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I was 130 miles from the house and was
looking at an entire day to do nothing. I got back in the car and
drove home.
On Monday morning I called in and drove back
to Council Bluffs. Freight was s l o w and dispatch gave me some
"busy work" loads to pull around. Even though my work week was
shorter, it felt longer.
My next trip out was a weird one, too.
I was supposed to go to my yard, get an empty trailer and live load in
Omaha, NE, for Texas. I called the
shipper, feeling paranoid after the previous week, but they assured me
that the load would load and that I needed to be there by 5:00 PM
Saturday. This deal just felt strange from the git-go: I was loading
a Texas load on a Saturday for a Tuesday afternoon delivery. I could
just about walk to Texas by then. I reasoned that maybe the shipper
was closed on Sundays and that's why it had to load on Saturday.
Whatever the case, I said I would be there to load it and pulled into
their facility around 4:00 PM.
I went into the office to check in and after
half an hour of them diddling with paperwork I was told that they had
already loaded the load on someone else and gee whiz, we just don't know
what to tell you, driver. Two weeks in a row now, I thought.
And, just like last week, weekend dispatch didn't have a clue what else I
should do. They ended up putting me on a load that was sitting at
the yard that would deliver in Sioux City, IA
on Monday at noon. Keep in mind that it is only Saturday and once
again, home is but 130 little miles away.... I'll bet you can guess what I
did. Yes, you're right, I turned that little Jeep Grand Cherokee
eastbound and went home until early Monday morning.
I returned yet again to
Council Bluffs, IA, grabbed the load and ran
it the 100 miles north to Sioux City, IA.
I was unloaded pretty fast but freight was still painfully slow so it took
a little while to get another load.
What they ended up giving me were more or
less city loads over the next couple of days. I loaded twice out of
Omaha, NE and ran those loads up to
Fremont, NE. After that I went to
Norfolk, NE to drop and hook and had nearly
two full days to pull it only 450 or so miles to
Hopkins, MN. Talk about boring. Talk about time passing
slowly.
I delivered to Super Valu in
Hopkins, MN, a driver-nightmare type of
place, at 6:00 AM on a Friday morning . It took something like 7
hours to get unloaded. I was out of there around 1:00 PM and was to
reload in Wells, MN. I called the
shipper to double check the loading time. I wanted to stop, eat and
shower, but not if I would lose my loading time or get penalized for not
being there. I was told that they needed a couple more hours to get
my load ready anyway. I took care of my business and headed in.
They underestimated just how much time they
really needed. I was stuck on their dock for about 8 hours. I
didn't pull out of there until nearly midnight. It had been one of
the most boring and long weeks of my life with this overabundance of
nothing to do.
I only ran a short way and put it to bed.
I got up in the morning and drove back to Council
Bluffs, IA, left the load for my partner and said good riddance to
a boring week. |
