Anybody driving milk tankers for RUAN out of Ripon, CA?

That was kind of my poimt.

 

Yeah, Ruan could probably be a great place to work. That's the worst part. They make no effort, management is a revolving door, drivers are a revolving door, management are scared of losing their jobs over a petty infraction so every single thing gets blamed on drivers. Also, most management have never been drivers, so they look down on "our" line of work. It's a class division if you will, the management are "some college" or associate degree holders who needed a job and got hired through a temporary agency. They probably maintain stereotypes that we're all a bunch of uneducated amphetamine-smoking beer-belly rednecks-- or paisas from the mother country who would love to make $4/hr to send it back to mexico. The best companies, promote from within. It says a lot when the terminal manager couldn't give me a road test, because he's never had a CDL...

 

LOL Moloko! You've described every manager I ever worked for & I wasn't close at all to trucking. But your stereotype is truly just for you truckers - I'm sure you hit the nail on the head for those that have a stereotype of truckers - it was mine before my husband became one!

 

One thing that honestly could make this milk hauling thing a bit easier is keeping trailers parked at the dairies and having a few, dedicated loaders go out and get the milk loaded into them before the driver comes and picks them up.
Gives us more of set schedule each day or night.
After two years of being on the route/farm pickup side of things, the scheduling on dairy hauls is very similar to ready mix driving.

I'm doing what I can to stay on with these guys, even if it means transferring out to a desirable spot.
But where I'm living right now and the unpredictable scheduling each night has gotten old.

All I've got to say is that I've stuck it out here much longer than I have anywhere else, and that's saying a lot.

 

The word is out. The Ruan Ripon terminal is officially closing on 30 September 2015. They are hemorrhaging drivers and I'm cutting out.

Forget about getting a set schedule with Ruan. They've closed two Northern California terminals in the past six months. They're probably getting out of the milk hauling business. The writing is on the wall. Competitor companies are moving in. Jim Aartman is attacking on all fronts with his army of tanker drivers and picture if you will, he is overweight, wearing a suit, wheezing heavily with a cigar dripping out of his mouth as all the Ruan drivers run away scared with their milk hoses tucked between their legs. Aartman is moving in and he is cutting hard and deep. It is the reverse corporate takeover. Aartman is now taking over our hearts and minds. I will pledge my allegiance to Jim Aartman. John Ruan can suck my shifter.

 

Let me tell you fools like it is.
John Ruan:
John Ruan is over there in Des Moines banging strippers and snorting grams of cocaine by the minute. He don't give a doo doo about anything because he has more money than God. The milk business succeeds, the milk business fails; he doesn't care. He is listening to audiobooks and expanding his mind. He lives on the top floor of the Ruan Building in Des Moines, Iowa. Look, you can not imagine the luxury John Ruan is living in. The gems in his Rolex are made of pure pharmaceutical grade crystal cocaine shards. He is a baller. His lawyers are currently scanning this website and they're feverishly typing out a cease-and-desist letter to me. It will be hand delivered on a platinum-plated silver platter. Do you think John Ruan worries about that? No. He has more money than God. After working for them for so long, I am convinced that he actually is God. Enough said.

Ralph Serpa and Jim Aartman; the aftermath
We got Ralph Serpa moving in on a piece of that milk dairy business, with the Portuguese army of dairy farmers following him. He's in cahoots with that Jim Aartman, who somehow resembles the mucous guy from the Mucinex DM commercial. Together they are infiltrating the Ruan Ripon terminal, sending the dispatch managers chain e-mails about the little boy dying of cancer, and random links they click on, which freeze up their computers and cause all sorts of chaos in the office. the phone are ringing, the fax machines are faxing 10,000 pages of explanation points and punctuation a minute. the phone lines are all jammed up, they're running out of turquoise sample bottles, the dispatch managers are talking as fast as they can on the phone, sweating as hard as they can, having anxiety attacks.

the safety guy is falling asleep passing out in the chair from sleep apnea.
the secretary is scared of losing her job and blaming everybody for everything
the managers are assuring us we aren't losing our jobs and then turning right around and firing us.

Jim Aartman part deux
jim aartman is now poaching all ruan employees. he is luring them in with vouchers to Red Lobster. meaningless vouchers.

John Ruan is attempting to counteract this corporate takeover in a denial of service haxxor attack. He is in a fax frenzy of some sort, sending out 10,000 pages of ASCII pictures per minute and making announcements over the terminal loudspeaker. "Evacuate, evacuate," his voice echoes in all corners of the Ripon terminal. "If we can't live in peace, can't we die in peace?" his voice echoes in all ears in the vicinity.

The giant cell phone tower which reads "Ripon" transmits shortwave signals which tell us, the ripon terminal is here. the ripon terminal has always been here. we will never close down. we will never leave! we will always be here. our hearts are with John Ruan, the smiling father, the Leader, we are acting under his orders and will abide accordingly.

Then we have Jim Aartman sitting in a smokey corner of some dimly-lit bar smoking on cigarettes sipping singapore slings, playing a clingy-clangs piano as the drivers exit the ripon terminal as an exodus and submit their H6 , 10 year employment history, and pledge their allegiance. Aartman baptizes the followers in milk and employs them right away. The Ruan terminal is failing, John Ruan is ordering us to drink the punch, the dispatch managers are sweating and talking as fast as they can, the safety guy is still passing out from sleep apnea, the fax machine is out of paper and everybody is calling EDD 46 times back to back to get a live rep on the line but the can't get through because all their former coworkers are also making that call.

 

The other milk haulers out here aren't any different though.
I've visited the Phoenix terminal, which doesn't deal with dairy, and checked out some of the other, non-dairy terminals as well.
They all seem to be more in line and laid back as far as a set schedule goes.
In the end, unless you're shuttling trailers between a dropyard and a plant of some type, nothing's really going to be dictating when these cows are going to want to get milked.

I've got options as far my endorsements go, and thanks to Ruan, I've actually acquired more experience in one spot on a continuous basis than I have elsewhere.
Each to their own on how this company and the tops are concerned.
Not to mention that these guys have been pretty good about at least keeping working days to five only.
The other tanker, milk and non-milk I've checked out around here, all work six days a week standard.
I'll stick with my 5on/2off guns and at least feel recharged for the garbage each week.

If the seas start getting too rough for me anywhere, I've become knowledgeable enough to plot a course to calmer waters as needed.

 

they weren't horrible to work for. they were just ...bad. it was a union environment and so dispatchers hated drivers. vice versa. I'm done with it, glad to put it behind me,