New LTL Social Thread

When I was in LTL I was a line haul driver but would work the dock during my time getting loaded if they did not have anything short for me to run. It is not bad. You will probably just check it off as someone else brings it off the truck. I do not know who you are going to work for but at certain times of the evening is when everyone rolls in and it gets busy. But do not get discouraged it makes time go by a whole lot quicker.

Just watch and learn how it is done and in no time you will have it down. We always did a trailer or two and then took a 5 to 10 minute break. Enjoy it and have fun.

When the forklift drivers would unload I would tell them what trailer to put it on or what area of the dock to put the freight in.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed worked the dock my first couple months with SEFL (I did that full-time while waiting to start my P&D driving phase of training). The permanent dock guys are a great bunch to work with and I liked the work.

My advice...keep your head on a swivel. Don't assume that someone sees you. If you're on foot moving hand freight...give the forklift operators space. There are a LOT of ways to get injured working on the dock. i.e. One guy at work had a run-in between his leg and a forklift. He's lucky he didn't break his leg, but he was out of work for weeks and then had a few weeks of light duty until his leg healed up.

That and as was already said...go into it knowing that whatever your life experience, education level, etc....you're now the slow/new guy at work. Be a sponge and soak up whatever you can from the experienced guys.

Air cargo...similar concept, but entirely different work pace (I do pick-ups from air cargo warehouses). Working a LTL dock...there's one speed...fast. The air cargo guys that I deal with are decent enough guys, there's just zero sense of urgency and there's one speed...slow.