Good morning all! I've got a story about possible truck abandonment even though I've done everything in my power TWICE over to make things as easy as possible to return my truck.
I've been a driver with this company for roughly nine months now with very little success and consistency. I'd operated on a run between Minneapolis and Chicago with a drive to Kansas City or Gary, IN thrown in to keep things interesting. My wife and our dog rode along in a cube about the size of a bathroom but we made it work.
Around February both my wife's and myself's mental health started to deteriorate due to the combined stress of not only the combined routing between two of the busiest cities just south of the Canadian Border but also due to our company's poor management and handling of equipment; in October our truck was partitioned by a truck repair shop licensed with our company due to a supposed transmission fault. What should have been an easy fix, a week at most, turned into them removing the trans twice in a row and taking a month to “fix”…this issue came up again not even a day later as the result of a leaking air valve.
Throughout our tenure with said company, there've been at least several dozen trailers I've carried that needed worked on. I'd received calls stating that my loads are late while my tires are being replaced and, in one instance, spotted a trailer that I had called in several weeks prior due to a missing license plate still missing its license plate…three states away, loaded. The business in question has an overworked maintenance department double-dutied by dispatch on the side.
Come later on this March and we both had enough and were getting worn down to the fact that we, as night running people, had no easy access to reliable dispatch after 5 PM and most our loads were handed to us as the sun was coming up. Our main dispatcher was also replaced as a result of her leaving the company due to her being fed up with the company's politics; the combination of having drivers so inept that they couldn't easily put in new ready times or home time changes probably contributed to not only her resulting self-removal from the business, but also our poor opinion for a company that already didn't seem to care about safety or the status of its equipment and expedited our decision to leave as soon as humanly possible. We'd decided to come home in early-mid March, take the truck in down to Atlanta and then take a Greyhound back up around Nashville/Murfreesboro. After everything was moved out (took two days because we lived in the thing) and we'd settled back in at home, I booked a ticket for an evening Greyhound that next week and shut the truck off completely.
When I returned to my truck, it was dead; completely dead. My truck is one of the INFAMOUS Freightliner Cascadia models from the Saltillo plant in Mexico; these trucks had a recall for the steering link breaking off and the batteries having a possibility of dying while on the road so it's bound to have some failure or flaw the day of my 'retirement'. I called up road maintenance and they got a battery guy out but I still had to reschedule for a ticket the next day since it got too late in the day.
The next day I came back and it was dead again. I doubled checked everything from the power inverter to the battery switch but everything was kosher on my end; I called in for dispatch to inform them that a tow would've been better off but they informed me I would be accountable for truck abandonment; I nearly flew into a flurry of curses and threats but I was barely able to keep my cool since dispatch is just as trapped as I was. When I phoned for the senior manager I was informed of the same thing; albeit that I would be recorded for truck abandonment on commercial property as well UNLESS I just so happened to have been telling the truth and my truck really was dead on the asphalt. They told me that a rescue team would arrive to get the truck; but I had no more business being near it nor should I arrive to bring in my spare keys, they also informed me that I would not receive a phone call and that anything left in the truck belonged to the mechanics shop now.
As for the company I'm referring to. Have you ever you thrown something at a DARTboard and it just bounces off? That's the measure of disappointment I've felt with my experiences. Not all is bad though; my mental health along with my wife's is getting better; it feels good to have running water again plus we no longer need to rely on half of a full-size fridge for all of our groceries!
Remember; anyone desiring to be a truck driver, that there are several things to note.
1: Your life is worth more than a paycheck; always say no to running in thick rain, fog or snow.
2: Your hometime is not concrete and you should keep it on YOUR terms; if you need an extra day for a doctor's appointment or a dentist, take it.
3: Depression, Stress and Suicide are more prevalent in our line of work than most people realize. Being away from home for weeks & even months at a time will be straining. I didn't even know my father's name until I asked him one day when I was seven; he was out for three-four months and home for, at most, five days. Be home, if not for your families, then for yourselves; remind yourself that you are just as human as the people that drive next to you on the interstate.
Truck Drivers are not robots; we're people too.