Terminal Time

I don't know where to begin. It's been a long and boring weekend. I awoke Friday morning to the familiar beep of the QualComm summoning my attention. It's kinda like Christmas. You hope it's something you wanted; something thoughtful, something you didn't even know you needed until you open that package. And not a tie or underwear. So what was waiting for me inside that little message box? a nice long hazmat run? Something to one of the four states I've yet to visit? Nope! Underwear...

The message said to take my empty reefer to one of our drop yards on the other side of Dallas and then head to the terminal. No explanation, just head to the terminal. Now they say curiosity killed the cat, but I had to hear this one. I fire off the (they had to be expecting this one) return message consisting of only one word, three little letters. WHY?

I could almost hear the gears grinding from 200 miles away, as if I through a wrench in the machine, it stutters, sputters and grinds to a halt.

Over an hour later they finally manage to get it going again and send a response. Your truck needs to have a pm (preventative maintenance) done. What!?!
I just had a pm done in May. What, did they forget something?

I never really enjoy going to the terminal for maintenance, especially on weekends. They only have two mechanics on duty and the wait can get pretty long. And this weekend was exceptionally long.

SRT acquired a new service manager and apparently he found quite a large maintenance backlog the former service manager was not attending to. Just like a jet aircraft, commercial trucks have to undergo routine inspections every so many thousand miles. Lucky me. My truck had just passed that magic mileage marker.

So to make this backlog go away, the new service manager put out an executive order. Any truck within 500 miles of the terminal, without a load, is to be brought in to have have all necessary work done. Only we (the drivers) are not aware of this, so like the hapless sailor we enter the Bermuda Triangle only to be sucked in and never seen again.

Three days in line before my truck even sees the inside of the shop. When I arrived Friday afternoon, I thought they were kidding when they said It would be Sunday before they would get to my truck. They weren't! It was actually Monday before it got in. Normally it wouldn't take this long, but with nearly a quarter of the fleet in the terminal, the line got to be quite long.

I don't mind spending a day or two in the terminal. They went all out building a place with the drivers in mind. We have free laundry, showers, a TV room with a huge big screen tv and a quiet room with recliners and a table or two if you want to read or surf the web. There is even a kitchen where you can wash dishes from the truck and some vending machines.

I can manage a day or two, but when that day or two rolls into three or four. I start getting restless. I don't know what it is. You can only wash your clothes, dishes, yourself and your truck so many times.

My truck was finally parolled around 9:oo Monday night and by 10:00 I was outta there! I was so excited to have wheels under my butt, I didn't even care where I was going. Now normally I don't like driving at night for so many reasons, but today, I was willing to make an exception. Besides I only had to go about 30 miles to one of our regular shippers and I could spend the night on their dirty, dusty, muddy dirt lot before heading out in the morning. As long as I'm out and about. I'm happy