When other people screw up (Patreon)

Here’s the thing about being a truck driver. A lot of your work life is out of your control. I can’t control when the truck will break down, when there will been an accident, a storm, breakdown in equipment needed to make what I’ll be carrying. A lot of stuff can happen that will impact how my day does, and for the most part, I’ve learned to accept it and go with it.

The one aspect that still gets to me, probably always will, if when a delay is caused by someone. I know people will make mistakes, and really this isn’t about the people themselves, it’s about my company. About how there’s an atmosphere of incompetence there that means even a small mistake will ruin a day.

Case in point, and while I’m using this as an example, it’s more indicative of how things goes than this specific event.

I did a pickup Wednesday morning. It delivers in Laredo on Tuesday morning, and I need to do a reset (36 hours without driving) before then (I do my best to arrange it to take Sunday off) for all intent and purposes, its 40 hours of driving. So, a full day on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and I’m there. Or, preferably, since I all of Monday available, I drive 8 hours a day or so on those days, take Sunday off, and drive Monday, and I’m at the delivery early on Tuesday.

I like to plan ahead.

As soon as I do the pick-up, I confirm with the office they have the papers for the border. I’m told they do, and that’s it a T&E Bond (a specific type of crossing for loads that pickup outside the US and ultimately deliver outside the US, this is going to Mexico). So I start driving because those always take a few hours to get done.

3 hours after I start driving, I ask for an update since I know I’ll be taking a break at a coming truckstop and I can print my papers. I find out that something went wrong. The custom broker processed it as a different kind of crossing, so they have to redo it.

And this is how regular what’s going to happen is that as soon as I read this, I know, I’m not crossing the border today even though I’ll have the hours and my initial plan counted on me driving 2 hours in the US to work. The closest, practical, parking place is an hour away from the border. I can get closer, but that means parking on a pull out without even a bathroom.

I send a message a few hours later, not only isn’t it resolved, but I’m told custom isn’t even working on it, so they are going to escalate. (now, here I have to take dispatch at their word. For all I know no one even told the broker to redo the paperwork when I first message them. It’s happened before. Dispatch is great at shifting the blame off other people) an hour away from where I’ll park if I can’t cross the border, still nothing done.

I park and shutdown for the night and now my main concern is how much of the next day will be wasted with me sitting and waiting, because nothing will get done overnight, even though Brokers are 24 hours. And no one in dispatch will push them to resolve this.

Next morning, I ask for an update and, big surprise, nothing has been done, so they are going to escalate to the supervisor. Not check with them to find out what they did when the supervisor was contacted the previous day. No, escalate. As in. no one did it before.

See where I have a certain level of distrust with my company?

An hour after my usual start time, it’s finally resolved. It gave me a bit more time to write. And, as Murphy likes to do, my printer decides to stop working then, so I can’t print my paperwork, and there are no fax machines at this parking place or at any of the other fuel places I know of. (this isn’t the first time I’ve had to get something faxed because I couldn’t print it) Fortunately, the Duty-Free will receive faxes so I have it sent there. That goes without problem and I cross the border.

All this means I had to rework my entire route, and it still works, I’m just going to get to the delivery a bit later than I initially planned. No, I’m not sacrificing my work day for a screw-up I had no part in.

Oh, and I had to drive though a snow storm on my way to the border. I keep forgetting that Alberta is at an higher elevation and that the temperature are a lot lower for mid-May and I’m used to.

On the Writing front, I expect that in three months, Stepping Up will go back to being posted 3 days a week. I’m going to finish draft two of A Fraudulent Death this coming week, and I expect book 3 of the Demons series to take around 2 months, maybe a bit more, to finish.

And with that. I, will wish you a good day.