Going Nord to get Sud.

Another delayed post, right now its 2/16 and I'm at a familiar consignee in Montreal.  My 3rd of what is sure to be umpteen-bazillion runs over the border in my time here. 

Good thing is I'm starting to get the customs procedures down.  The bad thing is that its sometimes a real hassle and the $50 bonus compensation just doesn't equal the same time in miles. I'll keep doing it though for now, I don't have too many reasons to bitch- besides that and the tolls I have to front to get in because none of the bridge authorities up here have heard of this thing called EZ PASS.

I did get to take the top end of I-81 over the Thousand Islands area and I'd love to know what real estate goes for on those colonized sand bars.  It sure is a nice view from those 2 suspension bridges.  Still haven't figured out why they both go from ground level to 300' up in a span of about a mile each.  Its not like a boat taller than a 30' could roll through those waters anyway. 
Not too fun when you're tipping 78k but can't argue with the scenery, especially when it was overcast instead of the miserable sleet and road slime on my last tour of QC.

ANYWAY, 24 hours until I better be packed and ready for this annual camping trip and im about 300 miles north of where I wanted to be by this time.  The worst part is that the job isn't even done yet. Got a big pickup heading to Albany in the late morning and then I'm free to use what hours I have left to take the pike to get back home.  This is going to be a mad dash to the finish line to beat the HOS clock and if I miss this trip I'm going to seriously lose it.

I've been out on the road for 18 days running ragged with moderately tight schedules, but something always screws up and they become red line marathons or worse, carry over to the next day and the ripple effect just won't alllow me any slack.

I need this weekend.  Loading on jettys without guard rails and maneuvering into docks over busy grade crossings really takes its toll on your sanity. 

Edit: Friday @ 1345
With another paperwork near disaster that could have seriously delayed me up here averted, I arrived here across Montreal this morning slightly early as planned feeling pretty good that I was going to make it with plenty of time left.

Well, that was 10, its now 1400.  The shipping office was nice enough to inform me that my scheduled pickup was Monday morning  Why? I don't know, nor am I surprised at this point, why would ANY speed bump phase me.  The effect of that is at the time they didn't know when I could even BEGIN to get loaded.

A little while ago I saw how they load trucks here with their products and it kind of terrifies me.  Imagine loading a 53' trailer of... Saltine boxes.  No pallets, just all neatly stacked as far back as the order calls for.  I can feel they've been loading this since I got here, but we make our plans out to allow 2 hours for a live load. Usually they take slightly less than an hour.  When I get the green light I still have to play the "wait for a fax before you go-go" game.

You guys remember how we always lol at how Lego didn't take the bid for the Halo building toys and a certain other multinational company did?  Well, you won't believe who's DC I'm at right now. XD

No I'm not really laughing given the circumstances, and if you're reading this its probably being posted while I'm waiting on customs or getting fuel in NY. 

Its 7:45 DRIVING time from here, to the RV point, to Saugus.  I've got 8:22 left on my 14.  Guess whos gonna win this time?

Yes, it could have been done with a few hours to spare.  That is assuming that EVERY last duck falls in line, at the exact time it should.  And what I have to ask is, when do all the ducks fall in line when we deal with border crossing loads?

Its looking something like 1 for 6 on my watch.

I should have just said no.  I don't know what the hell I was thinking going along with it.  As a good man says a lot, "F*** everything about this."

P.S.  I also want to know where all these days were during training.  If the runs were like this when I was out with John I would probably be working the repack for aisle 13 at the moment.  And I'd be smiling too, knowing I was about to take a hike in the woods and party with family and friends for 3 days.

Edit Edit:  Saturday, 2/18 00:47
I should have known that when I finally got the green light at the dock the nightmare wasn't over.  It was merely signaling the next chapter.  This was confirmed when I got to the shipping office and instead of an average 3 page manifest, I was presented with a matching stacks of 65 pages each, and they weren't pre-sorted the way I needed them to make my life easier.  I was also the last horse out of the yard, even the shipping staff left the office behind me.  Long story short, I'm now at a travel plaza a few clicks north of Champlain, and have been through an ungodly amount of faxing (5 pages at a time) and making phone calls from the payphones all over the place.

The last run I did up here from a small place, the shipper filled everything out for me and faxed everything to the broker right there on the spot.  You would think a multinational billion dollar toy company would have at least ONE fax machine in their place.  Well, $2 a page on my stack of reimbursements is only one more reason I didn't need to say screw this gig next time.

So now not only have I been robbed of the weekend I was promised, I feel very much like I've been thrown under a truck, in both senses. 

Given how tired I am from only dozing off during the last 24 hours I'm going to take a big long power nap before I head down to the pleasant faces at Champlain and see how they like my 200 pages instead of the NONE I showed up with last time and got my ass kicked for it.  Irony much?

Last edit:  09:42
At customs.  Communication breakdown on all ends.  Grounded until its sorted out.  FML
Matti out.