There Has Been A Change….My Last Trip

It has an uneventful few weeks driving for a change. I pretty much went to the same towns and customers that I have been going to over the past couple of years so there were no surprises. No tight back ins, no jam-packed yards to maneuver in and no stresses about finding a place to park for the night. Well, there was on incident that does come to mind. You remember back a few posts ago where a driver was blocking a fuel because he was taking his 30-minute break and refusing to move. Well, I pulled into this same Flying J about a month later and low and behold here is this same driver at the fuel. I guess he was trying to pull the same stunt again but this time he messed with the wrong driver. I pulled into the fuel island a few lanes down and within seconds I could the shouting. Lets just say the language being used was not suitable for children’s ears. The argument got pretty heated and the staff from the Flying J came out to cool the situation down. In the end, the driver blocking the fuel island moved his truck so the other driver could move forward to fuel. A staff member, I am thinking a duty manager, walked over to where the first driver parked and talked with him some more. I am not sure what was said, but the driver did not look happy.

My Last Trip

The subtitle pretty much says it all and the reason for it being my last trip, as a driver will become clear before the end of this post. I began my week working in the Kriska office for three days before heading out on the road on Thursday. Unlike the previous weeks, this trip did have some highlights. To begin, I would be heading to New Hampshire for the very first time but first; I would need to take a load to our Montreal yard. On my way to Montreal, I stopped at the Lancaster, ON Flying J to put some fuel in the truck. Knowing the load I would be taking down to NH was very heavy; I only fueled to half tank, as my truck is heavy. Once in the Montreal yard, I dropped the trailer I brought from Prescott and hooked onto my load going to NH.

The weather was fantastic, especially with all the rain we have had over the past few weeks. I headed out of the yard in a great mood and a smile on my face, well that did not last long. It only took three minutes and I was in Montreal afternoon traffic. Anyone who has driven in and around Montreal knows, that even at the best of times, can be a challenge. From our Montreal yard to where I would be “out of the city”, is about 10kms or on a good day about 30 minutes. Well, I hit the perfect storm, construction season and there was a lot of it, two accidents and before I knew it, rush hour traffic. It took me two and half hours to travel that 10kms so can imagine what that did for my fuel consumption.

I get to the Champlain border crossing which is totally new to me so I took my time to navigate into the crossing. They have construction going on there as well so the lanes were adjusted. As I approached, I noticed the temporary lane came very close to the customs building and that it looked like someone(s) had already rubbed the corner of the building so I made sure I stayed left as far as I could. My driver side tires went up over the curb and popped back down again. After clearing customs, I pulled over to check my tires to make sure I did not pop one of a rim and thankfully I had not. As per normal, I did a complete walk around to check everything. Also took a look at my route and checked the Kriska fuel network book to see where I could fuel as I was worried that I might run out of fuel before getting to the customer. I found a place that was on my route, or so I thought. With everything ok, I proceeded to either stop at a rest area close to the customer or at the customer.

The route to the customer would take me through the hills/mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, many of which were ski hills still covered in snow. As I traveled, the fuel gauge needle kept approaching the warning line, especially when going up those steep hills. The fuel stop I had planned was not on my route after all, as I needed to take an exit prior to reaching the planned fuel stop. This had been the only time since I started driving that I allowed the needle to reach the warning line.

I decided to stop for the night at a rest area about 15kms from the customer and the fuel gauge needle was well within the yellow warning area of the fuel gauge. I pulled out the fuel network booklet again and I was able to find a Flying J that was 15 miles further south of the customer. Given this information, I felt good that I could deliver to the customer and have enough fuel to reach the Flying J the next morning. Before turning in for the night, I carried out my usual post trip inspection with no sign of any problems.

I woke the next morning and turn the key of the truck to the on position so I could fire up the Qualcomm to see if I have any messages. As the Qualcomm came to life, so did the needle of the fuel gauge and it was now indicating I had a quarter tank of fuel. I guess going up and down all those hills threw off the fuel gauge. Feeling more relaxed now about the fuel situation, I started my day on the Qualcomm electronic log to indicate that I was doing my pre-trip inspection. Having done my post trip inspection the night before I was not expecting any problems. Well, to my surprise, I had a flat drive tire on the passenger side. I made a call to the great guys back at the shop who called a service truck to come to my location. So I sat and waited all the while my hours of service minutes ticked away. I really wanted to get home that night so if the service truck took too long to arrive, I knew that there was little chance of making it home that night.

The service truck arrived about 90 minutes after I had called the shop, so that was not too bad. While I was waiting for the service truck, I tried to find the location of the puncture that caused the flat but could not find anything. When the service tech removed the tire, it was easy to see the location of the puncture. The reason I could not see it the night before or in the morning was due to the fact that it was on the bottom, sitting on top of the pavement. This may have been the reason I did not hear the air leaking out when I did my post trip inspection. I believe the puncture was happened shortly before I stopped for the night at a bridge that was under repair.

With the tire fixed, I headed of to the customer hoping for a quick off load. No such luck! It was lunchtime so no one would be off loading me until 1:00pm. Shortly after one 1:00, I heard someone enter the trailer and I thought great, they are starting. Then, what seemed like a very long time, I did not hear anyone in the trailer. Then, I hear and feel a forklift going in the truck and once again, it was a long time before I hear it again. Given that I only had 17 pallets, I thought it would not take so long to off load. At the rate the pallets were being removed, I figured it would take three hours to off load so I go and investigate. It did not take long to figure out what was causing the slow process of off loading. The guy that was off loading me was 72 years old and he was not the swiftest of foot. He had to get off the forklift each time he picked up a pallet to write a p.o number on it. It was evident that this guy had a rough life as he could barely move and his walk was extremely labored. He told me he was still working because he needed the health benefits and the drug plan the company offered. It is moments like this that make me grateful for our health care system.

I asked him if it was ok if I helped as I figured that this was a union operation. He said he would appreciate my help as the guy that normally works with him was off that day. With my help, we were able to finish the off loading in 30 minutes. Off loading completed, I headed to the Flying J to refuel and begin the trip back to Canada. The area I was in did not have much in the way reloads so I was going to be coming back to Canada with an empty trailer.

I took the empty trailer to our Montreal yard where I dropped it and hooked a loaded trailer to bring back to Prescott. I pulled in the Prescott yard with an hour to spare on my duty time clock. I completed my usual post trip inspection and called it a night. Before falling asleep, I sent my wife a text to come down to Prescott to help me clean out my truck. At 9:00 a.m, my wife arrived with breakfast from Tim’s and once we finished it, we began emptying the truck of all my belongings. Once everything was out, we cleaned the interior of the truck from top to bottom with Lysol cleaning products. There was no way I was going to turn the truck back in without it being super clean. Once the truck was clean, I topped up the DEF and fuel before parking the truck in the yard. So, that marks the end of my last trip driving, for now any ways.

Taking On A New Position

You remember back to a post title where I talked about dispatchers? Little did I know at the time that a dispatcher position was about to become available. When I saw the posting for the position of dispatcher/load planner, I thought, what the heck, I would apply and see what happens. After three interviews and doing a few shifts with other dispatchers, hence the reason why I started one week in the office, I was offered the position. I have completed two weeks so far in the position and I now have an even great appreciation for those that do the job. It will be a challenging job and I have a lot to learn over the next year.

Google stock photo

I will be working the evening shift so that also means I will have to cover off for customs and customer service when they leave at the end of their day. So I will become a jack-of-all-trades really but my primary job function will be to dispatch and plan loads for the drivers. Right now, I am doing a lot of on the job training with hopes that I can fly solo in the next month or so. Though I did not ask when I accepted the position, I would like to still be able to drive from time to time, even for just a short trip. There are a couple of reasons for this, one is that I do not want to lose the skill set that I have developed over the last couple of years. The second reason is, I never want to forget what it is like to be on the other side of the Qualcomm and to be a driver out there on the road.

I am not sure what the future holds for this blog now that I am not driving. A blog about being a dispatcher, not sure there would be much entertainment value in it. The other reason that it would be tough to write about is that there is so much company sensitive information and that I would have to write about my interactions with drivers and that could cause problems as well. So, if the blog cannot continue, I want to thank everyone that took the time to read, comment and share my adventures of the past couple years. To any aspiring and newbie driver, if you ever have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me, I am always happy to answer your questions about breaking into the truck driving profession.

Thank you

……..keep the blue side up!