08/11/2012
I saw my father yesterday.
This is no small thing. In the four years I've been driving, I've taken enough time off to go home three times. One of those was for my wife's funeral.
I simply don't have the money to take that much time off ("paid vacation" is not a phrase most trucking companies understand). So seeing the family means either--
A)
They come to see me.
It has happened. But simple arithmetic tends to work against that.
--400 miles.
--80+ year old driver.
--2 chances in 14 I'll be home.*
Do the math.
B)
I have a load that takes me into the neighborhood.
Weirdly enough, this is almost as unlikely as them dropping in on me. I-40 between Nashville and Memphis is not precisely on the way from Atlanta to much of anywhere. As a normal thing, any time I'm within a hundred miles of home, I'm either in Nashville and headed toward Chicago, or I've arrived in Memphis by way of Birmingham and my destination is further west.
Yesterday, though, I had a load for a plant in Jackson, Tennessee. And there aren't a lot of ways to get there that don't involve that stretch of I-40.
Nevertheless, I was worried. They COULD have routed me through Birmingham and then north on two-lanes for a hundred-plus miles. Fuel efficiency, y'know.
But they didn't. And so I found myself pulling into a truck stop within twenty miles of home, with a good three hours to waste before I had to move on to the customer.
Enough time for my father and his wife to come and meet me at a restaurant across the street from the truck stop. Enough time for us to decide whether to eat breakfast or lunch and then eat it, slow and easy.
Enough time to catch up on family news, a little (When did my nephew become a pastor?!).
Enough time to see them off and still let the food and the memories settle before I had to drive again.
There are a number of reasons I don't update this blog as often as I used to.** One of them is that I've been having quite a few days lately that I don't especially want to talk about. I want you to enjoy reading this. So I try to write about things I can think about and smile.
Like today.
-----
*And that's optimistic. Once upon a time my schedule was slightly predictable. That's changed in the last year..
**I discuss a few more here.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Running on empty
(Just so you know I haven't retired, here's a little something that's been waiting for Copious Free Time. I'll try to find some more…)
2012/07/16
This last trip covered about 900 miles. This was a good thing.
You're paid bt the mile, not by the hour, so any time you spend on paperwork, tiptoeing around a parking lot, backing into dock doors, waiting on your next assignment, etc, is time you didn't spend driving (i.e. making money). It follows, then, that one long trip is better than two or three short ones that add up to the same mileage. Thousand-mile runs are good.
I was downright cheerful when I started out this morning. Then I looked at my fuel gauge.
As I said, this was about a 900-mile run. I fueled up right after loading up.
These trucks have a range of, oh, let's say about--
900 miles.
My fuel reserve was below 25%.
Strictly speaking, this was not my fault. The Company decides when and where I fuel, based on some sweetheart deals it has with certain truck stop chains. The Home Office computer looks at how much fuel I report having and where I've been told to go, and picks out a Favored Truck Stop for me to visit.
Or two. This trip, it should have been two. The computer choked, apparently.
So, strictly speaking, it was their fault. But they speak VERY strictly to drivers who run out of fuel. For whatever reason. The first sentence tends to be something like, "You're fired." And other petential employers tend not to be sympathetic. They'd've said the same thing if it'd been them. You're supposed to be paying attention…
In this case, I wasn't too worried. According to my Handy Truck Stop Guide, there was an Approved Fuel Supplier within ten miles of the customer. I'd deliver the load, hop back an exit, and request a fuel stop. No problem.
Then I passed the mile marker where the Approved Fuel Supplier was.
It was a mile marker.
No exit. Much less a truck stop. Least of all an Approved Fuel Supplier.
Oh, boy.
When I got to the customer I pulled out my Handy Truck Stop Guide. And sure enough, there was the Approved Fuel Supplier. At the exit I remembered.
On the facing page. In the listing for a different Interstate.
On THIS Interstate, the nearest Approved Fuel Supplier was over fifty miles away.
And my fuel gauge was below 1/8 and dropping fast.
In the end I lost my nerve. I stopped at a Non-Approved Fuel Supplier and bought 10-12 gallons with my own money. That got me to a place where the Company would buy the rest.
You're not gonna tell on me, are you?
2012/07/16
This last trip covered about 900 miles. This was a good thing.
You're paid bt the mile, not by the hour, so any time you spend on paperwork, tiptoeing around a parking lot, backing into dock doors, waiting on your next assignment, etc, is time you didn't spend driving (i.e. making money). It follows, then, that one long trip is better than two or three short ones that add up to the same mileage. Thousand-mile runs are good.
I was downright cheerful when I started out this morning. Then I looked at my fuel gauge.
As I said, this was about a 900-mile run. I fueled up right after loading up.
These trucks have a range of, oh, let's say about--
900 miles.
My fuel reserve was below 25%.
Strictly speaking, this was not my fault. The Company decides when and where I fuel, based on some sweetheart deals it has with certain truck stop chains. The Home Office computer looks at how much fuel I report having and where I've been told to go, and picks out a Favored Truck Stop for me to visit.
Or two. This trip, it should have been two. The computer choked, apparently.
So, strictly speaking, it was their fault. But they speak VERY strictly to drivers who run out of fuel. For whatever reason. The first sentence tends to be something like, "You're fired." And other petential employers tend not to be sympathetic. They'd've said the same thing if it'd been them. You're supposed to be paying attention…
In this case, I wasn't too worried. According to my Handy Truck Stop Guide, there was an Approved Fuel Supplier within ten miles of the customer. I'd deliver the load, hop back an exit, and request a fuel stop. No problem.
Then I passed the mile marker where the Approved Fuel Supplier was.
It was a mile marker.
No exit. Much less a truck stop. Least of all an Approved Fuel Supplier.
Oh, boy.
When I got to the customer I pulled out my Handy Truck Stop Guide. And sure enough, there was the Approved Fuel Supplier. At the exit I remembered.
On the facing page. In the listing for a different Interstate.
On THIS Interstate, the nearest Approved Fuel Supplier was over fifty miles away.
And my fuel gauge was below 1/8 and dropping fast.
In the end I lost my nerve. I stopped at a Non-Approved Fuel Supplier and bought 10-12 gallons with my own money. That got me to a place where the Company would buy the rest.
You're not gonna tell on me, are you?
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