What to do if Im not liking the flatbed gig

I really wonder about some newbies, no matter what you drive, you have to figure out load placement.

I found other than tarping, flat bed work is easier than other things I've done in the past.

 

Indeed. It's easier than shucking boxes of beef in to the back of a Wendy's in the middle of the night where they won't let you prop the door open because some burglar might get in and steal all the buns. But it definitely requires more thought than a lot of other jobs.

 

You can do this Holmes!

 

Wow I can understand letting them know they screwed up but the way you're making it sound you're lucky you haven't been fired. The attitude of taking no prisoners yea I can see that but getting all bent out of shape over waiting at a dock and then giving the customer flack over it doesn't get you anywhere but in a hole.

Big pair? Cold and dark? Whips and chains? Chicken haulers? You have hanging meat loaded in your shiney hiney? You have an issue there with you're statment. Now days a chicken hauler is a reefer, not an actual chicken truck. Sides I actually ain't seen a chicken truck lit up in my lifetime. Heck back end of my wagon has more lights than most chicken trucks do.

You left the bullhaulers out but that's ok, were the outsiders anyway. Careful with you're talk about who's got what. I've seen a lot of flatbedders who can run circles around guys yanking a box around. Seen a lot of guys dragging a box that can run circles around a lot of flatbedders.

You guys whine and complain about an 8 hour wait at a dock, hell I'd like an 8 hour wait at the sale barn just so I could get some decent sleep. There's good and bad in every job in trucking, its finding what you're happy with and sticking with it.

If the only bad thing the op is having is positioning loads on the trailer get a can of apart paint and a tape measure and mark the 24' mark. Its not that hard to do, and it'll make things easier when all else fails load tail heavy. I've pulled spreads most of the time its not that bad, to load them and the loaders know what they're doing most of the time, I usually didn't have to tell them where to put anything just had it loaded and left never even bothered to run across a cat scale most of the time and I have a heavy truck. It all comes with time and experience don't quit a job just because you don't know how to load something, everything I learned I learned on my own. You will always be learning in this industry so keep your head up put your nose to the grind stone and get the job done. That's the best advise I can give to the OP. Nobody ever said trucking was easy, if I was worried about an easy job I'd be back to flatbedding that ain't got nothing on cow hauling. And if I wanted something easier than flat bedding is go back to dragging something with swing doors and sitting at docks waiting to load and unload.

If you stick it out after you've learned and still don't like it hey I can't help you and maybe you need to make a change, can't put a price on happiness, but give it some time and let yourself learn a little more. Talk to who you can and do what you have to do to get the job done and learn everything you possibly can before you leave a job in the industry. Training is free and its a skill you will always have remember that and think it through.

 

Troy, just stick with it, everything will fall into place, and you'll get it figured out. When I first started flatbed 25 years ago, I wasn't sure about anything. I hated tarping with a passion, but after a year or so I got it figured out and tarping got faster. When I decided to get out of flatbed, I was able to tarp a full load of lumber in under 40 minutes. Not to bad for someone with 2 bum knees, having to climb and kick out the tarps. So, all that said, give it time, ask questions, even of the forklift drivers. They load this stuff everyday, most of the time you can trust their judgement on placement of the product you are loading. Exception to that is a rookie loader, but theuy have to learn just like you do. Just have patients, it will come.

 

Hey Triad, you wrote some great stuff right there.... Now share with us what did you learn about the extra junk or tarp...

 

Ha, alright!

Well, the way I wound up doing it was that I pulled one whole side of the tarp up on top of the load (and the top of the tarp) and used some 4x4s to hold it in place on top of the load, then folded it like you would if the load were taller, only up on top of the load so that it was easier to work with. Used the 4x4 to keep the whole thing from falling down as I walked along the sides, pulled the folded part down and tucked the excess under and strapped it down. I tried rolling it and folding it from the ground, but it was just too much tarp to handle and it was too cold and windy.

Hope that makes some sense.

 

I had a couple loads for Long John Silvers taking a load of shrimp all over the place, I didn't really enjoy the attitudes of the managers I ran into, they seemed to be really annoyed with the fact that they already had a freezer full of shrimp.

I did a couple nights of McDonald’s deliveries, and one night of White Castle deliveries, both were like going into a high security area and these were in nice areas.

I understand where your coming from. I trained for flat bed work with an old salt who started driving a long time ago. I went and did a bunch of other things and back to trucking I went. I took this job on, I am a temp driver for a small company who does fill ins for other companies. I wasn't too thrilled with the assignment when I first got it but it isn't hard. I worked for a dozen companies since I started asking for more flat bed work and I have three companies now who have me scheduled until the end of the year (there are some gaps) - they all deal with dies for presses or molds for plastics.

 

Yeah, those minimum-wagers are never happy to see their truck show up right at the end of their shift. It's good to be back in a part of the industry where people are generally pretty happy to see you pulling up with a delivery for them. I drove for Sygma Network for a year and a half and did Wendy's, Steak n Shake, Max and Ermas, Panera, Donatos and Jenny Craig. By the time I quit, I just couldn't stand the routine anymore.

Got tons of free food, though. One night, we decided to see how many stores we could ask for Frosties on a Wendy's route and we got them from every store (5, I think) until we got to the ones that were closed for the night and we did not feel very good about it at that point. Looking back, we shouldn't have actually eaten all those Frosties. Funny now, but I was hating myself at the time.

I really do love flatbed, though, for all of its ups and downs. It's a much more satisfying line of work than food service.