Consequences

In Trucking there are very real consequences to our actions.  Those consequences can be good or bad depending on what the driver has done to bring them about.  I am a big proponent of making sure you are taking the right steps for success out here, and never causing yourself to come up short.  For the driver, the trucking business is a really competitive environment, and those who understand that concept will almost always come out on top.  These truths hold true whether we are talking about the way you handle your rig, or whether we are discussing how you manage your time.  Customer service has got to be a priority, just as much as safety and productivity.  I'm going to share with you the things that transpired on this last load and how they led up to me landing this next load that I am on today.

It often happens that when I get to the SAPA plant to pick up my pre-loaded trailer, I am faced with a somewhat different load than I was dispatched.  Somehow in between the time when they let my dispatcher know about the loads so that he can get them booked, and the time when the loads are actually complete, they have usually changed somewhat.  Such was the case on this last load that went up to New Hampshire.  There were three more stops added to it, which just increased the challenge of getting it all done in a timely manner.

I managed to pull it all off and even got my final delivery in New Hampshire done a full day early. Let me share with you how I did things just so you can get an idea of the thought processes that I go through when planning out these loads.  They put my final stop in New Hampshire down for Thursday morning, but everything went so well that I had it delivered by 0700 Wednesday morning. This load was not even ready to go until 2300, or 11:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Here's how I managed my time so that I could make some good progress on this multi-stop, multi-state run that had me doing eight stops while traveling through 15 states.  Here's a little bonus quiz for the curious minded among you - who can tell me what the 15 states were that I drove through to get this done?  Hint... there's little clues all through out this post.

I left Delhi, Louisiana at around eleven fifteen at night and drove all the way to Rising Fawn, Georgia where I took my ten hour break at the Pilot truck stop there.  I was able to start rolling again at about 5:30 p.m. and arrived at my customer in Waynesboro, VA at around 3:00 a.m. Monday morning.  I pulled into their property and slept until they started showing up for work at 8:00 a.m.  Once they unloaded me, I went back to my sleeper for some more rest, got up around noon, ate a pretty decent plate of fried fish at one of their local restaurants, and was back on the road at 1:00 p.m.  From there I drove myself to Riverdale, New Jersey and was parked on my customer's property by 8:45 p.m.  They showed up the next morning and had me unloaded by 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.  Then it was off to the races for the rest of the day.  I delivered my next five stops, all of which were in Connecticut, and managed to get myself up to New Hampshire where I parked on the customer's property again.  At this point I am one full day ahead - The New Hampshire customer had been scheduled for Thursday morning, but I am already here now on Tuesday night!  I had been in contact with all of these customers by the phone, and had reset all the appointments so that they would be prepared for my arrival times.

The snow laid heavily on the ground in New Hampshire and Vermont, but the weather was nice, and the roads were nice and clear.

I had to deal with the typical traffic issues that one always deals with when trying to get into New York state, but I took the Tappan Zee Bridge rather than having to deal with the G.W., and though it slowed me down a bit, it was not unusually troublesome.

Wednesday morning saw me sending my "Empty Call" into my dispatcher by about 7:30 a.m. and I had a fresh set of available hours to work on for that day, so I started moving my way toward Cressona, Pennsylvania.  I will typically get my back haul loads from there, and if I haven't heard any differently from anyone by the time I am empty up here in this part of the country, I just go ahead and start moving that direction.  After I got to Cressona, I was dispatched to come on back to Delhi empty, as they could not get any loads for me that day, and they wanted me back so that I could help out on the next batch of loads leaving out of the plant in Delhi.

I'm supposed to be talking about "consequences," and one of those is that if you can get things done early in this business you are setting yourself up for something else earlier, which means that you are getting more done than the other guys, which makes you a driver who is not only greatly appreciated by your managers, but also treated differently when it comes to load assignments.

So, once I am back in Delhi resting on my ten hour break, my phone rings, and it is my dispatcher wanting to discuss the next batch of loads with me to see which direction I would like to go. He reads me off several different loads and I chose one of them which was a one stop run down to Miami. Then he says, "There is a possibility of that load not actually going out yet for a few days, could you also choose a different one and I will call you back a little later when I know if that Miami load is going to actually go or not?" My response was, "Sure, I'll take that one that has one stop in Louisville, Kentucky, and then finals in North Collins, New York." He hesitates just a moment and says, "You know what, I have got two guys who have really been complaining that they are not getting enough miles, and I feel like I should really at least offer that load to them first. Can I call you back after I know what is going on with that Miami load? Then I will have had the time to offer this North Collins load to those other two drivers, and I will have a better idea of what we should do with you." My response was, "Sure, you know I will be happy with what ever you come up with. I've already run in excess of 3,000 miles this week, and I can finish any of those loads you've got for this weekend in time to put it on this same pay period - those loads are just icing on the cake this week!"

About an hour later my phone is ringing again. "Well neither one of those drivers wants to go up to the Northeast, and the Miami load is not going to actually be ready yet," says my dispatcher with some degree of incredulity in his voice. He adds, "I don't understand these drivers, they tell me they want miles, but then they refuse to take the longer runs when I offer them, because of where they go to." "It looks like you are going to North Collins, New York after all, and they can stay on Louisiana to Texas runs for the next month as far as I am concerned!"

I don't get the mentality of some of these folks, but they sure are working hard to pad my paychecks! Let's see, this load is 1,150 miles, and I'll finish it by the payroll cut-off. Add that on top of the 3,132 I just completed... Yep, this week is looking really nice!

Make sure you are delivering on time or early, and keep yourself available when ever possible folks. Go for all you can get. Be a willing player, that is how you end up being counted on as a runner. That is how to be successful at this game, you've got to be a contender for the rewards of the game.

Did you catch what the attitude of the dispatcher was? They always remember the folks who help them out, but they even have a stronger memory for the folks who refuse to help when called upon.

So, as you can see, I am headed right back up to the Northeast corner of this great land with another really nice load, and it is not only a consequence of the things I accomplished in this last week, but it is also a consequence of the things that other drivers have refused to be willing to do.  What is so strange about this whole turn of events is that I would have been quite happy with a shorter run being assigned to me.  After all, I have already put in a very good week's worth of work, and the other drivers who are complaining about how much work they are getting have sentenced themselves to live like dogs who only get the table scraps that are falling to the floor.

This load is fairly light (18,688 pounds) and will help me get some good fuel mileage which helps increase my chances of making some really good bonus money this quarter.  As you can see from this photo the load only takes up a little more than half of this 53 foot long trailer...