This has been a bad year at Walmart.

"Do the math!"
"But, the fact remains that Wally World is using a TON of outside carriers to pull THEIR trailers recently"- your quotes
Hmmmm,
I've been a dumb truck driver for 26yrs now, but I'll give it a try....
Do the math with me.
1 TON= 2,000 (lol)
Our use of OC's ( thats outside carriers for you accountants) this year. 0.0
I'm a simple truck driver, but your facts, and math, are way off my friend.
Please do not confuse grocery with GM. You also left out the cost of empty shelves. We have many stores in the midst of "Somewhere, Egypt" that require
2 trailers a day, by 1400, 7 days a week to have full shelves. Our stores, not us, must profit, we must provide safe, efficient, on-time service. We're about to really become more efficient I'm thinking.

 

I'm bummed out. Thinking about the top secret 2 a day mandatory meetings this coming week. GTMs (ours and everywhere else) are tight lipped. Meetings at 7 and 9 each departure day.
Figure we'll all know what's going to happen within minutes after the conclusion of the first meeting.
When I searched the Walmart site for trucker jobs being offered, I got the response "No Results Found," when a Friday night search showed about 10.
Kind of hoping this would be my last job.
Anyone else think they might kill the fleet?

 

Yeah, I saw 160 trucks lined up outside our gates to take over at 08:00 Monday. Relax, drink, and be merry. My buddy who started in 89 was worried back then about the rumors the private fleet was going away.
A 5/2 truck sits unused 104 days a year if the driver doesn't extend. Then add to that vacation time. Starting driver's trucks sit unused over a third of the time. I can see wanting to get more use out of their equipment. They've been preaching that to us all year. Ottawa driver told me a few months ago he was taken off of his program and put on a 5/2 5/3. Might've been a test. I don't know. I can't control what's coming tomorrow, but I can control I'll be smoking some ribs at home, and having an Oktoberfest beer for breakfast, because that, I can control. And so, I can't wait until tomorrow morning.

 

The last thing WMT would do would be to get rid of the fleet, and have to rely on the Mega' s to keep their shelves filled. WMT is all about control and leverage, and that's what the fleet provides.

 

Yes, I know. I kept mine for over 30 years. I got my use out of it.

 

I'm a company driver for an outside carrier which provides a dedicated fleet for Walmart at a handful of their D/C's. We also deliver a fair amount of inbound dry van loads to D/C's around the country which 95% of the time are drops, 5% live unloads.

Point is, I had a delivery Friday morning for live unload. Got there 45 minutes early for scheduled appointment, no other trucks in line at the gate. They process me almost completely, then guard says "oops this was scheduled for yesterday, Thursday"...calls the receiving office and was told they won't take the load, must be rescheduled. My Qualcomm says 9/29 Friday for sure, their system shows 9/28 for sure (guard showed me on the screen). After I sit across the street where parking was available for 2 hours while our company tries to obtain a VALID appointment, before company finally directs me to drop at our nearest drop yard, literally 100 miles away! To be rescheduled presumably for next week.

Long story short, because of a typo, I'm guessing one side or another had 1-digit different on the date...Walmart insists on wasting time and resources by not accepting the load while it was there.

Walmart ordered this load. Why not take it, even as a work-in, while its there??? I understand scheduling delivery requires an available dock/unloader, but also they could have allowed a drop of the trailer. I mean, why so rigid/inflexible - like nobody can make a common sense decision?

Now the load gets dropped 100 miles away, will have to go 100 miles back there when appointment gets reconfirmed, and this from a company who claims so much to be "green conscious" about the environment.

 

Lol, you win! Ton = 2000 lbs!

Hey man, I hope all you guys are right and you're working there as long as you want.

If you guys aren't worried, neither am I.

 

On a side note, I saw probably one of the most scroungy looking WM drivers I've ever seen at the Loves in Bringham City, UT last night. If this guy wasn't wearing his Wally World shirt, I'd have guessed he drove for CR England.

Most WM drivers at least look like they have a shred of self respect and pride.

 

cant they cross dock a lot of inventory each day.