Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

I moved 2,300 miles from Montana to the South to get away from this very photo. During my move, I ran a quick final goodbye check on my old house and the last thing I did before closing my garage doors for the final time is leaving both my 12 year old snow shovels against the wall. The new home owner is going to need them much more than me.

 

I got a rant, and this one kinda pisses me off. I had a customer yesterday that tried to pull a fast one. He was sending out 27 pallets weighing 27k lbs (all to the same customer). He gave me two BOLs stapled together. He rushed to get me to pro and sign the top page without letting me read the second page. Top page said 22 pallets at 22k lbs. When I called him out on it he said something along the lines that the back page covered the other 5 and that they do this arrangement all the time. He then said something else and came out all muffled cause of his mask. I initially took his word for it cause they ship with us all the time but then double checked my copies of the paperwork.

One BoL covering 22 pallets and a second one covering the other 5. All together under one pro sticker. I used my mobile shout-out after finding a spot in the parking lot to get cell service. Sure enough, the OS&D clerk confirmed my concerns. Either combine both pages into one complete shipment, or put a second pro sticker on the other page. I shrugged my shoulders, grabbed another sheet of stickers and went back to the staging pile and found 5 random of the 27 pallets and threw on a second set of stickers. Then did the same with my copy of the paperwork.

After everything got loaded up, I was just about to leave and gave the shipping guy a quick heads up that his arrangement DOES count as two individual shipments since he refused to combine them on a single form. Oh boy did he lose his #### on me. Yelling and screaming how I screwed him and his customer since they would be billed twice. This is great, it's 8 PM and I still had another 2 hours or driving and post trip before I could start my Friday night. This is exactly just how I want to conclude my long week.

I explained to him that he could eliminate the second pro sticker if he just printed out a new BoL with the combined weight. Not like the dock workers would pay attention to the existing stickers. They see a trailer full of pallets under one sticker and they will assume it's going to the same place. But no, this guy wasn't having any of it. He's now freaking out and on the phone (and I can now hear his supervisor yelling at him). I finally lost my crap and broke my own rule and faulted him. "Hey man, you or your customer are manipulating our shipping rates by loading one amount, while declaring another on the paperwork. This piece of paper is a legal document and you are misrepresenting what you are sending out. What you are doing is the equivalent of trying to fly two people on one plane ticket. This is illegal".

Finally, he was flustered cause he knew he was in the wrong. I left with his departing words of "get off my ####### dock!". Fine with me, it's now 8:25 and I still have two hours of work left.