Day three

Trucking serves me Humble Pie!

Well, have you ever felt really dumb? If you haven't, your trucking career will certainly help you get there one day. I thought I had such a great plan worked out for this load, and just as we were nearing our destination and checking my paper work I realize that I had the wrong delivery time slot fixed in my mind. I was supposed to be there no later than 11:00 - it's now a little after noon - AARGHHH! They refuse to unload me until Monday! Now I can't get the load my dispatcher had planned for me later today! Man, am I bummed and embarrassed at this point. I always try my best to be professional and reliable and then I go and do something really stupid like this!

After sending my dispatcher the dreaded news he sends me this message: "This is highly unlike you my man, you are one of my best drivers. I never have to worry about you. What's going on? Is everything Okay?"

I've already apologized profusely, and don't really know what to say to him. I let him know that nothing is wrong other than I just made a bone-head mistake. Gosh this is embarrassing.

Well, the whole point of doing this little exercise was to show everyone what it really is like out here, and now you know, it can be very frustrating at times. Sometimes it's other folks causing you issues, sometimes it's traffic, other times it's foul weather, and sometimes it's just your own bone-headed self that causes a major disaster.

I pride myself on thinking ahead and planning out these trips so that I can get more done than the typical driver. I usually do pretty well at it, but not today! Well, now we are stuck at a truck stop for the weekend. This is the first time this has happened to me, and it probably won't be the last. I've always had good success at having a load to take me through the weekend, and it is one of the goals that I keep in mind every week. In my opinion the way you make extra money in this business is to be pro-active and keep yourself available for a load when the load planners are needing some help. If you can be their "go to guy" you will quite often end up with the best runs.

I consistently average around 2800 miles/week, but recently I was visiting with another flat-bed driver here and he complained that he's never gotten more than eighteen hundred miles a week, and he's been here over a year now. When I questioned him further I found that he won't take a load on the weekend. He claimed that was his time, and he didn't allow them to control his weekend after they'd been running him ragged all week! I gently tried my best to lead him into the right way of thinking, but sometimes peoples mindsets are so cemented in fallacy that it takes a bull-dozer load of truth to get them moved off of their false position.

One of the things I do when I hit a snag in this business is try and make the best of the situation. Since my daughter is with me on this trip I'm gonna enjoy being with her and we will do some fun stuff together while we wait till Monday morning gets here. I'm gonna take a short break from this thread and will jump right back in here on Monday night to to let you know where we are headed next. I'm not sure if I will end up with that load going to Syracuse or not at this point!