It's six P.M. Eastern time here in Knoxville, Tennessee where I just woke up after a good rest in my sleeper. Yesterday I waited all day at the SAPA plant in Delhi for them to get my next load ready. It is a load going to Connecticut, and upstate New York - specifically the Buffalo area (North Collins) where they are predicting 16 inches of snow for the next few days. Welcome "Old Man Winter", may your visit be shortened!
I didn't get my load until about eight o'clock Tuesday night, which means if I am going to make it on time I will have to drive for two nights straight through my legal working hours. Part of what makes it important that you get something like this done on time is the negative effect it will have on your pay. I need to get two stops unloaded in Connecticut and a third in North Collins, New York by Friday. If I don't make it to that stop in North Collins then I will be stuck up here in this land where it seems like C.S. Lewis's "White Witch" is running everything for the entire weekend, while I am waiting for them to come back to work on Monday morning to unload me. But, if I can "get er done" then I can move on to my next load which keeps my wheels turning and profitable.
I don't want to come off as sounding driven (sorry for that unintended pun), but in this job when you already are having to spend so much time away from your family, it is nice to try and make the sacrifices worth the trouble. I'm not greedy, but I do have obligations, and I need to be doing the best I can at this.
Well, I am getting out of the truck now to take a little walk around and get my blood circulating so that I can get ready for my next "all nighter" on the road. I haven't decided what time I will leave just yet, but after getting a little exercise in I will start formulating a plan of how I will roll through the night. Last night I drove from around eight P.M. to about eight A.M. I crossed the time zone, which explains how I legally drove twelve hours - I really did eleven, it just looks like twelve.
My thought(s) exactly... as long as I'm going to be doing this for the good of the family, who, by the way, won't even be in the States and thusly 'home time' will not have any meaning for me, I may as well bust my a%# and soak up all of the miles/hours/work I can get. No point in dedicating yourself just a little to this job... I've always approached my work with a 110% work ethic anyway, and I really respect others I see doing likewise.
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