Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Ok, so we left off with me sitting bobtail at the Flying J waiting for the trucking God's to bestow their great wisdom upon me. And boy .... did they ever!

At 12 noon I get a call from my DM. He tells me to go back to Wegman's (46 miles), pick up the trailer with product left on it, the "completed" signed off paperwork and then end my trip (and hence my detention time) and then take the trailer to Carrier (on that 8 mile DH) to get that reefer report (download) back to the 25th when the trip started in CA. Ok, off I go. When I get to Wegman's and through security, I stop by the trailer just to make sure all is well (not that I'm the un-trusting sort mind you) and yep, running continuous set at 35 and showing 34.8. I snapped a picture of it. I also noticed it was down to a 1/4 tank of fuel.

Then I head inside to the window guy and explain the whole thing to him as he sits listening intensely to every word. When I finish, he tells me I need to go to the next door down. (Another wasted 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back.) LOL ... So I go to the "next door" and bother a guy on a computer who tells me to wait and he'll take care of me. 15 minutes later he walks me out to a desk and asks yet another guy (Union shop ya know ) what's going on with my trailer. This other guy says follow me. We walk the entire length of the warehouse so this guy, can ask yet another guy, what's going on with my trailer. Seriously?? 4 guys and no answers?? So this 4th guy walks me all the way back to where we started and goes into a small office. (no wonder why Unions take 50 times longer and cost 100 times more than anyone else to get anything done ... eh?)

After about 10 minutes he comes out with .... no, not any "completed" paperwork .... but a release form for me to now take the trailer off the property and go get the reefer report and then ... get this ... bring it back to be inspected by the USDA which, by the way, can't happen until tomorrow as it's once again too late in the afternoon now. Seriously??? I tell this Chump ... err ... .... really nice guy ... that, while sitting at their dock yesterday, I had a DH order to take it and get that report and they wouldn't let me take the trailer off the property. Why? He shrugged and said, I don't know, that's how they do things here.

So, I tell them I'm not touching that trailer until my company gives me the go ahead. I inform dispatch of everything including the need for fuel. While waiting for an answer I call the Reefer place which is only 7 miles away, and find out that it'll be at least 3 to 4 hours before they can get me in for the report. Great! My DM gets back to me and says absolutely get fuel first. Of course the closest place to get that fuel is .... yep, you guessed it, right back to that Flying J 46 miles away in the opposite direction of the Reefer place.

So, I get the go ahead and off I go to fuel, turn around and head to the Carrier dealer and here I sit waiting for the download to begin. I never ended the trip so the detention clock is still ticking since 2pm yesterday (28 hours and counting) and I've been assured that they'll ..... "take care of me".

While here I've learned a couple interesting things. First, when we have a need for a "reefer report" (or download), they can either convert it to a PDF for emailing (which in this case could be 100's pages to go back to the 26th when the trip started), OR, we have what's known as the "Reefer Manager" program. The service place can download that info directly to that via email to Joe.

Second, we have a "Carrier Priority Account" and we DO NOT call Volvo breakdown for payment. The service place is to bill that account directly. You can get the account number from our office.

So, after all that is done, I'm to be back at Wegman's between 08:00 and 09:00 tomorrow as that's when the inspector will be there to tell me I now have liquid veggies in my trailer!

Are we having fun yet?

 

Haysoos de la Christo, chralb, that sounds like a fustercluck of truly epic propotions.

If I were you'd, I'd save copies of everything and have them framed for posterity.

 

I've already told my DM that I'm not accepting any "averages" or "funky formulas" for all this detention time. I fully EXPECT to paid in full, by the hour, what I was told in orientation we're supposed to get.

On top of that, I also expect the extra miles from running to and from that Flying J and then up to this Carrier place. A total of 4 x 46 miles. The 7 miles back to Wegman's from here? I'll toss in for free .... LOL

 

That moment when you're parked so deep in the Petro parking lot that the Love's next door is much, much closer...

 

Yeah, this one has been quite the ordeal for sure. Since there's no place close to park after this report is done, I'm going to ask these folks if I can just stay here. I really, REALLY don't want to drive back to that Flying J. They already think of me as a vagrant.

 

@chralb i know its just May, but you might have won the cluster of the year right there.... abd if not, straight to the final round for sure!

 

Hate to here that @chralb ,my experience was pleasant there.I came to a conclusion today,that we have some sorry drivers working for this company.

Pull into the yard today to drop a trailer,and notice the one next to me has an alarm,check it out,the reefer is shutting down ,because it has no fuel.The unit was set on start-stop,nobody's perfect,I know i'm not,but how lazy do you have to be to not take the extra 5 minute's to put fuel in.

 

LOL ... is there some kind of prize?

 

Hey brother. Long time since we talked. Yeah it's pretty sad the way some folks just don't care enough to do their job right.

 

Had one of our senior drivers pick up a loaded trailer (Hazmat) with the ABS light on. He just dropped it in the yard and never mentioned it to the shop. I had to take it to TX and back, but had to get it fixed before I left.