BSA Trucking, Inc. I drove illegally for Sandra for over a year, check stubs and logs sheets as proof, got fired over being exhausted beyond reason! Dobson North Carolina

 Beginning April of 2011 I started my second round of teaming at BSA Trucking Inc.,  going east cost to west coast on a weekly basis.  As a team it is usually very hard to not run legal because you have two people with 70 hours available to run a piece.  I do not have an exact count; but there were alot of weeks that I could not get our log books legal because we ran over our 70 and there wasn't a way to fix it to look legal.  Which is all she cared about.  More weeks than not, we did not even get to go home at all. 

Needing a break, I tried delivering east coast loads.  I at least thought that i would get some rest or the pace would calm down some.  Sandra got short with me one day asking me "what my problem was" and I replied, "Sandra, I am just looking for some kind of balance here, between work and living, that just doesn't seem to exist". 

I had been building a sleep deficit for months, maybe years at this point.  "The way she runs east coast loads,  I had to be on call 24/7;  calling in first thing in the morning, calling back after lunch and finally calling back before 5:00.  The trips I did run to MD were rarely legal to log because there were too many miles/hours to do it without a 10 hour break and I often had to drive even more miles to pick up a load for a team to take to California as soon as I could get it to the yard.  Often, I had 18 to 30 hours in between sleep with maybe a nap of an hour or two here and there. This occured on a regular basis. 

The Trips I ran to california by myself, I had to run as if someone else was in the truck with me.  Often stopping two or three times to either back my log book up or whatever needed to happen just to get through the current DOT scale and look legal.  At one point, after having just ran a load to Jessup, MD and back to Dobson; I was asked to go back that night.   She didn't have anyone else go and anyone that has ever worked for her knows that telling her "no" brings consequences and repercussions and is never a good option.  She gets very vindictive and spiteful and impossible to get along with.  I made it to exit 8 in Virginia and was already falling asleep at the wheel.  This is about 20 miles from the yard.  I was going to try to take a small one or two hour nap but didn't wake back up until time to be in MD.  

I am human, first and foremost.  I get sleepy and I get sick and both have costed me hours on loads.  At this point in the game, maybe 3 loads max... all with viable reasons.  I had worked for her going on 2 1/2 years.  My response to her that morning, was "Sandra, I am so sorry I fell asleep and caused the load to be late.  I was tired when you asked me to deliver the load (on no sleep!).  This, of course is when she tried to make me feel like the worst driver in the history of drivers, knowing in her heart I was a very good driver and had pulled her butt out of more, way more fires that I had ever caused her to be in.

She never cussed me or at me, but she has a very unique way of trying to make you feel as if everything is your fault even if you and her both know it isn't.  I think she told me that morning, "If i couldn't do my job, then maybe I needed to find another line of work." 

The irony of this situation, is that I have rarely ever been late delivering a load.  Worked around the clock, "doing her favors" and generally whatever needed to be done.    I never complained about type of loads, either delivering or picking up.  I didn't care where I went and the majority of the weeks things went as smooth as silk.

Then my sleep deficit increased by leaps and bounds the next several months; teaming with various people who either scared me to the point I couldn't sleep, couldn't do their jobs without having babysitter 24/7, or Sandra trying her best to either cause me to kill someone or myself,  by making me work way beyond what was reasonable (i. e., I had just ran to California 3 times in two weeks and drove another four trips (7 trips with no time at home) and she fired me last October the 16th.  I cannot prove it; but I also believe her to be responsible for me NOT being able to get a job around Mt. Airy at this time.