"And this is a fucking Arkansas phone number for a load going to Laredo."
For the most part I'm a good sport. I realize that this is a crazy business and that people tend to make mistakes from time to time. And since I'm so nice and understanding I usually let little (but extremely annoying) things go by the wayside because there's not a whole helloalot I can do about and getting worked into a craze doesn't do anybody any good (believe me, I know.). But one thing that I cannot let go is bad directions followed up by a phone number that's out of state.
Lucky for me one didn't follow the other. I called a day before to get directions and when the lady on the phone told me to catch I40 East off of I35 South in Laredo I got suspicious. Lucky for me I have a notebook, a wireless card, and happened to be in the middle of reseting myself when I discovered this. One quick trip online and I got the right phone number. One quick call later I didn't get directions. The line the secutary transfered me to never picked up and the voice mail was in Spanish. So I went against better judgement and used the directions the company sent.
They did have the cross streets right. They said turn left and left again as it was right on the corner of the two said streets.
Well left resulted in seeing a no truck sign in front of you.
Another phone call and I got someone on the line who gave me proper directions. He said I should've turned right. And that they were down the street aways on the right. Funny I was under the assumption that they were on the corner on the left. I figured going with the guy who sitting where I needed to be would be the better route
It was.
In defense of PGT this has only happened once or twice before for me. Although other driver will tell horror stories. But as with all things told by a trucker (this one included) you must take it with a grain of salt. But I disgress. This type of mistake (no matter how uncommon) just should not happen. Most will call ahead to confrim directions, but when a bad phone number (a much more common mistake...I fucking hate the beeps of a fax machine picking up) is given in the process, you have to go on faith that the person who typed in the directions did more than punch a address into Goggle Maps.
If you have axcess to the internet and have the time and a place to park to get to it, it can help. It can also help to have a fiancee who LOVES nothing more than to try and find a phone number for you. But some are not as lucky as me.
I'm hopefull that there is someone i can contact tomorrow and let them know how backwards the directions are. And I'm sure it was just a mistake that someone forgot to double check and that it will be looked into and fixed ASAP.
As a side note, I really wanted to call this "why don't I take you out back, kick you in the balls, and we'll call it even".
.
Google map it,if you want a better appreciation for just how far north (nord) it really is. It's south (sud) of the middle of nowhere, east ('est) of Ontario, and west (oust) of nothing. All that said it's a pretty nice place with extremely nice people. I now have to stop talking shit about the French Canadians because they have proven me wrong. If you want the full story, you gotta ask in person. Over beers. And as desolate as it may sound, I felt more in the middle of nowhere driving though Kansas then I did up there. The two lane highways are dotted with small towns (all with little fuel stops) all the way up. At most I went 20 miles (32 km) without seeing a house or bussiness. That's not to say these were good roads. Once you get North of North Bay, Ontario they turn into 2 lane highways that are full of potholes with small but steep hills that will knock into 7th or 8th gear in a heartbeat and are littered with construction. Which means ONE lane roads. With wait times up to 10 minutes at times. The reason this is so bad is that it adds on a extra hour or so to your drive time. When 200 miles turns into 300 just sucks. One thing I've learned is that you can tell how small a town is by the hotness of the chicks on the road crew. Just a observation.
The other lesson learned on this trip was to double check with dispatch about what fuel stops takes Comdata. Because in Quebec, only 5 do. None of those were anywhere close to where I was. Oh, the website said they did...but it hadn't been updated in over a year and they had since stopped taking it. Leaving me sky high and fucked 2000 miles(3200 km) from home with ony a 8th of a tank left. It took some doing but PGT found somebody to find somebody to get me some fuel and on my way.
Or maybe 13.
A month after the fact I should say that I've been employed by PGT for over a year now. In a few days it will be a year in my own truck. And I gotta say that it was a rough first 7 months. As is noted is a earlier post. But ever since the first of the year, I don't have to many complaints. I did have one overwieght warning and one week in the hospital. Nothing major. Either one.
On the downside I did have to put down my dog of 11 years. She had bone cancer for a few months and it finally came time where it was just to much for her.
Thorn, I miss ya' girl.
On the trucking side of things I really feel that I have hit my stride. My over all time, fuel, and idle mangamant has really improved and it feels like I'm actually doing a decent job for once. I sometimes question how I'm doing then my dispatcher will tell me a story about something dumb another driver did and I'll realize that I might not be great, but I'm pretty damn good.
And I'll be staying out this weekend for the first time this year. And it's by choice.
This has nothing to with driving. Except, maybe, to show what I spent part of a recent Sunday off doing.
She's a Colombian Red-Tailed Boa.
Learning how to drive on ice and snow in a car is hard I imagine. Being born and raised in the Sunshine state and then moving to the Lonestar I wouldn't know.
If you want to learn how to drive on long striaght roads, come talk to me. That's my town.
This is the BEST hand dryer ever made (this is also what my life has become. Giving praise to a fucking hand dyer.)
It's the only one I have ever used that can get the hands completly dry. And it does it in a matter of seconds. It's great for when it's cold out and if you gotta put in/take out contacts in a rest area.
As 2007 comes to a end tonight, I find myself sitting at the TA in Effingham, IL. So I thought I would look back at my (almost) first year on the road and where I have spent the the "big" days.
Easter: This was the day I left out for Monaca, PA for PGT orientation. Left Houston and was 65. When I landed in Pittsburgh it was 30 and snowing.
My Birthday: Started out in Ft. Worth, TX and ended it in Fargo, ND. At a Bennigans. By myself. The cool thing was that my gf called the place from Houston and had them give me a BD sundae.
July 4th: This was spent mostly in Lonestar, TX as it was when I switched over to to running dedicated outta there. I ended up spending close to three hours at the yard switching out trucks, another hour and a half at the fuel stop while Monaca figured out how to switch my fuel card, and then another five hours driving home.
Halloween: I was at the TA in Perrysburgh, OH with a locomotive engine on the flat.
Thanksgiving: Started out in Hebron, OH and ate the buffet at the W. Memphis, AR Petro. Had the gf with me that week so it wasn't that bad. Got home the next day.
Christmas: This was spent at home. The other days I didn't really care where I was. But I had to be home for Xmas.
That seems to be my new line while walking though any random truck stop/ rest area. And it's always in response to some random stranger saying: "'scuse me driver. I'm down om luck/broke down/etc.". That's usually followed by: "can you spare one dollar/can I clean your windows or cab or wheels".
It's pretty fucking insane. And it's gotten to the point where I no longer even want to make eye contact or even give a head nod to a fellow driver as I pass by because I'm no longer sure what I might be inviting.
And that sucks because I always enjoyed that part of the "trucker brotherhood"-as it is. Just a general respect for a fellow worker.
Jesus.
I just went back and read the all the post before the one I wrote last night. All the post from back when I was in school and still in training. To some extent, I'm still that nervous newbie, especially when I get to load something for the first time and I go and ask every other trucker in the joint how they do it (and I sally get a different answer from every guy).
Then again, when I go up 55 north past the Swift training center, I laugh to myself as I watch the newbies white knuckle the wheel with both hands as they're doing 35 down the feeder road.
Seven months and I'm still trucking.
Wow.
Not to say that it's been easy. Not by any means. Now don't get me wrong, I've had my fair share of good days and even the occasional good week. But more often than not I found my myself wondering "what the fuck did I get myself into?". This job is hard, stressful, fucking annoying, boring, and sometimes down right mean. You can tell yourself all you want that you are ready to handle this job right outta the gate, but you're going to be wrong. No amount of training can prepare you to life on the road, by yourself. And this is coming from a flatbedder that gets home most weekends, has a awesome g/f that is almost always willing to hear me rant and rave about whatever may be going on, and a dispatcher that I love.
How those drivers that stay out weeks at a time and have a family at home do it, I'll never know. What I do know is that I could never do that. I would park the truck in a ditch and walk home sooner than deal with that shit. So call me a pussy. It's something I can live with. And I really don't care what you think.
I've learned alot about myself over these past seven months. Number one being that I need a routine in my daily life to be really happy. If you know this before getting into trucking. Don't get into it. I knew I had some control issues before hand, but never did I imagine that this job would send them over the edge. Waiting for loads, waiting to get loaded, waiting to get unloaded, waiting for the jackass in front of you at the fuel island to get his ass out of Arby's and back into his truck.
Time is a big thing out on the road. If you're a clock watcher, watch the fuck out. That thing will crawl on you when you least want it to. It's a necessary evil of the job (and of life in general) but you gotta be careful no to become a slave to it.
Now that's not to say everything about this job is negative. It just seemed like it for a while. And who knows. Maybe it will again down the road. This job has a bitch of a learning curve and you're going to hit the wall hard more than once before you get a feel for how it all works and how you can work (and survive) within it. The trick is bouncing off the wall and learning from it. And when the time comes that you don't bounce back, it's time to rethink the whole fucking thing.
If you've ever read Starship Troopers, you might remember the part where the soliders are forced to "get over the hump" before they can truly be soliders. That kinda works the same for this job. There's going to be that time when it's all gonna be laid out in front of you and you're either going to keep on trucking, or you're going to go home.
I'm writing all this because not only did I not bounce back from my last run in with the wall. The motherfucker fell on top of me. Or at least that's what it felt like. It's amazing what a bunch of stupid shit can do to ya' when it all piles up at once.
Right now I'm sitting at a TA in Gary, IN hopeing to get a load early tomorrow so I can get home this weekend because I spent 140 bucks for a mma fight down in Corpus. But I'm cool. I'm calm. I'm holding out hope and using my extra spare time to write this down, because my dr. thinks it's a good way to get my "feelings" out and help me from hitting that wall again. And I suspect he just may be right.
