3rd times the charm

Drug testing, 3^rd times the charm.

I cannot believe it took 3 tries to drug test Will.  Sometimes I think this company doesn’t have it all together.  

 

Last month we sat for 10 hours without a load.  I kept sending in messages with no response.  Oh sure my messages started off polite but of course that never lasts long.

  We are empty, and ready for a load please, We have been empty for 1 hour ready for a load, 2 hrs sitting need load,  do you know you have a team truck sitting without a load.  Hello, is this thing on.  If there are no loads send me home.

  I will say that one big difference between Swift and Schneider is, Swift would usually answer me. Our DM (driver manager) would say stuff like the freight gods are just not cooperating with us today, freight is low in your area. Etc, sometimes she would say something stupid, practically setting me up, and I would think to myself,  do you know who you are sparing with. I know you don’t know me or my family but sarcasm is a competition sport for us. 

I don’t mean to brag, but I do hold the most gold medals.   

 My dramatic combination eye rolling and sighing is trademarked.  As my former employers and co-workers will swear to.

But not Schneider.  No response from them, no matter how my messages evolved .  While swift’s unwritten policy must be poke the bear, enrage the driver.  Schneider’s policy must be let the driver vent don’t engage the rage.

So the second time they attempted a drug test was on our trip from Sacramento to Tampa Florida.  After we started they sent us a message to stop in Houston.  That’s 107 miles out of route.  Gee I wonder why.  Oh I guess I should let you know that the drug tests are random and secret.  they can only inform you like 30 min or some short period of time,  just to give you enough time to get from where you are to the lab.  They don't want to give you any time to get any clean urine off the black market.

 So I hurry getting to Houston, because I was almost out of hours for the day and we should be changing drivers before Houston, but did not want to waste the time.  Just change drivers while Will is doing his drug test. Then we are not stopped for a long time.  

 Changing drivers takes at least 30min. post trip, pre trip inspections, bathroom breaks, dinner, shower,  fuel etc, whatever it is we try to do it during our driver changes. 

Anyway about 3 hours from Houston Terminal they send me a message, looks we will be gone when you get there, just stay there and call us at 6am pst –they are in Fontana California. I sent back a message saying why, we need to deliver this load by Saturday in Florida and stopping overnight in Houston means that wont happen.  We are not out here on vacation, there is nothing I want to do or see in Houston.  (DUH everybody knows that)

We need these miles on this check.  (well that is my go to excuse always need these miles on that check)   only response is stay put call in am. 

There is nothing at the Houston Terminal. It's a dump

 this is actually tornado damage from Dallas,  You should you tube it. watch the tornado toss the trucks around.

  Full of stinky oil tankers. Hard to even find a spot for a  53 foot van. There is no grill. Funny how fast we got used to that little perk, most of the terminals have a grill. There was not even any food flyers. How are we supposed to order dinner? 

We call at 6am and the DBL (driver business leader) asks us, when you guys start driving again, who will drive first?  I said, same schedule as always, I drive 6am-6pm, Will drives 6pm -6am.    There is a little silence on the other end and then he says, Oh then that’s not going to work , um yea that’s not going to work, ok sorry. Never mind.

That is when I lost it.  

WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING ME.NEVER MIND, YOU HOLD US HERE FOR 14 HOURS FOR NOTHING.  YOU COST US GETTING 6300 MILES FOR THE WEEK. The dbl (he who shall not be named) said, im sorry, I know how you feel.  OBVIOUSLY YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW I FEEL, SORRY DOESN’T FIX OUR MILES THIS WEEK.  IF YOUR BOSS TOLD YOU TO COME IN AND SIT AT YOUR DESK AND DO NOTHING FOR 14 HOURS WOULDN’T YOU EXPECT TO GET PAID.  WE NEED TO BE COMPENSATED FOR THIS FORCED SITTING.  WHY DO YOU GUYS MAKE IT SO HARD TO GET A UA FROM THE NIGHT SHIFT DRIVER.  IF ONLY THERE WAS SOME WAY TO GET A LIST OF ALL THE HOSPITALS IN THE UNITED STATES WITH A LAB, PLACES WHERE WE COULD GO GET A DRUG TEST DONE.  YOU DO HAVE INTERNET THERE DON’T YOU.

At some point Will left, he always refuses to watch myself imposed implosions.

After taking a breath, I said to him, I know you are not to blame you are just the lucky recipient of my frustration, feel free to convey my anger to anyone you want.

The third time was today. About 2 hours after we changed drivers, Will is just about in laa-laa land. A couple arthritis pills some Benadryl and night, night.  I got a message, When I get to Mattoon IL , pull over to safe location and call in they need to talk to Will, Yes we know he is in the sleeper but please wake him, we need to talk to him. 

Great I get to poke the Bear, and Im not even lost this time.

Will asks her (a dbl, she who shall not be named) if he is supposed to come up on his logs for this.  She said, well some of our drivers prefer not to and some do, its up to you.  Ok that’s what Will wanted to hear.  He really thinks he is supposed to log this drug test as working not driving time, because it is something the company has ordered you to do, like taking a class etc. but she says not logging it is ok.

They send us to the Mattoon Hospital,

 there’s 3 building and we pick one. Will goes up to the desk and tells the nurse, well she had scrubs on anyway, that Schneider sent him here for a UA.  She says, what, whats that, the other nurse says, oh you mean a drug screen?  That’s over in the other building.

Now those that don’t know me may think that is the end of it.  

  If they did not care about getting the test done during Will’s driving time, why did they have us sit in Houston.  Why did they waste our time twice before.  Time is money.  If the wheels aren’t turning, we aren’t earning. Why did it take 3 times to figure this out.  Is Will your first and only night time driver.

Will said I could not message them about that. He said he was putting him foot down.

Whatever 

*currently rolling my eyes**

love and miss you all

a post about nothing.

Things I have learned while crusin’ around the country side.

Truck driving is a ‘ell of a way to make a living.  It is impossible to succeed without support from family and friends.

No matter how hard you try, you can not slam the curtain between the sleeper and the driver hard enough to convey enough anger and frustration. The Velcro only makes an angry sound when ripping open.

Don’t drink the water in Yuma or El Paso **don’t brush your teeth.  Don’t even have orange juice with breakfast.  It was obviously frozen and reconstituted with tap water.

 If you do, you might make it back to the hotel room, but not the bathroom.

The further east you drive the smaller the lanes get. Also the more people look twice at a female truck driver.

The radio should play more Runrig,

 John Butler Trio, 

and Saffire the Upity Womans Blues. 

 These guys and gals do not get enough air time.

Four-Wheelers (cars) need to learn how to merge. I cant stress enough how dangerous it is to not merge.  It is the vehicle that is merging into traffic has the responsibility to merge safely.

 It is not the traffic’s responsibility to slam on our brakes so you can get on the freeway. Hang up the phone and  drive.  Accelerate and go in front or slow down and line up behind me.  I know you know where your gas pedal is because when you try to squeeze in beside me as the merge lane ends you suddenly find your gas and your finger…. Stop It

Everybody must make a trip to Memphis, actually just Beal Street. I would love to go back. Once was not enough.  The history of music that has walked down that street is unbelievable.  From rock stars, to Country singers, Jimmy Buffett and of course the Blues greats.  

People, you do not really want to see Nebraska, Wyoming, Iowa, the Dakota’s, Arizona, Texas, No you don’t!  You only think you want to see America.  I’ll tell you what you’re missing. Get a brown piece of paper, light brown, tan will do, lay it on a table, there you go, you’re on vacation. 

 Oh wait, let’s go thru the seasons. Place the paper in front of a fan on high and now you’re in Wyoming.  Get the paper wet; place it in the freezers and now your experiencing Nebraska, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming.  

 Now put the frozen paper in front of that fan again, still on high, and you’re in Wyoming again.

 **adult supervision is required to visit the next 2 states**place the paper on your stove top, and now you are visiting Arizona and Texas.

There are a  ton of reason NOT to go to Texas….

Just read my blogs....

In fact I understand there is an on line petition that Texas wants to succeed from the union.  Let them. I know where I can get boxes, we can all help them pack. 

When I started this Will said I would only have to drive for 5 years.  By then we would have the bills all paid and have enough money saved to buy a smaller house. One with a smaller tax bill, lower utilities, best of all NO HOUSE PAYMENT. Then we would either rent or sell the house we have now.

Well, we have no car payments, no credit cards. Now all we need a house.  I have updated my housing requirements.  Or lowered them depending on how it look at it. I’m willing to look at manufactured homes in a park. We wanted to stay away from that monthly space rent, but some of them include water, sewer, and garbage. And most of the manufactured homes don’t need a lot of work, paint carpeted.  

We will be home for Christmas. Santa is bring me a granddaughter.

 Jennifer and her husband are expecting baby girl #4 on Dec 22. 
In between holding the new granddaughter, last minute shopping, Christmas dinner at our house, spending time with family, catching up with friends, cleaning the house, see the other grandkids,  I hope we have time to look at houses.  Both stick built and manufactured.

I know this was probably a boring post. You can read my previous posts if you get too bored. 

 Sorry I haven’t been getting lost but since I haven’t posted in a long while thought I should write something

Love and miss you all

the honeymoon is over already??

Its so sad when the honeymoon ends…….

We found out the hard way that Schneider does not send you a HazMat route when they send you a HazMat load. Will says ever other company he worked for has sent hazmat friendly routing.  Heck even Swift did that, 1 point swift.

               

Thank goodness Will was driving and not me.  We had just switched drivers and we were on I95 Baltimore Maryland. And we see this sign says last exit for HM.  All HazMat must exit.

  Surprised and upset and confused Will exits. Next thing you know we are down town Baltimore. 

                                        DOWNTOWN.

We were on a street that has the light rail down the middle. There wasn’t enough room for us to stay in our skinny lane so the driver’s side of the truck and trailer was on the tracks.  I decided to get dressed  in case we had to jump out.  (I was in my pj’s ready for bed)

 The GPS kept telling us to turn at every street. But looking down each street it looked like there was a parking garage to drive under or a walking bridge or even smaller streets.  I got the laptop up and said looks like if we stay on Howard Street we will run into Martin Luther King JR and then we can turn left and takes us back onto the freeway and we can start over.

After we turn on MLK we pass Pennsylvania Avenue.  And I started thinking.  How close are we to the White House.   Turns out we were only 38 miles away from the White House with a truck load of HazMat.  HUM!!!   And nobody stopped us.

Then I started to wonder how close we were to other interesting sites I would love to see in Baltimore.

USS Torsk Submarine ~2 .5 miles

USS Constellation Ship also 2.5 miles away

Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum~ 1.3 miles away

 Charm City Cakes ~ 2.3 miles.

The Annabel Lee Tavern ~ 3.1 miles.  The Annabel Lee is a very sad poem and is the last poem Edgar Allan Poe wrote.

Annapolis ~27 miles. 

  Ok not near by, but if I were driving I would have gotten lost there, accidently of course.  What better place to get lost where every day, is fleet week.

We had a little chat with our DBL (driver business leader) and asked why they didn’t send a hm route.  He said all we have to do is call or check the map and route ourselves.  Well fine now but maybe you should put a not on hm loads ‘double check your route’ 

After that we took a load from Pennsylvania to Logan Utah.   It’s a refrigerated load.  We tried to get out of it, telling them that we have no training in refer units, no experience. We talked to 3 different people they tried to give us refer training over the phone. 

is the light green; no its white.  Well that’s not right should be green. maybe the cover came off. What is the temp? I don’t know where is it at.  Don’t forget to put fuel in. where does that go. Call this number if you have any problems, I wont know there is a problem until it explodes, as I told the last 2 people I have no experience in refer units.

                                                   I was talking but they weren't listening

Well Will does but only a couple of times. Doesn’t like them because it is hard to sleep with the refer unit turning on right next to the sleeper.

  It weighs 43,200.  If we were owner op’s and in our International Prostar we could not take something that heavy. But since its not our fuel cost the only down side for us is the speed at which we will be crawling up the hills.  And crawling was right.

Who would route a 43,000 pound load on 9-10% hills instead of the interstates.  Schneider figures why drive I70 when US40 runs right along side of it.

US40 through Pennsylvania is a beautiful scenic drive. For cars.   Really beautiful.

It goes through Union Town PA

  I would have taken more pictures but I was busy practicing my down shifting.

There are little towns with stop lights at the bottom of step hills.

We finally arrive and now it is time for some much needed time off. 34 hours off anyway.

                                                           Its been a tough week

Love and miss you all