Good to be home

I'm posting from one of my favorite places to be, at my desk, at home.

Of all my 3 week runs I have done, this one ranks at the top for being the most difficult. The weather was awful, I had more mechanical problems than ever, and my miles were way down. Such is February in America, everyone just hunkers down and waits for spring, or at least for their tax returns, to get in the warmer weather spirit. So be it, sometimes life sucks and you just get over it...

My last run kept to the model of the entire run. I picked up a loaded trailer in Rhode Island to take it to PA and drop it off for another driver to take it to KY, this is called a relay load. The trailer I picked up was not a company trailer, it was a white box with no name on it. This is odd, but not out of order, especially with a slow economy, sometimes we move trailers that belong to a manufacturer that has their own fleet of trailers. I was told this was mine to pick up by the shipper, and the paperwork matched my load request, so I sent a message to my dispatch team letting them know about the white box, and went down the road.

I had four drive hours left on my day, but it was getting late, and I knew about an accident on 95 south in CT, so I drove for 2 hrs and found a rest area to call it a day. This also let me run NYC very early in the morning on a Saturday, which is much better than attempting it on a Friday night.

I sailed through NYC around 3:30am the next morning, and made it to Carlisle PA without issue. When I went in to our OC, I received a message saying that this isn't oue of our trailers (no kidding...) and that it would have to go back to Rhode Island and be transferred to one of our trailers. Oh yeah, the shipper isn't open on weekends, gonna have to get it there on Monday.

Fortunately for me, I had done my job right. I confirmed with the shipper that I was to take this trailer, I contacted my team to let them know about the trailer, and I held the trailer a relatively short distance from the shipper for over 10 hrs for my DOT required break. I got paid to bring it back to RI. None of this changes the situation that somebody got yelled at and got in trouble for not picking up on this earlier, and I feel bad about that. I'm not out here trying to make anybody's life hard, or waste a bunch of company money. I've been self-employed before, twice, and wasting company money has been beaten out of me the hard way.

I love the smell of New York City in the Morning!

Monday was supposed to be my first full day at home, but it became a half day, and will get me an extra day off on Saturday, so I guess that is a good thing. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to my March run to get my mojo back, and a little extra cash in hand. Until then, I'm gonna be driving my little pickup around Maine, doing my taxes, and paying bills.

See you in a few days...