THE LOST WEEKEND

What started as a simple dispatch to pick up ice cream, all too soon, turned into what will now be forever referred to as the "lost weekend". For those of you not in the business, the details on all frozen loads, always reads to pre chill the trailer to -10 degrees Fahrenheit. As Craig has done in all previous frozen loads, about two hours before load time, he fired up the reefer and thought nothing more of it. Upon arrival at the Shipper, the temperature read 7 degrees, and that is where it all started to go so very wrong.While paperwork was getting sorted out, a recheck of the temperature showed that the trailer was not chilling down to -10 degrees, but remained steady at 7 degrees. Gauges were checked and tapped on, because after all, it never hurts to hit on the item you want to work correctly, right? But no matter how hard he wished it would chill down, it never did, and the Shipper refused to load the trailer with the ice cream. Now add into the mix, that the Shipper does not work on weekends, and I think you are now getting the big picture.

A phone call into dispatch, and Craig was told to take the defective trailer to the Fred Meyer DC this morning, where it could be loaded with a non frozen load, and obtain a trailer that would chill to -10 degrees. After sitting idle for the weekend, with his $208 layover pay for Saturday and Sunday on the books, he would then return at 10am on Monday morning and hopefully get the trailer loaded and head down to Temecula, CA for delivery on Wednesday.

Craig related his sad tale to me over the phone last night while still parked at the Shippers dock. They had given him the code to exit the gate when he wanted to leave, since he was planning on just staying there all night. I inquired as to why he just didn't leave and go back to the truck stop about 20 miles away. He didn't have a good answer to that, and decided maybe it would be a bit nicer there, especially with the free wi fi and facilities to use. I always got your back honey!

Now for those of you who were wondering what it was that Craig ordered at the restaurant Thursday night, it was meat loaf served with brown gravy. Craig said it wasn't the best he had ever had, but certainly it was tasty and well worth the money for a nice dinner out. Oh, and Txjerry2, check out the comments section on the previous post to the answer to your question, I never could find a way to send the response to you personally.