Beer Delivery Missadventures Part II

Today I get to work, and my truck was loaded which is amazing for a Tuesday, so I'm starting to check out my load and the head mechanic says "Don't just yet that trailer has an air leak." I'm thinking "Great here we go again just when I thought I could get out on the road and be at my first stop around 7 nope!"

So the mechanic climbs under the trailer and goes "Nope can't fix it he'll have to be loaded into another trailer."

The one manager who looked like he had just been through the ringer said "What's going on?"

The head mechanic said "He's going to have to be reloaded onto another trailer."

This manager then gives this complete look of utter disgust. For any of you reading, the past two months at the beer company have been a complete disaster and pardon, my french, but we have pretty much gotten our ##### kicked. Operations really needs to pull it together, it does nothing but hurts them in the long run and now it's starting to catch up to them. I'm glad the managers are starting to get disgusted, maybe things will change I doubt it, but I'm glad management is starting to get disgusted. Usually these people walk around with this very undeserved sense of accomplishment on there face, well I for one am glad to see that they can no longer pass the buck.

Here's what's really stupid though the trailer they originally had me in was a rental trailer and it was broken air leak, who rents a broken trailer? Doesn't that just defeat the whole purpose? "Yeah we got a couple lease trailers in, to help with holiday over flow, but there broken and we can't use them."

Then they loaded me into another rental trailer, with lights that were not working so mechanical fiddled with that, trailer had a bad ground and truck had a bad fuse. The tractor they had pulling it had been absolutely through the mill.
Actually the tractor drove okay, that wasn't the issue it just had the living heck beaten out of it. It was an AIM lease truck and I'll tell you right now I don't have a very high opinion of AIM national lease, those people are the next closest thing to worthless. They don't do any kind of preventative maintenance they fix absolutely nothing.

Sad thing in Pensky is starting to turn into AIM too, the third shift mechanic at my work said he used to work for Pensky and there starting to go down the tubes at Pensky. I wonder if there really is any money in leasing trucks? I'm going to say if you are going to really keep the fleet up the proper way then that's not a profitable business. Which is why AIM and Pensky have had to resort to fixing nothing and running it till DOT puts it out of service, which unfortunately only ads more fuel to the fire. The problem with this industry is it's hung it's self. It was given the chance to police it's self and it failed miserably and that's now why we have the DOT and FMCSA, because trucking companies not all but a lot have proven that they can not be trusted to do the right thing and you know I don't know what to say, because after all the bottom line is to make money. Sorry I'll get off my soap box.

Anyhow, let me get back to my tail of misadventure so they bring the new trailer into the garage load it up and the mechanics look at the lights on it and the lights are not working, so they had to pull the lights out of the trailer and fix a bad ground. Well it still didn't have turn signals on the left side and the head mechanic wasn't going to let it go out on the road without turn signals so, that had to be fixed as well, turns out a fuse was blown on the tractor. So they fixed that and I was free to leave the yard.

Usually I don't say anything, but even I have my limit and I kind of jokingly said to my boss "Should I just get in my car and go home?"
He just looked down and gave a smile.
So I got out of the yard got my first stop done then I drove over to my second stop and starting hearing a hiss. I thought uh oh. Did about 4 stops all in the same shopping plaza and then started drastically losing air pressure, I thought uh oh. So I pulled behind Home Depot and I'm not sure what I did, I think I set the tractor break with the truck in neutral and I hear and felt air just pooring out of the red air hose on the truck. I turned the truck off and called mechanical and sent my supervisor a text message telling him I was down.

After about an hour the head mechanic showed up and I said to him "It's like Tuesday is starting become the worst day of the week." He said "There all Monday to me."

Any how he put on a new air hose, I also said "That air hose, I can just tell it's the cheapest air hose money can buy."

He goes "They are the cheapest ones you can get, they break like this all the time, in fact they break so much I've thought about putting an extra air hose in every truck, but then I would have to put a wrench in the truck to." I said "Well that's the problem I'm sure wrenches and tools would go missing."

Anyhow I got a new air hose and that set me back another hour so that was good 2 hours behind now. Wasn't the last back, but in the bottom 5 hip hip hooray for me!

Oh and then to top it off a cable snapped on door number 2 on the drivers side of this rental trailer so I had to lodge a cork board to keep the trailer door up so I could unload the product from that bay. I grabbed the third shift mechanic and said look bay 2 of this rental trailer the cable is snapped can you fix it?

He said he would tonight, I don't know if it matters or not I'll probably be in another truck and trailer tomorrow. I've been in 16 bays the past two days, however they told me that if the trailer I had been loaded in for the second time today could not have been fixed they would have stuffed my load in a 14 bay. Which is what I normally pull anyhow so it makes no difference to me. I've had 600 cases before shoved in a 14 bay. Heck Hillcrest Food Service here in Cleveland shoves 600-700 cases daily into 28 foot straight trucks.

Although the 16 was kind of nice nothing had to go up on shelves, but whatever.

 

Sometimes things get annoying and every Tuesday comes around and it is always something gets a little old and that's not just my opinion. Look the place I work at is okay, it's no place I would want to spend the next 30 years at, but it is okay for now. I am not totally disrespecting them, but everyone only has so much patience. Almost every Tuesday we are late loaded or hung up somewhere and it does get rather old. One of my customers said to me "What do they have you working second shift now?" He was laughing as he said it.

I really wasn't trying to make fun of anyone that wasn't my intention. Stuff goes wrong and you just have to deal with it, it sucks when it happens, and especially at the beginning of the day before I have even left the yard. It is a little frustrating, trust me the supervisor who got the news of we can't send this trailer out on the road was far more frustrated then I was. He had looked like he had, had it for at least that day.

Look the job I have it is alright, I mean it is not a job I would have for 30 years, but it's okay I mean it wasn't the job I originally wanted or was even gunning for in the beginning, but it has been an okay start. The company and job I've only ever been Luke warm for, but there okay they provide me an alright living and we have good benefits, and really I'm only trying to help them out more if you think about it, the sooner I get out of the yard in the morning the sooner I get back the less they have to pay me and the quicker they get paid. Plus then I get to go home we all win!