Back to Work

Back to Work

After two weeks off, we finally made our way back to work. And what a week it was! We haven't work that hard in a very long time. We left home on Monday night to stage for our pick up on Tuesday morning. We knew we would have a tight timeline and informed our contact. And of course, there was a slight delay. Fortunately, the trip went smoothly until we arrived at the delivery the next day. We then had to wait nearly two hours to get unloaded. The timing was tight; however, we did make our next pick up on Wednesday afternoon. We got loaded and were on our way again. We were blessed with safe travels and made our delivery Thursday morning. While we were offloading a call came through for a load that picked up that afternoon. We drove about 80 miles to our next pick up. We arrived early to our Friday delivery so we did get some sleep before we had to offload. Another load was found for Monday so we drove to stage ourselves for the next week's load. We took the weekend to get caught up on some sleep.

This busy work week makes me wonder how many days in a row do you work before you take a night or two off to get some relaxation? Do you drive until you hit your 70 hours? Or do you make the decision to pick up a new load the day after you deliver a load? Full disclosure, our preference is to delivery one day and pick up the next day. Working this way allows us to stay rested. We want to be as alert as possible to be as safe as we can when we are driving. This keeps us and everyone around us safe. That is our number one priority.

Also, this week was the annual safety blitz. For those readers who might not know what that is, let me explain. Every year the Department of Transportation (DOT) has what is called a safety blitz. For three days the DOT focuses on some truck parts and other rules that we as drivers need to follow while doing our jobs. This year the focus was on truck tires and logs. If we would have been pulled into a scale, the DOT officers would check our tires to make sure that there were no cuts or worn spots. The DOT officers would also check our log books to make sure that we are filling them out properly. Fortunately, we did not get pulled in for an inspection. With our tight schedule all week, getting pulled in would have added more stress to an already tight week. Hopefully, you all had a positive experience during this year's annual safety blitz.

Here's to millions of safe, profitable and STRESS-FREE miles.

Kelly Plumb