Wait.....and Wait Some More....

Trucking requires alot of patience. Sometimes a shipper or receiver takes forever and it eats away at your clock. Some days the problem is on both ends. Today was one of those days. I recently changed my work schedule so I work Tuesdays now. The downside is I only have 4 guys below me on Tuesdays and it really limits the options I have for routes. Everything left I estimated would be about an 8 hour day with the exception of a run to Springfield Illinois that I couldn't take due to it leaving by 11pm and not having any hours back until 230am. It was also a 680 mile run and I aim for about 400 a day. Anyways, I figured since I wouldn't get hours I'd sleep in and take a 6am run picking up contracted load from a cold storage facility in Des Moines and run it roughly 100 miles SE, come back empty and drop and hook from another one of our sister companies In town and take to our yard. 3 stops and 193 miles total. Sat at my pickup for 4 hours. Drove 2 hours away just to sit for 3 more hours to unload. The problem is they didn't unload me. Turns out the shipper loaded the wrong product! Of the 45k full load they took off 1 pallet that was there's. All the paperwork on my end was correct and they open/close doors from the inside and seal it so there was no way to compare the bills to the load. Dispatch asked if id be able to take it back to the shipper but they'd be closed by the time I got back in town so I dropped it at our yard and someone will run it there tomorrow. What I expected to be a measley 8-10 hour day ended up being 13 1/2. Thankfully I'm hourly so it made no difference to me if I had to sit and wait but this very easily could ruin someone's day if they're paid mileage. I will also get paid $32 and change for the Drop/Hook I was unable to do because I had to run the trailer back to the yard and would run out of hours as I had to use my 16 hour extension on Saturday for another quite eventful day. Thats truckin for ya! If I get this run again I'm taking a sleeper.

If you're paid by the mile how would your company handle this situation as far as your compensation?

Side note I watched a guy go off the gravel while backing in at the receiver and dig his steer tire into the grass/hillside. He was trying to get out but was just digging himself in deeper. ALWAYS stay on a hard surface!

With my company you would just have to eat it for the day. I had a situation pretty similar come up a few weeks ago.

Unloaded in Maine very close to the end of my clock, got unloaded and made it to the Kennebunk service plaza to pick up in Lawrence MA the next day. Drove the hourish it took to get there and then sat all day, literally all day waiting to get loaded. Now I could have taken a nap or something n run at night, but I had enough time on the load I just stayed there n took off the next morning. My load I was supposed to pick up today, was supposed to be ready at noon today won't be ready til tomorrow sometime. It's just one of those things I guess. I personally look at it as, ok I only ran 4 hrs today so I can save those hours for a tighter load or for next week when I recap it again.