I don't know when you drove for NTB but I started with them in 1995 and did many pick-ups at Kal-Kan in Columbus and they were all drop and hook.

They also paid detention time up to 10 hours. In the eight years I drove for them, I never waited as long as you did for a load. I just called dispatch and they pulled me off any load that wasn't going to be ready for 12 hours or more.

Colgate in Coulumbus was bad about getting you loaded and dispatch pulled me out of there twice when I was told it would be 12 or more hours to get loaded.

Maybe you were just unlucky.

I drove for them from 1995 to 1997. I NEVER got a drop and hook out of Kal-Kan... always a live load.

This particular incident was more than just the 12 hour wait. I had been running for 3 days straight and it was my time to go home. I was tired as hell and the security guard said the load wasn't ready—told me to park over on the side. I told the guard that I hadn't had very much sleep, that I had hoped to grab this load and get home and that if they didn't have it ready, I was just going to park and sleep for four hours. I also told him DO NOT WAKE ME UP.

Maybe 45 minutes went by and he was banging on my door to tell me they wanted the trailer put in the dock. I asked him, "what part of don't wake me up did you not understand?" So now I'm pissed off about having been woken up... I go put the trailer in the door.

I walk inside, check in and they want me to stand by the door to count the freight. So I do... for the first pallet.

Thirty minutes, or so, go by before the next pallet shows up and I realize... this crap is coming hot off the line! Oh noooo noooo noooo, I am not freakin waiting 30 minutes in between pallets to count freight. I went out to my truck and went to sleep.

Midnight rolls around and they have me loaded. I call into dispatch and talk to a newbie at the dispatcher desk, tell him I'm loaded and on my way.

He says, "We need you to give that load to another driver and wait on another one." Um... excuse me? I just waited 12 hours for this one and I sure as hell ain't giving it up to another driver so I can wait 12 more hours for another load!

So after going round and round with the new dispatcher about bobtailing home (he threatened to report the truck stolen), I did give up the load. I did wait for the next one and it did take 12 hours.

I dropped that load at the DC in Newport, and got a load from there going home. When I arrived back at the terminal, I walked up stairs and handed yet another newbie dispatcher the keys to my truck, and my green book.

He said, "What's that?"

I told him, "It's a green book... I quit." And then added, "You better get used to it, I think you'll see a lot of this."

Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't just this incident that made me quit. There were numerous other things that I wasn't happy with—the major one being that I really hated doing short-haul. Too monotonous, and talk about an exercise in sleep deprivation... the only thing I could do on my 24 hours off was to sleep. Not very much of a life.

In hindsight, I should have went back to doing 48 state OTR—but I didn't—I tried to do the local thing and ended up jobless and living in my car for a while. 1997 wasn't a very good year for me.

As far as NTB, I knew quite a few drivers that had been there for years and were happy with it. I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea.

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Let's play the Road Rage Game...

You swerve your 3500 lb car in front of my 80,000 lb truck. Then, stomp your brake pedal in anger.

The first one to be crushed like a used Coke can is the loser.

So you guys are saying the shipping and receiving departments might not be getting the best and the brightest?

Try super valu in tacoma washington, you check in at the gaurd shack, than wait parked on the street for 3 hours as they have no parking inside the gate, then after finally getting assigned a dock door you sit there another 7 hours or longer while they unload you and do the count by fingers and toes and also damge parts of the load with electric jacks or forklifts either one going in the trailer at high speed banging into the pallets, then sending you out with 1 to 3 pallets of return merchandise thats damaged by them but saying they didnt order it. Krogers in tollason arizona is just as bad for making you wait even tho you tell them you have 2 other stops after them and you cant be late to the other stops, they tell you its not theyr problem and make you sit for 4 to 6 hours, and make you late anyway, so much fun to play the hurry up and wait game.

That's why I'm so glad I don't do a lot of grocery warehouses anymore. Every once in a blue moon, I'll have to take a broker load going to a grocery warehouse. But, the lumper is paid for, and I could care less if it takes them 16 days to unload it. I'll just leave the truck there and come back when they're done.

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Let's play the Road Rage Game...

You swerve your 3500 lb car in front of my 80,000 lb truck. Then, stomp your brake pedal in anger.

The first one to be crushed like a used Coke can is the loser.

Truthfully, I think most shipping and receiving clerks are sociopaths with antisocial personality disorder. But hey, I'm not a doctor and I don't even play one on tv.

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Let's play the Road Rage Game...

You swerve your 3500 lb car in front of my 80,000 lb truck. Then, stomp your brake pedal in anger.

The first one to be crushed like a used Coke can is the loser.

About Meat packing plants. I don't know what the names are now- -Used to be Swift and Excel. I agree with you . I went there often when I drove and I hated it. I usually was there at least one day most of the time it involved days.. I drove a slow 56 mile an hour truck and the same thing happened then. They expected me to be at the first drop the next morning. It was at lest a 12 to 15 hour drive. I could not ever get there on time.
Then I would usually deliver to HEB( bad bad bad pox on it) in Texas or someplace farther than I could legally drive. It was bad . I am sorry for you guys, I thought it would be changed by now.
Boy I had it easy compared to you guys. I could run my engine anytime I need to and pick my own routes and if I had a hot load I could drive as hard as I could and if I couldn't make it on time the dispatcher would get me rescheduled. or even sometimes the receivers would work me in.

Dear Barcode,
Boy did you ever get the short end of the stick. I don't blame you for throwing in the towel but next company call after you have left the shippers yard and are at least 100 miles away. My company did something kind of like that and after that that is what I did. I had no home and I lived in my truck so I couldn't quit.
If the dispatcher says why didn't you call me like your supposed to just say they wouldn't let me park my truck they had a yard full. I had to leave.

Ahh, how times have changed. The company I'm with now uses PeopleNet in the trucks. I rarely talk to anyone at the company over the phone. And like Qualcom... they can see where the truck is at all times.

They are right on the ball with the load planning and usually have my next load sent to the computer before the first one is even done unloading. All in all, I'm pretty happy with them so far. The only thing I might wish for is maybe a bit more room in the truck.

I guess the bottom line is the paycheck though... it pays the bills and affords the family a few toys. That's what counts.

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Let's play the Road Rage Game...

You swerve your 3500 lb car in front of my 80,000 lb truck. Then, stomp your brake pedal in anger.

The first one to be crushed like a used Coke can is the loser.

Twice now I've done D/H deliveries there. The people there have always been polite and friendly, but that's where the good news ends.

They apparently have a policy against the Hook part of a Drop and Hook. While I'm looking at 3 empty trailers, the guy tells me they don't have an empty I can take, and I'll have to wait. He says come back in a couple hours. So I head to the truckstop a mile down the road and grab a bite to eat, then come back at the appointed time.

The guard directs me to the appointment receiving office to speak with the lady at that window. She gives me a trailer number and tells me I can have that one. But, it turns out that the lady at the window only has authority to release it while it's still at the dock. Once the yard dog drags it over to the other side of the building, it's somebody else's trailer (shipping department maybe?) Well, by the time I find that trailer, it's over on the other side of the building. As I'm hooking to it, the yard dog comes along and tells me his supervisor just told him that I can't have that trailer.

I go back to the lady at the receiving window, she gives me another trailer number, and tells me to bobtail over to it real fast, park in front of it, and wait for the yard dog to pull it up, and claim it as soon as he's got it free of the door.

By the time I actually got hooked to an empty trailer I was allowed to leave with, it was 3 hours and some change after I had showed up with my delivery. Why even have a trailer pool there in the first place? Most of my live unloads go faster than a D/H at that podunk place.