First Solo Week
Well I'm now midway through my first officially solo work week. And so far it's already gone pretty terribly. Sunday I started out at a bright and early 6 am, loaded up the truck, installed my portable XM radio and hit the road. I headed to Welch, WV for an out of gas service request. For those of you unfamiliar with this bright little gem in southern WV, it's literally in the middle of no where. And from Charleston, in a commercial vehicle, it takes about 3 hours to get there.
The ride was enjoyable, twisting and turning through some lovely scenic areas. I arrived to find the stop in need of service big time. They had called us the night before claiming to be out of gas. But the odd part was that they have a 750 lb tank that we'd just filled less than 4 days before. Doing my visual inspection of the tank before I began the filling process I found that they were still pretty much full, but the pressure on the system had dropped below operating levels.
My first step was to re-pressurize the system and let it sit for about 5 minutes to make sure the pressure was going to hold. Once that was complete, I topped off the CO2, 30 minutes to service the stop and voila! Job well done, I then hit the road for the rest of my route.
You see that was all find and dandy, except that there wasn't any routes available in that area for the day so the route I had to do was another 2 hours away in Kentucky.
More than half of my work day was exhausted by the time I arrived in KY where I was to begin my actual route. I did get a lot of stops done while I was there, 8 actually, and that took about four hours. So if you're adding up the math on this, by the time I finished my last delivery it had already been around 9 1/2 hours.
My work day is technically supposed to be 10 hours. And I still had at least 2 hours to drive to get back to the depot. And of course, I met with opposition when I began my trip home when a couple of morons decided to play bumper cars in the middle of the highway. The result of that accident was a 30 minute parking lot in the direction I was headed.
I did finally make it back to the depot just a few minutes over 14 hours after I'd started my day. Day one, complete.
Day two...
We're down to one bulk truck right now because the other truck is in KY being inspected, so we have to adjust our schedules to accommodate the inconvenience. During the week days there are two drivers scheduled to be out doing routes at the same time, so while one truck is out of service, the two drivers have to go one after the other.
So the one driver opted to run from 2am to about noon and he is to call me when he's headed back to the depot so I can meet him. Once he arrives I fill the truck back up and hit the road. Of course things didn't go as planned. The safety team arrived yesterday just before the driver made it back to the shop. And they wanted to go over the truck with a fine toothed comb before they would let me leave with it.
I should have been able to hit the road by noon-thirty but instead it was after 1pm before I got to leave. So I was already on a late start. I was headed to two out of gas calls in the area. When I got to the first stop, I got a text saying there was now a third stop I needed to make before heading on my scheduled route.
It took me about 2 hours to get the three stops done, most of the time was spent driving from one end of the valley to the other. While I was filling the tank at my last out of gas stop I started figuring my route time needs. I had about 3 hours to drive to get to the scheduled route once again in Kentucky. I had 16 stops once I got there, which would take an estimated 8 hours. Five plus eight = thirteen. Which would leave me with only one hour to make the 3 hour trip back before my legal allowable 14 hour work day was up.
So knowing it wasn't happening legally I called my boss and explained. He suggested I come back to the depot, swap out route schedules and then keep to a local area. So I did. I arrived at the depot to find that the safety guys were still picking things apart, including my truck as I pulled up, and grabbed the new route sheet and turned around and headed out.
I was fighting rush hour traffic at this point in the day and going into the heart of the beast, also known to locals as the town of Cross Lanes. UGH! If you're from the area and have ever needed to get somewhere in Cross Lanes between the hours of say, 3pm and 9pm, you know to expect it to take forever! If you're not familiar with it, you'll end up cursing and pleading a deal with the devil just to help out make it through.
So I finally get to the first stop on my list. I go in and check the tank, the full/empty gauge is broken so I can't visually determine how much CO2 it's gonna need. So I head out, drag out the hose, hook up, and begin the fill process. The tank at this particular stop is what we call a self bleeder, while we fill it, it has an automatic pressure relief system. Basically we don't have to manually relieve the pressure which can be time consuming.
Typically when the tank needs over 100 lbs it will take a few minutes before the self bleeder starts to pump off the pressure. But at this stop, it started almost immediately. Which leads you to believe it's already full. Hmm... odd. So I grab my hand held computer to see when the place was last serviced.
It was less than 4 days before. The tank only took 13 lbs of CO2, I scratched my head and figured that maybe they had called in an out of gas service request and after reeling the hose back up and such, I headed over to the next stop on my list.
I went in, checked the tank, saw that the full/empty gauge showed that it was half full. I went out, hooked up, began the fill process. This tank was not a self bleeder so I had to keep a watchful eye on my fill gun gauge. When the pressure hits a certain point, I have to stop filling and bleed off the pressure manually. The pressure gauge hit that sweet spot almost instantly. So I turned off the supply valve and turned on the relief valve and saw instantly that the tank was full.
I can tell it's full by the color of the vapor that comes out during the pressure relief process. If it's clear or invisible then it's not full yet. If it comes out white, then it's full. This time, it was full. Which means that the full/empty gauge isn't working right.
So again I checked my hand held computer for last service. This time it didn't have a recent date, but that doesn't mean anything. I started to think that maybe the system was messed up. So I unhooked and headed to the next stop. I went in, checked the tank, saw that it was full, tracked down the manager and asked if they had a recent service slip. She rifled through the desk in her office and produced a recent bill that showed they were just serviced at the end of last week.
Realizing that all of the stops on this route list were just done days before, I called up the boss, explained, and made an executive decision to call it a day.
I'd put in just over 6 hours for the day by the time I got back to the depot. So needless to say, the second day of my work week was less than productive. I sure hope today goes better.
The ride was enjoyable, twisting and turning through some lovely scenic areas. I arrived to find the stop in need of service big time. They had called us the night before claiming to be out of gas. But the odd part was that they have a 750 lb tank that we'd just filled less than 4 days before. Doing my visual inspection of the tank before I began the filling process I found that they were still pretty much full, but the pressure on the system had dropped below operating levels.
My first step was to re-pressurize the system and let it sit for about 5 minutes to make sure the pressure was going to hold. Once that was complete, I topped off the CO2, 30 minutes to service the stop and voila! Job well done, I then hit the road for the rest of my route.
You see that was all find and dandy, except that there wasn't any routes available in that area for the day so the route I had to do was another 2 hours away in Kentucky.
More than half of my work day was exhausted by the time I arrived in KY where I was to begin my actual route. I did get a lot of stops done while I was there, 8 actually, and that took about four hours. So if you're adding up the math on this, by the time I finished my last delivery it had already been around 9 1/2 hours.
My work day is technically supposed to be 10 hours. And I still had at least 2 hours to drive to get back to the depot. And of course, I met with opposition when I began my trip home when a couple of morons decided to play bumper cars in the middle of the highway. The result of that accident was a 30 minute parking lot in the direction I was headed.
I did finally make it back to the depot just a few minutes over 14 hours after I'd started my day. Day one, complete.
Day two...
We're down to one bulk truck right now because the other truck is in KY being inspected, so we have to adjust our schedules to accommodate the inconvenience. During the week days there are two drivers scheduled to be out doing routes at the same time, so while one truck is out of service, the two drivers have to go one after the other.
So the one driver opted to run from 2am to about noon and he is to call me when he's headed back to the depot so I can meet him. Once he arrives I fill the truck back up and hit the road. Of course things didn't go as planned. The safety team arrived yesterday just before the driver made it back to the shop. And they wanted to go over the truck with a fine toothed comb before they would let me leave with it.
I should have been able to hit the road by noon-thirty but instead it was after 1pm before I got to leave. So I was already on a late start. I was headed to two out of gas calls in the area. When I got to the first stop, I got a text saying there was now a third stop I needed to make before heading on my scheduled route.
It took me about 2 hours to get the three stops done, most of the time was spent driving from one end of the valley to the other. While I was filling the tank at my last out of gas stop I started figuring my route time needs. I had about 3 hours to drive to get to the scheduled route once again in Kentucky. I had 16 stops once I got there, which would take an estimated 8 hours. Five plus eight = thirteen. Which would leave me with only one hour to make the 3 hour trip back before my legal allowable 14 hour work day was up.
So knowing it wasn't happening legally I called my boss and explained. He suggested I come back to the depot, swap out route schedules and then keep to a local area. So I did. I arrived at the depot to find that the safety guys were still picking things apart, including my truck as I pulled up, and grabbed the new route sheet and turned around and headed out.
I was fighting rush hour traffic at this point in the day and going into the heart of the beast, also known to locals as the town of Cross Lanes. UGH! If you're from the area and have ever needed to get somewhere in Cross Lanes between the hours of say, 3pm and 9pm, you know to expect it to take forever! If you're not familiar with it, you'll end up cursing and pleading a deal with the devil just to help out make it through.
So I finally get to the first stop on my list. I go in and check the tank, the full/empty gauge is broken so I can't visually determine how much CO2 it's gonna need. So I head out, drag out the hose, hook up, and begin the fill process. The tank at this particular stop is what we call a self bleeder, while we fill it, it has an automatic pressure relief system. Basically we don't have to manually relieve the pressure which can be time consuming.
Typically when the tank needs over 100 lbs it will take a few minutes before the self bleeder starts to pump off the pressure. But at this stop, it started almost immediately. Which leads you to believe it's already full. Hmm... odd. So I grab my hand held computer to see when the place was last serviced.
It was less than 4 days before. The tank only took 13 lbs of CO2, I scratched my head and figured that maybe they had called in an out of gas service request and after reeling the hose back up and such, I headed over to the next stop on my list.
I went in, checked the tank, saw that the full/empty gauge showed that it was half full. I went out, hooked up, began the fill process. This tank was not a self bleeder so I had to keep a watchful eye on my fill gun gauge. When the pressure hits a certain point, I have to stop filling and bleed off the pressure manually. The pressure gauge hit that sweet spot almost instantly. So I turned off the supply valve and turned on the relief valve and saw instantly that the tank was full.
I can tell it's full by the color of the vapor that comes out during the pressure relief process. If it's clear or invisible then it's not full yet. If it comes out white, then it's full. This time, it was full. Which means that the full/empty gauge isn't working right.
So again I checked my hand held computer for last service. This time it didn't have a recent date, but that doesn't mean anything. I started to think that maybe the system was messed up. So I unhooked and headed to the next stop. I went in, checked the tank, saw that it was full, tracked down the manager and asked if they had a recent service slip. She rifled through the desk in her office and produced a recent bill that showed they were just serviced at the end of last week.
Realizing that all of the stops on this route list were just done days before, I called up the boss, explained, and made an executive decision to call it a day.
I'd put in just over 6 hours for the day by the time I got back to the depot. So needless to say, the second day of my work week was less than productive. I sure hope today goes better.
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