This place is a fine example of how to suck at shipping.

My appointment to load was for 6 AM. I got there at 5.45. They checked me in and said they'd call me on CB4 when they needed me. I told them I don't have a CB and they said someone would come round and knock in that case.

I was told I had to buy a bulkhead. This pitiful device consisted of 8 pieces of 2x4 nailed together. Apparently this is worth $65 in their world. These 2x4s are probably the ones the hardware store rejects for being warped or shoddy, because when the trailer was empty the thing fell apart. If Swift hadn't paid for the thing that would have been the end of my involvement. The bulkhead guy told me that they would NOT come get me and i should check in with the loading dock to give them my cell # so they could call me up.

I check in at the dock, they take my number, and i wait.

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At 10 AM i go to sleep. These guys suck.

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4 PM i wake up. No calls.

5 PM the space I've been in for 10 hours magically becomes a drop space and security has me move into a dirt lot outside.

6 PM the dirt lot magically becomes yard goat parking and security has me move to another lot.

7 PM i give up and begin cooking myself dinner.

7.05 they call and tell me they're ready to load me. I elect to finish cooking first. #### 'em.

7.30 i roll into the dock and install the bulkhead.

8.30 they finish loading.

8.40 PM i check out the front gate. They have a lovely 3-section scale but refuse to give out weights. Their directions to the nearest cat scale take me through a no-truck residential street. Had i been ticketed for this i would have turned around and had words with the direction giver.

Total detention pay to me: $172.00.

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10.00 AM next day: their load shifts, causing me to drive 800 miles with a trailer heeling to the right. Had they provided airbags this would have been prevented. The load does NOT shift fore or aft, as i did secure it properly. Axle weights remain legal.

Will not go here again. UGH.

Yep they suck

I know the feeling, I hauled Miller beer for years. I pulled Miller out of Fulton New York before they started useing bulkheads, running turnpike doubles east from Syracuse.
They used to load four double, four single, four double four single, four double before they started useing bulkheads. Cans were the worse, the load would shift in a heartbeat, slightly too fast around a turn and over it would go. I've seen guys dump a load of beer and spend four days re-ringing sixpacks on their own time.
Then they started useing bulkheads, our trailers were set up with E-Track, set the bars in place and hang two sheets of plywood on them. At the brewery there hung a sign above the shipping office telling us that the driver was responsible fo the load, and if you were not happy with the way it was loaded to contact the supervisor, I went round and round with the shift supervisor that I didn't want the cans on the back of the load to no avail. I was told they couldn't deviate from what the computer tells them. "So why is the sign up there?"
After Miller closed the brewery in Fulton New York, all the beer for the northeast came out of Eden North Carolina.
A couple of jugs of maple syrup to the women in shipping changed things alot. I've been in and out in less than an hour, when other trucks from my company would wait all day and half the night.
I went to work for a company out of Vermont and only did loads of beer when there was nothing else coming out of North Carolina. We had to buy bulkheads if I was there with a trailer that didn't have logistic posts, a cardboard A frame type of bulkhead that would crush into the nose of the trailer if you got on the brakes too hard. One time I told them to load half the load in the nose and I'd put the bulkhead in later. They got the supervisor out on the dock and refused to load it the way I wanted. I told them I wouldn't take the load unless they put half in the nose and the other half on the rear. I finally got them to load it.
With a 53 foot trailer you put in an 8 foot bulkhead, load the beer and loadlock or strap the rear, then set the trailer axles so the mudflaps are 8 feet from the end of the beer. I found that the beer rides better if you load half in the nose, put in 2 straps then set the bars 16 feet from the straps for the second half, and strap it. Then set the mudflaps at the second set of straps.
They hated to load it that way, because they want you to set the bulkhead in the nose and go away.
They also get wound up if you refuse to let them take your picture on the way out at security, I told them I've signed for loads worth over a million dollars without having my picture taken, if they don't like it then pull the load off the trailer! These companies screw with us all the time, but they don't like it when we screw back. I've hauled beer over a million miles, it's a real pain in the #####!

I hauled miller out of Irwindale for four solid years.NEVER did they ask me to use a 2X4 bulkhead. If you didn't carry your own bulkheads(we did) they used 8-10 sheets of marine grade 3/4 in plywood. YOU supervise the loading, its posted on the window of the dock shack and next to every loading door. If it looked in danger of shifting, its up to you to set the problem straight. It sounds like a typical problem, lack of communtion between you and your driver manager. I didn't know they even let swift on the property after the last go around.

I've never had a problem pulling beer, did it for 3 years with Millis. I never had a load of beer shift, you have to drive the truck like a little old lady.

Never had much of problem getting loaded, unless product was behind.

Mark

Yeah, apparently they were running it right off the line into the trailers that day. Shoulda made a fuss about the airbags but I'd been there for 12 hours and just wanted to sleep. There wasn't any damage or rejections off it, just a couple days of pulling a trailer with a tilt to it. I'd have had real problems if it'd been bottles instead of cans, though.

Well I got my 3rd load two days ago from Irwidale, over weight when set CA bridge.
I WILL REFUSE TO PULL THEIR CRAP FROM NOW ON!!!!!
Every time I go there it is the same story over weight!!!!!
Oh and don't ask them to tell you your axel weights as you leave, they know you are over weight and could care less. Go to the scales find your over and can not adjust the axels to make it legal don't try to go back to them for help they will tell you tuff #### you excepted the load deal with it.
NO MO Irwindale Miller!!!!

My husband hauled a load out of there once. And ONLY once! His appointment was 7 am. He left there at 8 am the NEXT DAY! Then discovered his gross was 83,560!! According to his papers the load only weighed 41,000... They told him that's all it weighed when he went back... He DEMANDED they remove it. They refused. He told him they would remove it, or he would sell it off on the street corner until the load was legal. They threatened to call the cops for theft. His reply was... "according to you this load weighs 41,000... so I'll deliver 41,000... but what I do with the other 9,000 pounds is none of your business, because according to you, it ISN'T THERE!" Needless to say, part of that load was removed.

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Sounds Like Your Husband Beat Them With Their Own Game....
Good For Him!

I Just Get So Angry On How We Get Pushed Around And Spoken To By Some Of The People From The Custemers.

Does Miller Require you to "Stand in the Safe Area" out of viewing your load?
I prefer to get out and watch as the shipper loads my trailer so that I can make sure the load is right.
I have been yelled at quite frequently for doing this but I ask them if they're going to pay for either an over-load or over-weight on the axles.

A lot of them seem to think that I don't know my own rig and they "know" best how to load my trailer.....yeah right....... Just ask Ashland P.O.E officers about over weight axle loads. They bet on it...OR makes a killing off of drivers who won't be pro-active on the loads.

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The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so
- Mark Twain

Let's support our new president,
but Obama should remember one thing,
Gray Davis.....