Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
It has been said that there are no wrong choices. It has also been said that we make the best decisions with the information we have available. It has been said that it can't be done. It has also been said, “because I said so.” A lot of thing shave been said about everything. I was about to suggest that everything has already been said, but new things keep coming up to say as our collective pool of knowledge expands. Back to my original two points.
While there may be no wrong choices, and we do the best we can with the information we have, I feel that having incomplete or changing information may lead to some decisions that are less efficient than the optimum. Perhaps that is setting the standard a bit high. Moreover, it may be an impossible standard to keep or even reach when the information is a variable you do not control. So I thought I was going to California. I'm not. The long and short of it is I thought I could take the load with the time I had left, but I forgot to factor in the hours I had already run yesterday. Like I said, best with the information we have at the time. Despite communicating that, I was still on the load, except I was now set-up to pull it to a terminal where somebody else would run it to California. So I went to bed.
Waking up in the morning sometime around 0900 local, I scratched myself a bit in that kinda manly morning way rolled over just in time to hear a text message alert. Well. What could that be? Its a new load assignment. Huh. Better get myself together and out the door. Looks like I am picking up at the place I am delivering to, and taking whatever it is to Fulton, Mississippi.
In the trucking world, there is this thing called “forced dispatch.” The meaning is fairly obvious, but essentially, you go where they tell to go and pull that load. Swift is not technically a forced dispatch company, but you'd better have a good reason not to take the load. A good reason would include, “I have to break some laws to do it.” Actually I think that is the only good reason. I hear tales of some drivers who will not go into New England under any circumstances, and more commonly with N.Y.C.
There is a little system involved in getting loads, which does not ultimately guarantee that you will be doing that the next day. The company finds a load, and sends it to your truck. You then have to plan it out in your head (faster is better) and determine if you can run the load. You then respond to the pre-plan either accepting it or not. Clearly, there is plenty of room for error in this process, because the company doesn't know how much time you have to run (which makes no sense at all since you have to send in the previous day's hours every day) and there are people involved. I do my best not to screw things up, but I am only human. Then when all of this is said and done, you've accepted the pre-plan (it is still a pre-plan until you get a load assignment) the company can still take it off of you at their discretion. So I guess I am a bit bummed not to be going to Shafter, CA.
On the bright side, I don't have to drive my skinny butt off to get somewhere. Getting up at midnight to drive is just crazy talk! So I'll enjoy to Southeast and the rain that came today. The rain is a lot different than in the northwest. It doesn't chill you to the bone. Then again, I wouldn't want to live here either. I'll say hello to Memphis for y'all.
Eh? I thought you were on your way back to Callie from the constant state of misery.
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