When you are assigned an LTL load and they tell you some ridiculous time that you are due at a terminal to deliver and it is between 0500-0600 realize that you are being fed a line of BS. In the LTL world corporate has come up with this arbitrary 0830 drop-dead arrival time for it to be necessary to get the freight on the street. It is ALL 100% about a numbers game.
Take a look at your manifest. If they have you pulling a load from MFS to GBO and the manifest says "Dest. SVC" as GBO, you have until 0830 to arrive, not 0600 or some such bullcrap. Also on the manifest to the right of each consignee will be a dest SVC for that shipment. The trailer may be destined for GBO but every shipment may be going on to another SVC (ie RIC, ENC, RAL, etc). Also look down the manifest beside each consignee and there will be a due date. Based on the computer time assigned at the time each one of those shipments was picked up that is the "service standard" assigned to that shipment so as to deliver "on time" as they like to say. If you are hooked to a GBO load and they say be there at 0600 on the 18th, look at the manifest for 2 things. Is this a GBO destinatation or is it a RAL load (going on to be unloaded at Raleigh)? If the dest svc ctr is GBO then look down the delivery dates on the manifest. If they are due on the 18th you need to be there NO LATER THAN 0830. If they are due the 19th, GBO is NOT going to unload that trailer until the next night to deliver when the freight is due. If it is a RAL load they may have another driver waiting on that load in GBO to pull it to RAL and you need to be aware of that scenario. ASK CENTRAL!
The problem with most, if not all, T/L drivers is that they don't understand the LTL world and their operation SOP. Hell, the load managers/planners, whatever, don't understand the LTL operation so when they tell you this and that and the other thing you have to be able to play BS Bingo with them and call their bluff. If you follow the guidelines I listed above, key in on the service dates and the Destination SVC, you will know what you are dealing with instead of some crap coming from a planner. AND, as a side note, when you arrive at the terminal you have been dispatched too, CALL UP CENTRAL DISPATCH AND HAVE THEM ARRIVE YOU DAMN IT! I don't know how many countless trailers that I have hooked to that were relayed by T/L and tried to dispatch out only to get a qualcomm response that "Trailer #1 is not available for dispatch". Is this too much to ask?
Myself, when I hook on to a load that is destined to my HOME svc and all of the bills are showing going on elsewhere or have a SVC date of the next day, I get back when I get back because I KNOW they are NOT going to unload it on the inbound shift that morning.