Item #1 - Greetings. Sitting here off I44 X25l Villa Ridge MO. Forget the driving. Here's a typical example of the stupidity that drivers have to put up on a daily basis. Mt'd out this morning in St. Louis. Received a dispatch for a load tomorrow (Fri.) morning headed to Laredo. I noticed the delivery ETA was Sat. 4/28 7am. I sent a message asking if they really meant Monday 7am. Some time goes by. I get another dispatch for an overnight load from Washington MO with 2 stops in/around Oklahoma City about 450 miles. It requires that I have 12 4x4x8's. I have to drive to the Fuel Mart truck stop and wait for someone named Mark. He will take me to the job site.
It is raining and the wind is kicking up. I spent about an hour "fighting" the load switch. Apparently the Laredo should have gone to a team. I didn't know my company had any teams. The company says do this for us and we'll reload u to Washington state. My pay cutoff is Monday at noon and there is no way I'm gonna go from Okie City to Redmond WA in 48 hours. Perhaps that trip should also go to one of the teams they don't have. Don't you love the b.s.? Anyhoo, it is now 2:38pm central time and I'm sitting here waiting for this mysterious person. No one at the company has followed up inquiring as to my status.
It has been 7 weeks since my "regular" driver manager has been out, after she broke her arm. Her 4 replacements (all men) have been horrible good for nothing morons. "They" all sounded like car salesmen. One told me he has 9 years OTR experience. I don't care. I was in the business before he knew what his "shpekle" was for. As far as I'm concerned any driver that becomes a dispatcher is a traitor. He has gone over to the "dark side." The worst dispatchers/driver managers are ex-drivers. I have this bad feeling that I'm going "a whole lot of nowhere" over the next three days.
Item #2 - I fueled at a new Pilot T/S I44 Pacific MO. They did have new Comdata card readers, but they're not as nice as the one at the new Love's locations. If your interested, I paid $2.779 per gallon. After you fuel you have to walk about what seems like 1/2 mile if you need to go inside. Thank goodness I don't and got the heck out of there. There's a similarly designed Pilot on I95 in VA, which I try to avoid.
Item #3 - Something that was expected - Toyota is now the #1 car manufacturer in the world. I've never been a GM kinda guy. I hate how the Big 3 automakers turned Detroit in a slum. I've owned two Chevy's, a Renault, a Neon, and my last car was a little red BMW. Any car that runs without problems is a great car.
It is now 6:15 pm central and nobody has shown up and I've received no follow-up messages from the company. At this point, I just might end up picking up that load to Laredo tomorrow morning.
