A  6 hour day.  A miserable 6 hour day.  I was so tired this morning it was a chore to get out of bed, rush to the shower, get dressed and get out within 15 minutes to head over to the yard and find.....nothing.  The truck they had said I would be driving was not there.  Lovely.  Clock is ticking I got there early just so I could make sure I wasn't hold the other driver up.  Turns out he's an owner operator - they're highly motivated, they don't get paid like us company drivers do so they have to hustle.

Not that I don't hustle, but there are lots of drivers that slack.  It is the same in every trucking company.  The go getters - get the gold, the slackers get small paychecks.  Anyway, the terminal manager answered the phone when I called - very early this morning - and said okay, and gave me another truck number. Yes it's out there. Good, but the Quaalcomm/elogs don't work, you'll have to use a paper log book.

Gag, I don't even like those things anymore and I'm a bit rusty with it, but ok.  Get to the yard where the loaded trailers are - the dude comes running out after I had already hooked up to the assigned trailer. They just told me you can't take that tractor because it's been used for 7 days without elogs functioning.  

These people have no clue what they're talking about. A different driver can get right back in it and use it for 7 days. One it's legal, 2 if it weren't there is no way a State Trooper would be able to tell. 

Whatever, this day started out bad, and I was ill prepared for all the headaches, especially all of that fuss at a very early hour.  And getting maybe 4 hours of sleep didn't help.  Something woke me up shortly after midnight and I was awake for hours. I eventually got back to sleep, that alarm going off was hellish tho.  

The deal? New Hampshire isn't even a part of that run.  The plant is only 63 miles away.  But, it's 63 miles of 35 mph, 40, 55, 50 etc - slow speed limits and lots of cops.  No sway are you going to go speeding through those little towns, not that I want to anyway.  So that added an explanation of why you only do 2 runs a day, I was informed you might be able to squeeze in 2 but they don't normally ask you to do that.  Well, I'm getting a flat rate per day so whatever they tell me to do, that's what I'm going to do.  I'm expecting 2 runs tomorrow/Sunday.  

One of the absolute worst aspects of this deal is the automatic transmissions. NOT a fan, at all.  Trying to back those things under a loaded trailer is ridiculous.  They don't respond when you hit the fuel, it jerks into motion even with slight pressure on it and there is no way to smoothly hook it up. It rams the kingpin and I'm not a fan of that at all.  It would have been FAR better to drive my truck up here, I can gently ease under and trailer with a clutch/manual transmission.  

But I'm stuck here now so it is what it is.  

The other thing was they had only gotten us one rental vehicle and that won't work at all.  We are getting dispatched at completely different times. Mine was 5:00 am, the other driver is Noon today.  I just happened to get done and back to the hotel before he needed to leave so it worked out. But I've had nothing to eat and the only thing in walking distance is a convenience store across the street.  

Oh, and this place is weird! They are all voodoo-ed out with corona virus and masks.  You can't go into any restaurant without reservations!  I didn't even see a fast food place here, just steak houses and Chili's and such.  I mean, I can eat at those places, lol, but making reservations for a Chili's is just strange to me.  

Okay, my manager got me a rental vehicle, I have to go back to the airport to get it.  Taking an uber over there and get it over with, stop somewhere - call first of course for reservations lmao - and get something to eat, then come back and take a nap.  

More later.