Two friends said this companys boss who arranges trailer routes does it very well so I should work there. Fair enough, I went and agreed on basic principles. If away from home, I have 12 hours work (can drive 9 hours, rest other work), but I live in central location so no worries 2-3 days a week at home with semi/larger. Another, I do not work on Saturday/Sunday.
Comes first friday afternoon at 5pm, I check computer for my next load: saturday 9 am ship arrives… I call boss, remind I'm about five hours from home, and don't work on weekends as agreed. He says “I know”. I ask for another load, he says there is nothing.
I drive home. I get a call monday at 11am where am I – I say I am driving towards the harbor from home to pick up the load. Boss is silent for a while and says “oh yeah the weekend thing”. I say I already called friday to the client I will be late and it is no bother, and he says “good, later !”.
Next 3 weeks same except boss calls when I start empty semi at home, asks where am I – home, and I get changed to pick up a trailer nearby.
After those four tries I never drove empty home. Not once, always with trailer. Six years.
BUT:
Come friday, I call boss at 9pm that it is getting late, and I am two hours from home. Boss: “…yes?”. I say, where do you want me to leave this trailer after an hour, it's saturday in three hours I have one hour left and starting to go wrong way. “Ok keep it on and go home”. As I keep it on I charge every meter I drive with it on, I need to remind him ever friday at 9pm for 3 weeks also.
After that, 6 years not one meter aside from route, once a week needed to sleep in semi (tbh had better bed in that Scania than at home at the time), sauna or shower place with good company every evening.
As I stated I live in central location so there is always something going from one of three large harbors through my town, and only 5km (3 miles?) away from anywhere where I'll be going.
Sorry if you expected horror story, you just need to train your bosses and all is well. During 8 weeks he had noticed I did some extra (like called to confirm it WAS airplane I was going to load, telling that some load exceeded weight limits and should be taken by someone else – here they give ticket both to boss and driver if overload – and such, checked if some other load was ready when waiting for my loader to finish etc etc).
So all good. After that about 6 years in company I needed to be at home for longer hours so I said I'll be leaving in 3-5 months, and will help search replacement. All good.