What if it Snows?

Yes. I was wrong. You were right.

Coming from WE I couldn’t fathom there were places that would give you straps.


Edit/ this just took me down memory road. Dang I was really green. I still find it hard to believe how much I’ve learned. I can only imagine where I’ll be in 3 more years. Otter very happy.
I had bought a lot of straps but two weeks prior to my departure from WE my wife met me at the Petro in Wheeler Ridge and I had off loaded most of my stuff off my truck since I knew I was going to rent a car from Fontana to Phoenix to pick up truck #3. If I had known Landstar was going to leave me sitting for a week while they stumbled through my on boarding I would’ve went home. September 3rd I resigned officially from WE. September 4th I arrived at Freightliner AZ to pick up my truck. September 14th I had an empty and was picking up my first load of dog food.

 

I would absolutely hate to try and wash out a reefer that had those in it... Especially if they hauled any bulk produce that was floor loaded.

 

The e-track I’ve seen in LS trailers has been strictly in the walls.

 

Here's something I wrote for an ABF forum, but I like you guys more, so you get it as well. Lol

---

In another life, sometime this fall would have been my 10-year anniversary at ABF. I'm being purposely vague, simply for privacy reasons.

I left from ABF very frustrated. The 2013 contract effectively killed the ABF I knew from my first two years. The company asked for too much, and the union rolled over and gave it up freely.

Of course the highlights of the contract were the 7% pay cut and vacation giveback. Those were the reasons most employees became disgruntled.

But honestly? ABF could have kept me around if I just could have gotten a bid. The union allowing the company to decrease the percentage of freight that had to be set aside for bid runs is ultimately the reason I had to leave.

At my terminal, it was generally two years before you got a bid. Right around the time I was just on the verge of getting one, the threshold increased to five years.

All I ever wanted was some normalcy. Being on call 24/7 for 6 days in a row, living in hotels, barely sleeping, feeling unhealthy... I could do it for two years. But not five.

And yet I stuck around for two more years, getting more and more angry. Throwing my phone every time it rang with a work call. Taking mental health days off with the help of a doctor who was concerned about my level of fatigue and constant back pain.

Ironically? Right at five years, I decided to tell them to take their bid and shove it.

I had always heard the horror stories about how hard UPS was to work for, but at least they were home everyday. I threw them an application basically on my way out of the industry, and they called the next day. I had a job a few weeks later.

I did four more years on-call before finally getting my first permanent bid run last year. Starting out here was difficult, and it wasn't a lot of money, but this place is so much easier to work for than ABF, I have zero regrets.

This fall I go to top pay scale at UPS.

So at the end of the day, I guess I would just like to thank ABF. I might be celebrating 10 years there right now, laughing at UPS drivers for all the rules and micromanagement they have to put up with... and also being completely clueless about the reality.

And on a little side note? My back pain is completely gone. I guess stress was a factor.

 

Speaking of catscan.........

 

McLane had them (Longmont,CO) because they are LTL and some of the FFE trailers did as well for the same reason. I've seen less of them now and the reason given on why they don't use them as often was damage done to trailers. I don't argue they're usefulness, but like the switch from sticks to auto, it's based on the intelligence of the average driver. Smaller fleets can be more discerning about their equipment, but the tradeoff, in my experience) was making less than I have with larger fleets. I'm only in the OTR game for a few more months to give my record more OTR miles after nearly a decade in the patch with a small hitch 5 years ago to run LTL, so changing to another company right now would make as much sense as the kids who take 3 jobs in their first year.

 

I’ve officially come to the conclusion that the worst CMV drivers I’ve seen in the last 6 months are almost unanimously pulling Amazon trailers.

 

Their vans are nearly as bad, if not worse in some locations.

 

OK, I'm your huckleberry. What's with all the laughing Dave_in_AZ?