Open Road Tolling

 

It was a hard damn week. It started Monday with a load that had to leave early in order to arrive on time, but that's normal. Friday loads are always long and Monday loads are always early. You'd think they begrudged us our weekend or something. But Tuesday I had to deliver the Chicago load. Usually one of our drivers drops a load on the Chicago yard overnight and a local driver makes the deliveries the next day. Local must have called in sick or something. The first stop was way on the far North side, so of course I had to go all the way through traffic to get there. The good thing is that the next three stops worked me back around to the Southwest side, closer to home. I actually did make it home that night, just in time to go to bed, though I was prepared to sleep on the road.

Rock and Roll music; concrete and asphalt arcs converging and diverging; lines of mass in motion; cars and trucks staccato. Man, open road tolling keeps the momentum flowing. The fenced industrial yards of the city become open earth works beyond the suburbs.

The rest of the week I had long loads with multiple stops as well. Hey, that's fine, that's a good thing; I'm making money. What made it particularly hard was that my fleet manager quit. They don't have a replacement yet. The top guy, the boss of all the local bosses is handling those accounts, temporarily. So even if I didn't use up my hours I'd still have to be back on the truck 10 later, after my break. Scott used to manage it so there was a flow that was easier on the driver. There's no malice involved; Adam just doesn't have the experience to recognize the conflicts. There was one load that except for extra effort on my part would have been impossible to deliver legally (aren't I special). The good news is that the boss of all bosses is getting experience now, and listening to Driver's concerns. At least I'm voicing some of them.

Then, on top of that, the evening gate guard moved away about a month ago, and the morning gate guard went in for surgery over the weekend and is out for recovery. I'll let you imagine the scenarios. I smile as I think of the remarkable woman who filled in for Holly; but the story would be too long to tell just now. I never even got her name. That's how impersonal it is. You aren't introduced as a person, but as a capacity. There just wasn't time.