An hour later I was zapped a new assignment. I was picking up at a stucco/cement place in Newnan. GA. Good deal. I was just in Newnan not to long ago so I kinda knew where I was going and it wasn't a paper load. Plus I was allowed to bring it through the yard so I could be home for Easter. This is where things got ugly for awhile.
I show up and find myself going in the wrong direction. It was TIGHT and I had to pull back and move my tandems all the way up. As I was backing to retry I scraped the bumper on my right side on a pile trash that had wood and drywall sticking out.
The forklift guy seemed amused as he told me they had no dock and other trucks didn't have a problem getting in. He was amused until he found out that I wasn't allowed to touch freight and he had to load the truck by himself. Then he proceeded to go off the deep end. Cursing, babbling about somebody and he basically told me he wasn't gonna load me and I would be waiting a long time. Great this meant my Easter might be ruined due to some butthead who was too lazy to do his job. My 14 hour clock was ticking away.
I make a phone call and my people talked to the broker's people, who talked to the customer's people. Ten minutes later I was told I would be loaded and that we were just waiting on another guy to run the pallet jack. All this for just ten pallets. Twenty minutes later the calvery arrives. This is when they discovered that the pallet jack wasn't gonna work. Each pallet weighed 3800 lbs and the pallets were not gonna work with that particular jack. Luckily for this place they were neighbors with a heavy equipment place that happened to have a dock ramp.
So the waiting for the Calvery, the griping of the forklift driver, and my scratched bumper was all in vain because someone somewhere didn't know what the heck was going on. I maneuver out of the tight lot and went next door to a much nicer, much bigger place and was loaded in 30 minutes. I was smart this time and told them how the pallets should go in so I wouldn't be heavy on my drive tires. I made it to Lincoln, AL to shut down.
This is when I discovered it was gonna be tight on time getting to the yard. I had 9hours and 54 minutes left of my 70 hours of the week.
The next morning I found myself having to get the manager to get a truck that was parked at the only ULSD fuel lane that was open. the truck was an older truck that didn't even need the new fuel and the driver was just sitting there. He wasn't even at the pump just behind it. I had already started my clock and this nimrod didn't know what he was doing. After he moved I was getting my fuel when another driver came up to me and asked me what town we were in.
Here's the conversation:
Driver - "What town are we in?"
Me - "Lincoln."
Driver - "Lincoln where? Texas?"
Me - "No Texas is three states away. You are in Alabama."
Driver now looking confused - "Uhm....Thanks."
I followed this guy to Birmingham. There was definitely issues going on.
It was tight on the time. I made it to the yard with six minutes OVER my 70 hours. if it wasn't for the fuel fiasco I would have been right on the money. SIGH. The yard was packed with trailers but I managed to squeeze into a spot and called it a week. Happy Easter.
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