board after the office closes today. Shortest route from Kasson to the lot was back roads out of Kasson. No issues, once I got parked and in the office dispatchers were asking when I could work next. They were looking for someone for Saturday. So I messaged BB, she said we didn't have any plans. And I could here them calling drivers as I was doing my paperwork. Seems no one wants to work the Saturday of a holiday weekend. I told them then I could do one on Saturday. Before the end of the day, they called and asked if I could do a second one Saturday ... and one Friday. I said yes to the second one Saturday but no for Friday. After I was done at the office I headed back to the clinic. Lab work came back spot on so I should be good for a couple of months again. My BP had been going up again this last trip to Phoenix, right to my (self imposed) limit. But I checked it at the fair yesterday and I was down at the bottom of the limits instead of the top. I had said no to working Friday because we still need to find work for next week or plan on paying for a rental car to the west coast. I don't want to be doing a job for $50 and miss out on a trip for two that will net us $2,000. No RV's were put on the load board after the 5 PM close. BB looked at the weather and it looked like they got some of the same weather we got tonight. Close to two inches in a few hours. So tomorrow we will be ready to hit refresh again all day. Right now there is one to CA that would work. One is better than none. There are two ... opps, there is now only one to Draper UT that would work and still give us time to get to CA by Monday. There are also two to ID, but they are 1,500 miles and that is a bigger push than Phoenix was and then we'd have over 600 miles to get to CA. The miles to CA wouldn't be a problem, just a lot of deadhead miles. Load board US - 372 IA - 45/42 MN - 4 WI - 14 |
