I made it to the Chicago area and delivered the two forklifts on Friday. I then ran down a bit SW of there to pick up three pieces of construction equipment going back to the factory in WI.

When I got there I stopped in at the little fuel stop near the place to grab a quick bite to eat. I saw another one of our drivers parked there and walked over to say hello. It was "Scooby" and he didn't look happy. Seems he had been sitting there since 7:00am that day waiting to pick up some of the same stuff but had been told that the stuff wasn't actually there yet. As it was around 2:30PM at this point I was a tad concerned.

After grabbing something to eat I started making phone calls. The guy at the equipment place told me that the stuff was there and to come on over. I walked over and told Scooby and we both headed over. As he had been there the longest I told him to pull in forst so he could load first. Seemed only fair to me.

I could hear Scooby on the phone yelling at dispatch abouot nobody calling to let him know the stuff had arrived as I walked over and introduced myself to the manager of the place, whom I had spoken with on the phone. He told me that three of the pieces had been there all day and the other three had arrived around 10:00am. Hmmm, that meant Scooby could have loaded when he first got there at 7:00am.

Seems that someone there had their wires crossed, and the service manager had taken the morning off, so nobody really seemed to know what the hell was going on there. I knew Scooby was really going to be pissed when he learned all of this. I explained to the manager that it would probably be best for me to fill Scooby in on the situation. I really didn't want Scooby going off on one of our customers even if he did have every reason to do so.

As expected, Scooby hit the roof when I filled him in. I really can't blame him. I got hom calmed down and told him that I would back out onto the street to give him room to get his rig situated and loaded, and that I would pull in and load once he had finished.

I backed out and parked (not an easy thing, you'd just have to be there and see it) and then walked back onto the lot to watch and maybe help Scooby if he needed it. One of the guys told me that the stuff sitting on the ramp was what I was taking and for me to go ahead and back to it.

This didn't sit well with me as Scooby should have been loaded first, and I told the guy as much. He just shrugged and said that stuff was already on the ramp and that I should back up and get it on my trailer. I decided to talk to Scooby first as I didn't want him to think I was trying to screw him over or anything.

At this point he'd pretty much had enough and just shrugged and said "Fuck it, whatever these assholes want, let's just get it and get out of here". I agreed.

Once I had my stuff on I pulled back onto the street to chain everything down. I called dispatch and spoke with "R" while Scooby was loading and filled him in on what had been going on, in a much more calm and rational manner than Scooby had done. I told "R" that these pricks should cough up some extra cash to pay Scooby for having to sit around all day for nothing. He agreed and said that he would make it happen.

One we both had our loads secured I told Scooby that I had already told dispatch that we wouldn't be to the yard until Saturday morning and that we should stop at the Petro on the way and get some real food and a couple of brews at the tavern across the road from there. At that point he was all for that idea. We spent the remainder of Friday enjoying a few colds ones and saying "screw it" to asshole idiot customers.

Saturday I had my own long wait exxperience. "R" had asked me to run up to Fond du Lac and pick up a snow broom truck at the tire shop and run it down to the trade show in Milwaukee. No big deal, should have only taken a couple of hours tops.

Yeah, right. The tire shop was supposed to have the thing ready to go by noon. The customer and I were finally able to load it on my trailer around 5:00PM. We had spent all afternoon just standing around and shooting the shit while watching the world's slowest tire guy move at a glacial pace. I was pretty pissed by the time it was finally ready, but I never let the customer see that. I was told that he called the boss today to compliment my patience and professionalism. Nice guy. I would have preferred a nice big tip though.

I wound up sleeping in on Sunday and got a late start. I returned to the yard, secured my current load, and started on my way. I have a piece of a crane going to a small town just outside of Tulsa, OK. I am about an hour from there now and will drop that piece off tomorrow morning. I will then head on down to Longview, TX to deliver a half dozen oil field pumps.

No idea where I'll be heading after that. I'll have to be very careful about my log book and load securement over the next few days. The annual 72 hour Road Check starts at midnight tonight. It's basically a nationwide all out blitz on commercial vehicle enforcement that happens every year. It's nothing more than a huge PR stunt for the cops, and a hug hassle for us.

I head a guy from the CVSA on satellite radio today talking about last's year's 72 hour hassle-fest. 93.8% of the trucks and drivers inspected passed those inspections with no violations and 6.2% had some violation or other. In my book that's a pretty damn good percentage but this asshat was  talking about it as if the numbers were reversed and just how bad he felt it was.

I think a 93.8% score on safety inspections is amazingly good and doubt that there are many other industries out there that could survive such an intense inspection blitz with as good a score. The vast majority of the 6.2% with violations were log book violations with the remainder a combination of license issues and equipment problems. Overall I think that's damn good.

Ah well, should be an interesting three days anyway.