I'm back in Delhi today. This is the location of the SAPA plant that I am a dedicated driver for. Most of my loads originate from this plant, with the exception of the back haul loads they find me to help pay for my return trips to this base of our operations. After delivering all six of my stops on that last load I carried up to Connecticut I took a back haul load out of the Cressona, Pennsylvania SAPA plat that had three stops in Tennessee. Then they deadheaded me back to Delhi. On that six stopper up to Connecticut I was very fortunate to get it all done, and my dispatcher even sent me an email that said this: "Awesome job man! I don't know how you do it, there's not another driver here who I could count on to get that done like you did. And on top of that you did it all without calling me and griping and complaining that we are putting way too much on you - I owe you a favor big time!" Okay, I'm not trying to brag on myself, but I get these little messages all the time. This guy thinks I'm exceptional, but he doesn't realize how much help I receive. I am convinced that "the everlasting arms are underneath me" as I criss-cross the country in this big rig.
Can I relate a story about this very trip that blessed me? I may seem silly to you, but here it goes: I was moving right along on that last load and was thinking I was conscious that it was going extraordinarily well for all things considered when travelling in these Northeast parts of the country - the traffic up here is incredible and the towns were definitely not designed for maneuvering a tractor trailer with a fifty three foot trailer on it. When the fork lift operator unloaded that last piece at my final stop I handed him my paperwork so he could sign off on it. I've been here several times, and it is always the same fork lift operator, a friendly fellow named Jose. I recognized him, but he wasn't acting as friendly as he usually does. When he signed my paperwork he signed it as "Gabriel." He noticed me looking at his signature with a curious look, and he smiled and said "is something wrong?" I looked at him and said "I thought your name was Jose." He laughingly replied "Jose is my twin brother. He works the day shift, I am the fork lift operator on the second shift." You see I had already been thinking about angelic help when everything was going so well on this load, and then my last stop gets signed off by "Gabriel!" Usually I am at this location early in the day, and I had no idea that Jose had a twin brother who worked here later in the day.
I'm picking up a load here tonight that goes to Corpus Christi, TX. I will have to drive all through the night tonight with it, because this customer always insists on us being there at seven in the morning the following morning after the trailer is loaded. They never get it ready until the end of the day at the plant, so the driver has to make sure he has enough available hours to run this load through the night. This load is designed to get me to Texas so that when I'm done with it I can go home for a brief visit. My home visits are brief, but that is by my own choice. I don't want to sound as if I am mercenary, but I am trying to be as financially successful at this job as I can be. Truck driving is a completely performance based job. The movers and shakers are the ones that make the best money. A big, and unusual, advantage of this particular job is that I get about four days off at Thanksgiving, and I can take quite a bit of time off at Christmas time if I want to because the SAPA plant is actually closed for maintenance and upkeep to the equipment during that time. There are very few trucking jobs that will allow you to take a couple of weeks off like that, so I keep my visits at home brief, but look forward to that stay with my family at the end of the year.
Well, I need to lay down and rest now so that I can be well rested for tonight's "all nighter."
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