The WORST Shippers and Receivers - Truckers WILL NOT Buy Their Products!

Seems to me (in my limited experience) that grocery/food shippers are the worst of the bunch. Every driver seems to have the same stories: ridiculous amounts of time wasted while waiting to get loaded/unloaded; extra-rude staff; having to pay lumpers to take their merchandise off your truck; tight spaces; dunnage left over for the driver to take care of; etc. If these people hate us so much then maybe we should stop shipping their crap (BTW, I wonder if Wal-Mart treats their own fleet drivers the way they treat the rest of us?)

 

No Walmart does not. Some of the other problems will never change until drivers start getting paid by the hour. The dunnage part is easy. I never left a receiver with dunnage on my trailer. It was just up to them whether they wanted it on their dock or on the ground in front of the dock door.

 

To Big Al.

Very true. Most recently in NC a receiver left 8 fully inflated air bags in the trailer along with a pallet their fork lift had obliterated. The wood I put in their dumpster as I didn't want to be responsible for another driver's flat tires. The air bags I could have just as easily put there too, or deflated them, but I thought they looked rather nice laying in their driveway as I left.

If you're ever at WalMart DC in Douglas GA, look for my photo in the guard house. They have standing orders not to allow me on the property and to call the police. Seems as though that load of Rubbermaid I brought in to them from Greenville TX needed my hands on it to be unloaded. The receiving manager at the time kept telling me, "It's hot and we've had a few people not show up to work, so you have to help us unload". And I kept telling him it wasn't my problem. About the third time he came out to the truck to wake me up, he was standing a bit too close to the door when I opened it. I suppose my laughing hysterically at him and his broken nose was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Long story short, I'm not allowed at that DC anymore (just breaks my heart - lol).

 

I did a delivery at WinCo foods in Spokane, WA a few weeks back. When I went to close my doors I noticed the unloader had thrown the "air bags" that were between pallets into the trailer.

Sorry sir, my trailer is not your dumpster. I have another load to go pick up. I didn't leave them in front of the dock.. I left them off to the side near a pile of empty crates. But in my trailer- they were not going to remain.

Last week, I did a multi-stop run for Sears. Those people left the inside of the trailer an absolute disaster. Chunks of pallets, paper, cardboard boxes and other debris. Was not a happy camper....

 

Forward air in des plains IL, 6 hours to unload me today. Guard was cool the receiving clerk was an assbag and no restrooms. Had to leave them a present in the parking lot.

 

I went to a walmart depot with only four skids to come off my trailer and since it was only four they had me go to a express door which is not a door. You pull up by a ramp and they give you pallet jack to move the skids to the rear of the trailer, but on skid was long and the guy couldn't get it so i had to wait for a door. It took me two hours to get in a door and another two hours to get my paper work and leave.....

 

I delivered to Amazon in Hazelton, PA. Getting in is simple wide open lot to back, but unloading took about 5 hours for a small load and being the only one there. After I was unloaded I was given the green light to pull out and was told to go to the gaurd shack. Well i was not handed my bills and had to go back and get them, ok big deal. I knock about 5 times on the door and no answer; so I have to bang, well with one good hard bang a lady comes running out the door yelling at me and throwing the bills in my face screaming at me to leave. Not a fun place to deliver

 

kelloggs in grand rapids does that. I hate kellogs. They act like theyre a michigan company making cereal in michigan but they regularly have truck loads of corn flakes hauled in from laredo..come the hell on.

But besides that, theyre all picky about the trailer being clean to load it, but they leave it nasty as hell when they unload. Thanks.

 

When I drove for NTB out of GR, Kellogg's in Chicago utilized our empty reefer trailers as free air-conditioning for the warehouse. I mentioned this fact a few times to Dan Koster, but they must have been making some serious coin on those loads... nothing ever changed.

So now even Kellogg's is buying cereal con Nuevo Laredo, eh? Nice... used to be only Quaker and Malt O' Meal did that.

I think we need a whistle-blowing thread for drivers to report food and other products they pick up from cross border warehouses. Like... remember when Lifesavers and Wrigley's gum used to be made in Holland, MI? Well I just picked up a load of said candy from a warehouse in El Paso... it came from a maquiladora in Juarez, Mexico.

 

On the other hand, Ralston Foods still makes cereal right in Battle Creek, MI. I brought this up with the guard at ralston in battle creek, cause...it seems odd that the OFFBRAND cereal is made in battle creek, and the NAME BRAND is made in mexico..he tells me that they're only making corn flakes in mexico, and not the other cereal.

I have to say, i did pick up a load of ralston/post from Niagra Falls, ON a while back. But they were doing something odd with that load, because i was handed pre-printed outdated bills of lading from Ralston...lol.

I agree. Lets start that thread today.