All In A Days Work

Well, I guess the title should be "All In A Weeks Work".  I just thought since I'm not in here consistently from day to day, it might be educational, if not entertaining, to share with you how my last work week unfolded.  Over the road truck drivers work seven days a week for the most part and we really don't take weekends or holidays.  Freight moves all the time and the folks who ship and receive it are almost always expecting us to be out there doing what we do.  We also work night and day with no observance of a difference between the two.  I drove all through the night at least three nights this week to make every thing work out right with my delivery schedules, and I was also trying to juggle my schedule around so that I could get home for my youngest daughters graduation ceremony from High School.  That worked out successfully, which I'm grateful for.

Okay, this work week started off with my dispatcher sending me from Delhi, Louisiana to Farmington, Connecticut.  I serve a dedicated account for the SAPA aluminum plant in Delhi, so many of my trips originate from there.  This run to Connecticut is one that I do often because of a major SAPA customer in Farmington.  Usually when I make this trip I will be sent next to Cressona, Pennsylvania where there is another SAPA plant that I will get a load to head me back down somewhat towards Louisiana.  This time they gave me a load from Cressona that was bound for Laurens, South Carolina.  I picked up this 40,000 pound load of 2" diameter aluminum rods for a Brawo manufacturing facility in Laurens.

From Laurens, South Carolina I drove back to Delhi, Louisiana and picked up a load heading to Dallas, Texas.  My dispatcher and I had been discussing this all week - that is, to find me a load going to Texas that delivers on Monday.  The purpose of that load, at least for me, was to give me the time to pick it up in Louisiana on Sunday morning so that I could drive over to Nacogdoches, TX with it by Sunday afternoon, allowing me just enough time to go to my daughters graduation and leave out very early in the morning (as in 2:00 am) so that I could get to Sherman, TX by 6:00 am for the first delivery of a load that had two more stops to be delivered that morning.  I went from Sherman to Rockwall for the second stop, and from Rockwall to Dallas, TX for my third and final stop, delivering it all by 11:00 am.

Our work week ends on Tuesday mornings at 10:30 central time - that is when you must have all your paper work turned in for your weeks pay if you want it on your next paycheck.  After delivering everything on that final trip that ended in Dallas, TX I had just enough legal driving hours to get myself back across the line into Greenwood, Louisiana, where I slept at a truck stop until 2:00 am this morning so that I could make my final trip that will go onto this weeks paycheck, which was my return trip to Delhi so I could pick up my next loaded journey, which will be to Florida.  Oh, and it is so easy for us to turn in our paperwork for our trips - we have an application on our phones that allows us to take a photo of the paperwork and then a "send" button that you push - it's that simple and efficient!

Well, I ran through that rather quickly and easily in a matter of a few paragraphs, but it actually was a lot of work!  Driving through the night and then switching your body's clock back to a day time schedule and then back again is not always easy.  I was very glad to be with Abigail and her close friends and family at her "Home School" graduation.  She has been a fine student, and an even better daughter.  She will be riding along with me in July, so there's something we can all look forward to in this little blog.

I had a good productive week this week.  All in all this week totaled 3,674 miles.  That is really nice - anytime you can get three thousand miles done in a week, you are doing good.  I somehow managed to go over that benchmark and still got home for my daughters special day - that was good indeed!