A Bit Brisk
by
Phil Madsen, Expediter
(Written January 10, 2005. Edited November 27, 2005 for publication on SuccessfulExpediters.com)
Diane and I (husband/wife team truck drivers, expedited freight, straight truck) have been busy since Christmas. We went back in service on December 26th and hauled a load from Rochester, Minnesota, to Laredo, Texas; then loads from Texas to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania to New Jersey and New Jersey to the far end of Long Island in New York. From there, we took a ferry across Long Island Sound to the Connecticut shore and drove to Rhode Island where we picked up a load bound for Ohio.
The Ohio delivery was near Cleveland where our truck owners live. They invited us to their home to spend the night and enjoy a home-cooked meal. The roast, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy were a welcome change from road food. We slept in the truck in their driveway. That was easier than dragging our stuff in the house only to drag it right back out when we left at 5:00 a.m. the next morning.
As is usually the case with expediters, the Cleveland delivery was completed minutes after our arrival. We then used our mapping software to locate a nearby public library, where we went to wait for our next load. I went inside to do some industry research and update our business plan. Diane stayed in the truck to take a nap.
It took a few minutes to locate a library table with a nearby electrical outlet for my laptop. I unpacked my papers, set up the laptop, got out a calculator, opened my note pad, and set out my good pen and glasses. With my nest now built, I was ready to relax and lose myself in several hours of study and writing. But before I'd even warmed my chair, Diane radioed on the walkie-talkie that we had a load offer. It was for an immediate pickup 12 miles away with straight through delivery to Duluth, MN.
Expediting is sometimes called the ambulance service of the freight industry. It's what we do. If we're in service and an acceptable load offer comes in, the freight comes first. We drop what we're doing and roll on the load. I chuckled at the timing of the offer, quickly packed up my stuff and headed back to the truck.
By the time I returned, Diane had the routing written out and the bill of lading ready to go. Our carrier sends us routing for each pickup and delivery via the Qualcomm unit we have in the truck. While we use computer mapping programs, we still write the carrier's routing on paper so we can continue the run without interruption if a laptop or the Qualcomm unit fails.
I restarted my laptop in the truck, this time with the GPS receiver attached. After entering the shipper's address, our route from the library to the shipper appeared on the screen and we were on our way.
Because expedited freight services are expensive, shippers call us either first or last. If they call us first, it's because an expediter can roll immediately on a load, dedicate the whole truck to the load, and drive it straight through to the delivery. Or it's because we dedicate the entire truck to the load and provide the special care required for high-value freight (museum art, million-dollar computers, irreplaceable legal papers, etc.). If shippers call us last, it's because they tried other carriers but could not find another way to get the load delivered in time, or previous arrangements fell through and expediting the freight is the only choice left.
This load was nothing special; two skids (pallets) of powder of some sort needed by a foundry in Duluth Minnesota. But they needed it right away, so an expediter was called. We were in and out of the shipper's dock in less than thirty minutes. Other than bathroom breaks, we did not stop during the run. We delivered just before sunrise on Wednesday, January 5th.
We took the long way around Chicago to avoid the rush hour; that's I-80 West to I-39 North. It adds about fifty miles to the trip but saves at least an hour of time. The alternative is to take I-90 or the so-called bypass routes (I-290, I-294) through town. Those routes are usually fine in the middle of the night. If you take them when the city is awake, you'll likely be pumping the clutch for a couple hours as you inch through traffic.
The weather turned bad through northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Heavy sleet turned to heavy snow. It was slow going for several hours. About half way through Wisconsin, the skies and roads cleared, and the temperature fell. It was well below zero (Fahrenheit) by the time we reached Duluth.
On the way, we received and accepted a load offer; pickup in Park Rapids, Minnesota, Wednesday 6:00 p.m., deliver near Atlanta, Georgia. Compared to what we normally get, the load's per-mile pay was low. We took it for three reasons.
First, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. We'd have to deadhead about 200 miles to get to a better freight area (Twin Cities) and wait for a load there for an unknown length of time. Once in the Cities, we might get a better paying load, or we might not. Second, the load would deliverer near Atlanta on Friday. Atlanta is a good freight area. The chances would be good that freight out of Atlanta would keep us rolling over the weekend. Third, the load fit our current load-acceptance strategy, which is to accept any load that does not cost us money.
I say current strategy because we've tried others and may try others in the future. So far, we've found accepting any load that does not cost us money to be the most profitable approach.
Park Rapids, Minnesota is about 150 miles west of Duluth. That would give us plenty of time to sleep and be rested for the Minnesota to Georgia run. I asked the man at the Duluth delivery to direct us to a place where we could park, eat, and sleep. He said there are no truck stops on the rural highways to Park Rapids, and that truckers often stop at Starvin Marvin's in Adolph on U.S. Highway 2. That sounded good to me. Starvin Marvin's it was.
I was glad to be driving west. The sun rose into a clear, crisp sky. The fresh snow on the ground made things even brighter. When the temperature goes below zero, the snow crunches under your feet. Stark-white chimney smoke rises straight and high into the bright blue sky You don't just see your breath, you feel frost form inside your nose. Ice forms on facial hair. Your eyes water and nose runs.
Starvin Marvin's is a tiny restaurant with an even tinier gas station attached. The building looked like it might have been a full-service gas station at one time with the old bays now converted into a restaurant. There were a half-dozen trucks in the lot with plenty of room for more. When I parked, I was ready to sleep. Diane was ready to eat. She went inside. I went to bed.
With the outside temperature well below zero, we kept the truck running, as did all other truck drivers there. There is no generator in the truck we're driving now. We had to idle to stay warm inside. Also, if you turn the truck off in sub-zero temps, you might not get it started again. I had a healthy dose of Howes Diesel Treat (an anti-gel product) in the fuel but was taking no chances. The truck would run all day.
After eating, Diane returned to the truck and got into bed. My yelps and protests did no good. She seemed to think the best place for her ice-cold body was next to my toasty-warm one. After our body temperatures equalized, we went to sleep.
I awoke around 11:00 a.m., got up, got dressed for arctic weather, did a pre-trip inspection, and headed in to use the bathroom. I was a little hungry but did not plan to eat a meal. Donuts in the truck would suffice as we drove to Park Rapids.
My plans changed the minute I stepped inside.
We are on the road most of the time. Minnesota is our home state. When I saw the people at Starvin Marvin's and heard them talking, a smile came across my face. We were "up North" as the people in Minnesota call it, and the patrons in Starvin Marvin's were speaking Minnesotan. We had plenty of time to get to the shipper. Bonus today! I was going to enjoy some quality Minnesota time at a restaurant up North.
You betchyah!
The movie Fargo accurately depicts Minnesota accents. They further north you go, the more pronounced the accents become. It felt good to be among them.
Four booths took up an entire wall in this tiny restaurant. The window blinds by the booths were open just a crack. Bright light from the sky and off the snow poured in. Opening the blinds further would have made people squint.
The linoleum lunch counter had five short, rotating stools with round, vinyl tops. The cash register occupied what would have been a sixth space at the counter. Square linoleum tables with stackable chairs were positioned between the booths and counter. They could be pushed together or apart to accommodate different size groups.
The floor was brown, ceramic tile like you see in some truck stops. It was covered with white stains from the salt and sand people tracked in from the sidewalk. Melting snow from people's boots formed small puddles of water under each table, stool and booth. The walls hosted several small white-boards with menu items hand-written in multiple colors; Fisherman's Special, Duck Hunter's Special, etc. The Duck Hunter's Special featured "three quacked eggs."
The place was packed. People's heavy winter clothing - some worn, some draped over chair backs - added to the elbow-to-elbow feeling. I got the last open seat, a booth in the corner farthest from the door. While the restaurant had designated smoking and non-smoking sections, no one smoked. It would be impolite to do so in such a small room with all seats filled. Instead of cigarette smoke, hearty breakfast smells filled the air.
People knew each other here, and they behave better because of it. It's not like big cities where much of what you do in pubic is anonymous because no one knows you. If someone cuts you off in city traffic, that's par for the course. If someone gets cut off in a small town, the bad driver would likely be known and the incident might be talked about for a week. In small towns, drivers are more likely to be polite and wave each other through. So too with smoking in a small restaurant.
"Coffee" is an important event in small-town Minnesota. The men gather in bakeries and cafes for coffee. It's where the local news gets exchanged, politics are discussed, and a lot of community decisions get made. Before the official town council meets, the meeting outcomes are often determined at coffee.
At coffee, you find out who is in the hospital and how he or she is doing. It's where John might decide he has time to go shovel the Peterson's snow after learning they are out of town for three days, or Norman and Betty will volunteer to take in Gladys's dog while Gladys is in the hospital. As their parents did years ago, today's coffee drinkers will wonder what's wrong with kids these days. They'll decide which kids are likely to turn out good and which ones don't have enough work to do.
The old guys get to feel young again as they flirt with the waitresses and the waitresses flirt back. Though, if a younger man flirted with a waitress, news about that would spread quietly but quickly through town and people would talk about whether it was good or bad.
You'll hear talk of the new pastor, the kind of paint they'll use for the new parking lines on main street, and who is voting for whom in the next election. When someone is running for State Representative, he or she will almost certainly go to coffee in every small town in the district. The owner of the local newspaper may interview the candidate at coffee with all the regulars present. If the golf course manager is thinking about moving the 12th hole over to that other hill, he'll probably bring it up at coffee before doing so.
Cold as the weather was, most men were wearing snowmobile boots and heavy canvass outer garments. They weren't wearing their ice fishing, snowmobiling, or hunting gear. These linemen, truck drivers, loggers, and heavy equipment operators were dressed for work. The older men were wearing parkas or heavy wool plaid coats.
Among the working men, the fashion statement of choice was a zip-up sweat shirt worn under a heavy coat with the sweat shirt's hood hanging out over the coat collar. Headgear was mostly stocking caps and an occasional plaid wool cap with ear flaps
Most of the men would be able to tell you the brand name of the boots the other men wore. Statements like "How do you like those Sorels?" or "I'm gonna get myself a new pair of Setters this weekend." can launch the coffee topic of the day. Meeting like this most days, the men get to know each other and their possessions well.
While coffee is a mostly-male event, it's not exclusively so. Women show up for coffee every now and then. There were two at Starvin Marvin's that day, both there with their husbands.
Starvin Marvin's sits at the junction of two highways with only trees for neighbors. People in town consider Starvin Marvin's to be in the country. In town, the men at coffee would be the merchants on main street, insurance salesmen, the feed store manager and perhaps the pastor. On a cold day, they'd be dressed in parkas. They'd wear rubbers or zip-up overshoes to protect shoes that need to be shined every now and then, and long-johns under their dress slacks. Some of the hats seen at coffee in town would make little sense to the men at Starvin Marvin's.
Two Starvin Marvin's waitresses moved rapidly among their customers. Both wore pony tails and blue jeans. Both had heavy Minnesota accents, as did everyone else. One of the waitresses could have passed for Marge, the sheriff in the Fargo movie. She was light-hearted and energetic. She frequently nodded and said, "Yah!" as her customers spoke.
My waitress brought water and asked, "Do you know what you want, already?" The other waitress asked another customer, "Are you hungry, or something?"
Tacking on half-questions like "already?", "or something?" and, "eh?" are part of speaking Minnesotan. It's like saying, "over" on a two-way radio. It lets your listener know your done talking and it's his or her turn to talk.
Out of habit I ordered water to drink. While I still enjoy an occasional cup, I gave up coffee after becoming a trucker. The stuff runs through me too fast. I don't like stopping all the time to answer Mother Nature's call. Water and pop (the word for soda in Minnesota) is better that way, don'tchya know?
In a state where coffee has near-religious significance, ordering just water struck my waitress as strange. I'm not kidding about religion and coffee. At the state fair, several churches have booths where they tout their coffee as the best in the state. While the churches are at the fair to promote Jesus, their "Real Egg Coffee" gets most of the advertising space. Preparing Sunday morning coffee at church is at least as important as preparing the communion service.
As my waitress looked at me funny, and as I thought about it, it would be odd to have a Starvin Marvin's breakfast without coffee. Ordering a cup of hot, fresh coffee provided two benefits. Holding the warm cup in my hands and savoring it's smell and taste took me deeper into my being-home-in-Minnesota moment. It also kept the waitress from going back to the kitchen and saying, "He's not having coffee." If they talked, they might think I was different or that I might be thinking something was wrong with the coffee at Starvin Marvin's.
The Star Tribune is Minnesota's largest newspaper. That day's edition further illustrated the meaning of coffee in Minnesota. The paper quoted State Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, who spoke about the prospects of the new legislative session. With his picture under the headline and his words in large type, he was quoted saying, "We will do a better job if we're willing to sit down and have a cup of coffee."
That remark would befuddle many people in Washington, D.C. They'd wonder what coffee has to do with anything. But in Minnesota, everyone knows exactly what the good Senator meant.
After I finished eating and the waitress refilled my coffee, I settled back to finish the morning paper. I listened more than I read, enjoying my coffee and drinking in the sounds of Minnesota.
The people talked in happy and upbeat tones. I head things like, "Are you working hard, or what?" and, "I heard where it was so cold they found a dog stuck to a fire hydrant."
One man walked in, approached his familiar group, and asked, "Are you behaving yourselves?"
"What else can you do?" was the immediate reply.
A volunteer rescue squad member was talking about how ice diving is more convenient than summer diving because you don't need a boat. You can just drive your pickup out on the lake with all your gear, chop a hole in the ice, and go in from there.
Ice divers are needed in those parts. Every winter, some people go out on the lakes too early or too late. The ice gives way. Cars, pickups, snowmobiles and sometimes a body must be recovered from the freezing waters below.
Someone announced to his table that there was a white pickup parked in the handicapped spot outside. While such parking was improper enough to earn mention inside, no one said anything more about it. Everyone knew no handicapped people would be coming that day. The pickup would move on its own soon enough.
From the lettering on his union jacket, I gathered one man was a union official visiting from far away. His breakfast partner - a local union official, I guessed - was explaining how the Scandinavians that came over from the old country brought their craftsmanship and work ethic with them, and passed them on through the generations. That's the stuff of Minnesota legend. It's not all true. Minnesota has it's share of bums and people know it. But most Minnesotans talk and act as if a strong work ethic is in place, and in many cases it is.
When Diane was in Starvin Marvin's she overheard a man say he'd bought a brand new pickup truck and left it outside to see if it would start in the morning. It didn't. I heard a man say, "It was fifteen below at my place this morning." Another said it was supposed to hit fifteen below again tomorrow. That led to a good-natured debate about whether you were an optimist or pessimist when you said it would be fifteen below.
It was optimistic.
As I write this, it's sunrise, January 6. We are not on our way to Georgia as planned. I'm sitting in the truck outside the Park Rapids plant that did not have freight ready we came yesterday to get it. It's twenty-six degrees below zero (actual temperature, not wind chill). Fifteen below would have been an improvement. Zero degrees would qualify as a heat wave.
How did we end up sitting in twenty-six-below weather on Thursday morning instead of being well on our way to Georgia? Our carrier screwed up. The shipper had a load going out of Park Rapids on Tuesday and one on Thursday, but by mistake our carrier sent us to pickup on Wednesday. The mistake was discovered after we arrived.
That took us to the very-familiar and frequently-asked expediter question.
"What do we do now?"
It was 7:00 p.m. Wednesday night. There was no freight to haul out of Park Rapids. There would be a load to Atlanta that could be picked up Thursday at 6:00 p.m. We were 200 miles from the Twin Cities and 250 from home. Dispatch told us we were their only truck in Minnesota that was in service and not under load. At that moment, the carrier's dispatch board showed no freight to pick up anywhere in Minnesota. Since most shipping people in the state had gone home for the night, nothing was likely to pop up until tomorrow.
Do we go home? Do we go the Twin Cities? Do we wait in Park Rapids? If we wait, do we stay in the truck or a hotel?
We were just home for Christmas and had no need to return for sentimental or business reasons. But if we went there, we could turn the truck off and get it started again by using the head bolt heater and battery charger we keep there.
If we went to the Twin Cities, the next load would be a gamble. It might be better or worse than the Park Rapids-to-Atlanta run. Or it might be the Park Rapids load, which would mean we'd have to drive back to get it. If we stayed in a Park Rapids hotel, we'd have to keep the truck running anyway, because of the cold.
We did not like our circumstances. We didn't bring this on ourselves. It was dispatch that screwed up. Part of us said let's just go home and take a day or two off. Let them find someone else to come up into the cold and take this low-paying freight.
The dispatcher we talked to paid us all of $68.44 for the dry run. When we vented our frustrations to him, there was no happy tone in our voices and no "yah sure, you betchyahs" in our words. Diane and I took turns explaining to the young man how much we'd have to suffer because one of his kind screwed up. While the errant dispatcher would be cozy at home watching TV, we'd be in a parking lot in sub-zero weather, waiting for nothing, and burning up $2.00-a-gallon fuel just to stay alive.
The dispatcher listened patiently and then explained we were lucky to receive the money we did. $68.44 was $0.20 per mile for all miles of deadhead to the pickup. Policy was to pay us only for the miles over the first 100. This dispatcher was doing us a favor.
To that dispatchers credit, he really was doing us a favor. It was not his mistake. Someone else blew it. He was doing everything that was in his power to do to set things right. He would have done more if he could have.
We could have pushed it and gone up the line. We could have asked to speak with a supervisor, or called our contractor coordinator in the morning to demand to be at least reimbursed for the idling fuel we burned up. But when all was said and done, it wasn't enough money to make it worth the fight. Even if we prevailed, we'd burn up more in good will with people at our carrier than we'd gain in compensation.
When we get our own truck, we'll go to our carrier's headquarters for owner-operator orientation. We plan to then make the point to as many people that will listen how a clerical error on their end can translate to a rough night on ours. I'll suggest, partly in jest, that when such errors are discovered, the home phone number of the errant dispatcher be given to the affected drivers. The drivers can then call the dispatcher through the night with things like temperature updates, fuel consumption rates, and bathroom condition reports. It will help dispatchers better understand the consequences of their mistakes.
After venting, we realized that what we wanted to do emotionally - go home and sulk - did not make sense financially. It would cost us about $50 to wait for the Thursday load. We'd have to idle for 24 hours using about a gallon per hour of fuel. At 9 to 10 miles per gallon, it would cost us about $50 in fuel to drive home. (Since we're in a fleet owner's truck, all other truck expenses accrue to the owner.)
Going home would save us the cost of a hotel but we would not arrive until after midnight and the next load could come anytime. We'd not likely be home long. If we took a Park Rapids hotel room, we'd still have to idle the truck. When it's this cold, it's best to leave it run. But if we do that, it makes it easy for someone to pop a window and drive your rig away.
The best choice was to spend the night in the truck in the shipper's parking lot. The plant is open through the night so bathrooms would be available.
"Here we are!" I said to Diane. "Living our dream!"
It was a sarcastic remark. Our circumstances were further degraded by her sore throat and persistent cough. Her voice was gone. Her cough was harsh, dry, and painful. It pained me just to listen to her when she tried to speak. Throat lozenges and aspirin helped. The wait for Thursday's freight did give us a full night's sleep in a non-moving truck, which Diane could use.
To prepare for a cold night in the truck, I found Petro Pete's, a place that sold number-one diesel (a winter blend fuel). We had a half-tank of number two on board with Howe's Diesel Treat added. But as cold as it might get, I took no chances. I topped off with number one and dumped in an additional dose of Howes.
The fuel pump was made for cars, not trucks. It took forever to fill the large truck tanks with that tiny nozzle. When I finished one tank, Diane turned the truck around so the hose could reach the tank on the other side.
As I stood at the pump holding the hose so the pump would not reset and to prevent someone else from coming along to use it, a man pulled up to fuel his SUV. As we both stood with shoulders hunched up to keep the cold off our necks, I asked about the forecast. He said it would be twenty-two below by morning, and in true Minnesota fashion, he quickly added, "It will get down to thirty-five further north so twenty-two's not so bad."
We returned to the shipper's parking lot, buttoned up the truck, and got a good night's sleep. I woke before sunrise, got dressed, set up the computer desk on the steering wheel to do some writing, and turned on the radio to see how cold it was. Diane was also awake but remained in bed.
When I heard the temperature on the radio, I opened the curtain that separates the sleeper from the cab and said to Diane, "Twenty-six below."
"A bit brisk." she replied.
Her raw voice told me her throat still hurt. She seemed to be feeling no better, but no worse either. Still delighting in my quality time at Starvin Marvin's, I asked, "Are you well enough to drive, do you think?"
"Yah" she said, and then rolled over to go back to sleep.