Am I a whiner?

I really don't think I'm asking for much. I want a job that will allow me to spend time with my family,  with a pay check to be able to spend time with my family.

As an over the road truck driver. ( gone for weeks or months at a time) I've had some good paying jobs. ( Well decent really) and I've had jobs that could get me home on a semi regular basis.

Example, at Crete Carrier I was making 43 cents per mile. (CPM) A bad week was about 2000 miles. And I could run 3000, 3500 miles a week, legally.

Gordon Trucking was paying me 34 cpm and a good week was 2500 miles.. Big pay cut. But I could get home usually every couple weeks. Just got to the point that I couldn't afford to go home..

Right now I'm at Dillon Transportation. I came here because they have a customer in Kingman that they service pretty heavily. Which gets me home weekly most of the time. It's 36 cpm and I can usually get about 2500 miles a week, which isn't bad when you consider the home weekly thing.

I'm actually out for almost three weeks right now. But that's cool. I had to run out to Tennessee to have my truck serviced. Which is where my problem comes in now.

The runs coming back to the west coast are designed for teams. So I really have to run hard on the way back. Which, that's cool to. I like to run hard sometimes. But the problem is that after 2500 miles of running hard. I get back here and it's business as usual. I'm low on the hours I'm legally allowed to drive, work. But they just keep sending runs as usual.

When I got empty in Sacramento the other day. I was sent to Tracy for a load to Lancaster CA. Then one from Mira Loma CA to Tempe AZ.

Now when they gave my the run to Tempe I excepted and told them that I would not have hours to grab the run in Casa Grande to CA. Cause I knew that was coming.

But they sent it to me anyway. So now I have 350 miles to go to get to downtown Los Angeles at 5 pm tomorrow. That really sucks. But it should take about 6-7 hours to get there and I only have 7.75 hours available tomorrow. Sure I can get there but where do I go once I'm empty at 8-9 tomorrow night.

Sorry did I forget to mention it's a grocery load? So, anyway. Looks like I'll be looking for another job. Again. There are just way to many days here that I just can't do legally. And I'm not going to be spending my days in the grey bar hotel or a pine box because of the hours of service regulations.

That's a worse case of course. But the worse case would be easier to deal with then those $1500 log book violations.

Damn these companies really got us by the short hairs. I have to work, cause I have to pay my bills. But get caught doing something wrong. It could force you into bankruptcy or worse. So am I a whiner? I don't know.