No, its not a knock-down, drag-out tussle between the states. Its just that any time I highlight for San Marcos, California I inevitably get sent to San Marcos, Texas instead.
I dropped my load first thing this morning in the drop yard of a textile company near the Mexican border. Now, I thought that textile companies produced textiles (shirts, pants, socks, etc.) but this one doesn't. It is a huge warehouse with folks sorting all the donated clothing that goes to organizations like Goodwill. I was surprised to see them using huge compactors to compress everything together into big blocks to make stuff easier to ship... ship to Mexico, I expect.
The guy in charge of the yard spoke muy pocito englais, and I speak muy pocito espanol. Eventually he showed me where to bring my truck into his dirt yard area and wait while one of his local chofurs (drivers) moved a few trailers around and made me a spot to drop my full trailer in.
Empty trailers are kept out on the street in long lines, nose-to-tail with the trailers on either end having kingpin locks so no one can swipe one. Unfortunately, the company across the street parked one of their trailers in front of this line and they didn't want to move it aside to get at the rest. Eventually, I got on the horn with dispatch and we agreed I would bobtail over to our yard and our local yard driver would grab the empty later. Explaining and understanding all of this with two grown adults talking in two different languages was interesting.
Anyway, back to the Battle of the States. I get back to our yard and before I can even jump in the bunk my buzzer goes off. They have a super rush-rush load that has to be in San Antonio at 0500 tomorrow. About 550 miles. All interstate 10. Fantastic single day run. It also happens to be a great lead up to being dispatched home to San Marcos, Texas. You see my issue.
I called my dispatcher, Amanda. I mentioned that this happens almost every time I've highlighted out to California and she told me that she has a big note on the screen to make sure to not send me to San Marcos, Texas. The load planner, naturally, ignored that and sent me that load.
Perhaps I should have run it then mentioned the state mixup tomorrow morning when they try to dispatch me to the one in Texas. Would have had a nice, all-day, easy-breezy run, and I would have basically doubled those miles getting back to El Paso then points west.
It sucks being honest sometimes.
