Missing bills

I was thinking about posting this in Rants forum, but I put it here since it really is about my beef with JB drivers, especially the ones in the Southeast, who pick up at Kimberly Clark in Beech Island, SC.
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This realky irks me because I lost out on drop pay because dispatch had to Tcall me at the rail because, as typical, the inbound freight to NS Calumet (Chicago) had no bills and none were pre-scanned. I don't know the originating rail yard, but the loads generally come from Beech Island, SC. I usually will ask before I accept the preplan if there are pre-scanned copies of the bills, but unfortunate me, I forgot to ask.

Kimberly Clark is very particular when it comes to the bills. They don't accept dummy bills and if there are no pre-scannned bills to print a set of bills from, we cannot deliver it until we get a faxed copy of the originals from KC (Good luck on getting that done at 0600 on a Sat morning). If you don't do your end of the load, we can't do our end.

Now if you don't put the bills with the load, at least scan them in. It takes a couple of days, two at the very least, for the load to get to Chicago, so there is no excuse to not scan them in.

Knowing KC is very particular about their bills, I make it a point to stop and scan the bills before hitting the rail. And if the cuttoff is too tight for me to stop, I'll take one of the two copies they give and scan it when I first can.

And don't give me that line there was no bill box or it was broken. The box on this load wasn't new but it was replaced recently so it was in very good shape.

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Ok, I'll get off my soap box now.

 

I complaining about the ones who pick up the load but don't put the bills in the box or scan the bills.

 

I wouldn't get paid the stop pay because the recvr will not take anything an original copy. No bills, no delvy. If I take it to a drop yard, I'd get mileage pay but not stop pay.

 

Wow, after a full night's sleep, I see I should not post anything of substance when I am tired.

Just for clarification and those who are not familiar with intermodal work. For every intermodal load, there are at least two drivers to each load, one to pick up the load and one to deliver the load. Generally, there is a box for driver 1 to put the bills in so driver 2 can deliver the load with. Driver 1 can also scan the bills (via Transflo) if there is no box or for in the event the box opens up during the rail transit and the bills are lost. Some shippers will also put a copy of the bills in back with the load as well, smart thinking on their part.

However, it all goes to pot when driver 1 doesn't do what is expected, especially when the customer will only take the original bills and will refuse any handwritten bills (dummy bills).

How we are paid in Chicago Intermodal, we get stop pay plus mileage. But the stop pay only applies to pick ups and deliveries to customers and not to rails or yards. For those, we only get mileage pay.

The driver 1 in my case, not only cost me drop pay, but also the lost time from having to wait for dispatch to make a decision on what to do. This can sometimes take 30 to 45 minutes, especially in the early hours on a weekend.

My rant about this is that this is a fairly common occurrence (missing bills) for loads coming out of this rail yard. Again, for those who don't know, some rail yards only serve specific regions, i.e. NS 63rd serves Bethlehem, PA, NS 47th serves Harrisburg, Elizabeth, Ayr, and so on and this particular ramp serves, I believe, areas east of Georgia. And it is loads from this other ramp that consistently have missing or incomplete bills. Some times they scan them in, at other times, they don't.

Regardless, I have complained to the appropriate people but as a big behemoth that JB is, complaining is like yelling at the wind. But complain I will, to the appropriate people. Even a rock can be eroded by a drop of water, one drop at a time.


Oh, how did I lose out on the money? That morning, I was set up to deliver that load and preplanned on a load after that returning to Chicago. When that first load fell through, dispatch said to grab an empty and proceed to my preplan. So the lost pay is the extra miles (a few at best) and the drop pay. I think i my complaint it is more about the principle of others not doing their job than it is about the money, though the money exasperates it a bit.

 

I'll hook up to the box and wait for dispatch to make their decision. No sense in wasting time in front of the box waiting for an answer and then hook up. Once I get the word that there are bills (scanned), I'll roll and pick up the bills on the road by fax at Pilot (which is free with that coupon from the Pilot Magazine). In the meantime, I'll write up a dummy bill for the load.