Mon/Tues...Nov 1/2.... You're Kiddin', right?

Just when you think you have this trucking thing down pat...

We arrived in West Memphis on Sunday around 7:00 a.m. Trying to figure out how to log the day light savings time was a trick. We gained an hour, as did all the other drivers logging this day, but couldn't really decide the right way to log the gained hour... a quick call to the log department resulted in not too much of an answer either. My recommendation was to write Daylight Savings Time across the top and someone else could figure why we were only showing a 9 hr break.

Sunday was without incident and actually another nice break. Laundry, Wal-Mart, clean the truck, and showers were on the agenda. We were given 2 pre-plans so this took up a few minutes doing the trip planning.

Monday our first load picked up at 3:00 in Memphis, TN and we delivered this in Richland, MS. When you're in 3 states in a couple of hours (AR,TN, and MS) for some reason I thought we were already in TX. Too many loads at once. LOL

We left Richland, MS and headed toward Taylorsville, MS. According to my map and the GPS it was 59.8 miles but for some reason the dispatch said 9 miles. Ok... we don't have to be there until 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, so we have time to figure this out....

A call to dispatch didn't help much. They were looking at the same info we had. A second call to dispatch (just to ensure we were actually going to the right place) and we were able to figure out that there are 2 Taylorsville's in MS. One was 9 miles from where we were and the other was 59 miles from where we were.

We all decided we were headed the correct way and that the computer picked up the first Taylorsville, MS that is located in Hinds County.

After driving another 30 miles, following our directions and maps, we get turned on the street where the shipper is located. The name of the company, according to our directions, was Ducksworth. Ok... it's pitch dark on this little tiny unmarked country road in the middle of Mississippi. I am looking for a 214 (the building number) or a Ducksworth. Neither are happening.

Finally I spot a 214 above the door on a building and we stop. We kinda of looked at each other like... where are the docks? Again, it's pitch black outside. I notice what looks like a gravel drive around the side of the building and we decide to drive up to that driveway. For everyone that doesn't drive... it's much easier keeping this 70' of truck going forward vs. getting jammed up trying to get turned around or going down what looks like a neighborhood street vs. road of any kind.

Luckily there were docks behind the building and a couple of empty trailers. We sent in "arrived at customer". The only problem is the name of the business is Remy. We see no Duckworth's anywhere.

A few minutes pass and we get a message asking if we are at the customers? I'm thinking "What!" I sent a message back to them explaining we are at the location of the directions, however; and then I added all the crazy things with the address, dispatch, and company name and then my last sentence was "am I at the customer?"

It's been a couple of hours now and no one has responded. I guess we'll find out in the morning.

Moral to the story is check your dispatch miles. Our dispatch from here to Laredo will be wrong, as well, due to being dispatched from the wrong city. Wrong miles add's up as in lost income for the driver.

And they call this "unskilled labor!"