Sygma—Danville, IL

Delivered there last night. 15 trucks parked on a county road (no shoulder, no median, no lane to legally park) ready to check in for a 8pm appointment. Pretty bad/negligent for a warehouse, but oh well. Call in a few times on the phone as instructed. No answer. Walk up to the gate call box, no answer. Call a few more times and I finally got an answer. I don’t like being that guy who just calls over and over again, but not sure what else to do in that situation.

I talk to the lady and she says ‘I’ll call you when we have a door ready.’ That’s annoying, but in my head, I assumed it’d be 15-20 minutes like most places. Mind you, receiving starts at 8pm. All of us waiting are the first appointments of the night. No excuse to have drivers waiting on a dock assignment for the first appointment. I had a second stop afterwards on this load, so didn’t really have time to just kick back and nap over night while they worked it out. Got a call for a door 3 hours later. Waited 45 minutes for the Sygma trucks to finish heating up their spaghetti o’s in the break room and move their trucks so I could back in my dock. Two hours to unload. 30 minutes to get paperwork. Second stop is blown and now nightshift dispatch is trying to get in touch with nightshift receiving, and we know how that goes. Sitting there waiting for a response from my dispatcher, and I was fumbling through the paperwork.

They marked my check in time for when I got assigned a dock (3 hours after I actually checked in). Luckily, the shipper is a contracted customer for us and I have my phone logs and company GPS tracking to prove where I was/when I checked in, so no big deal. But, good luck to you owner operators trying to convince your broker that you arrived on time and need detention since you have to pay the lumper fee BEFORE they unload you. They have your 400 dollars and you have your BOL. Good luck arguing with them to get them to correct your check-in time. Screenshot your Google maps on your phone and phone logs when you call to check in if you end up here.