Monday, October 12, 2009

Properly Chastised

Alright, I will admit it. It really was my fault. Mostly, anyway. I knew better than to take a load that is purported to be heavy- and not even scale it out. But this load- well, I guess you could say I got distracted. What with it being my first load for this company, and my first load EVER in an International Truck. I got distracted.

I went by the first 3 truckstops with scales, and it never even crossed my mind to scale out this wagon. This is not me. I almost always weigh the wagon, because I hate getting tickets for being overweight.

Hello?! I already know that I am overweight- I don't need to get fined for being fat. Just a little bit of gallows humor, there. I was already down to Connecticut, about 350 miles from the yard, and just passing the Connecticut Scales when it occurred to me that I should oughta get me to a Cat Scale. The next truckstop was only a few miles down the road, so I stopped in, and weighed the wagon.

Ouch. The wight limits are:
steer=12,000
drive=34,000
trailer=34,000
----------------
gross = 80,000

I was:
steer=11,820
driver=30,030
trlr=37,940
--------------
gross=79,790

I was not over gross, which is a good thing. But I was about 3,940 lbs over on my trailer. Not such a good thing.
Anyway-when I called the company, and told them what was going on, Boss asked me why I hadn't weighed out at Dysarts, the Pilot, or the truckstop in Portsmouth. I told him I didn't think about it.

Well, I had slid my tandems as much as I could, but the end result wasn't pretty. He told me he guess I would have to run with it. We would just have to eat any tickets.

Okay, I did get his permission to run with it, but I would be darned if I was going to let myself get a ticket for being overweight on my first load with the company. Way to get fired on my first load. So I went down through the woods, trying not to hit any open scales. I actually did not hit a scale until North Carolina, but they didn't say anything to me.

I am properly chastised. Now I will be sure to scale out every load. Has something this important ever just slipped your mind? What happened as a result?