Co's where drivers don't work the dock

So one of our P&D drivers called in sick. I was tasked with pulling his day shift. I just got done unloading 171 vehicle tires by hand. They were just stacked the width and height of the trailer. Total weight was about 4600 lbs if you add everything all up. Every single muscle in my body is worn... I feel like I just got run over by my trailer four times. I am 29, just got out of the military, and I consider myself in great shape. Doing P&D work is no joke. The 1200 lbs pallets that I pushed with the jack were the least of my worries today. I can honestly say that today I got my ### kicked. This is the worse I felt since I went through combat training for Iraq. If you do wanna ride out your time as LTL, go with linehauls.

 

It isn't that you are out of shape, it is that you are using muscles you are not used to using. Believe me, a single load of 171 tires is not bad at all. You just grab one off the stack, bounce it into a tire laid flat on the floor, and it will roll right out the door. All it takes is practice. You can unload them just as fast as they can be caught that way. Of course, if the catcher is an uncoordinated idiot, or a lazy unmotivated individual it really slows you down.

I've also delivered heavy equipment tires that SHOULD have been flat-bedded, but instead, were in the nose, (of course,) of a 53' trailer.

 

One trailer with only 4600lbs??? I haven't broken down trailers since mid 80s. But that would have been gravy. Used to offload 2-4 trailers a day of Levis and Wrangler jeans. Levis not so bad. Wrangler sucked. Some of those boxes were over 100lbs. Hundreds of them per trailer. Mayonnaise was the worst. But luckily it was normally skid and we used lift or pallet jack. Canvas top trailers in TX in summer are serious hot. If you spent much time outside in Iraq then you won't have to much trouble adapting. I spent 14 months at Echo in Diwaniya and little more at Talil AB and Stryker in Baghdad. And couple of yrs in Afghanistan. That was nothing after Iraq. That place sucks.

 

Those 171 tires were only 1/5 of what the full trailer held. The rest was gonna go elsewhere.

I was never stationed in Iraq, I was based out of Kuwait and did convoys through Iraq though. I spent many nights at Stryker, I was at Pad II near the big PX. Their $11/a day WIFI sucked. The Warrior DFAC at Talil was great. Without a doubt, my most favourite FOB was CSC Scania. I would cut wires in my 915 to spend extra time there. I miss that place.

 

Did LTL for over ten years with a carrier for GE appliances and others. Loaded a 53 almost every day on my own. Would leave San Diego anytime from 3:0am to 7:00am. P/U in City of Industry, sometimes the load would be staged by the lift drivers in the warehouse. We as drivers would use hand trucks or appliance dollies to wheel everything on board. Almost always having to stack items up on my own to save floor space. Sometimes the trailers had been preloaded, that saved on the back for sure. When things got busy we could run three loads out of the Los Angeles area from San Diego and exceed 16 hours on the clock without a problem. (running within less than 100 mile radius) You get to know many of the CHP by name after numerous times being pulled in for inspections, San Onfre I-5 and Rainbow I-15. Always felt good to get a new sticker for the window.I really liked the work. I was rehired three times over a decade with them, but the money was never just right for me. One of the owners died last year, I will not say the name of the company, but the man I worked for will be missed. He served in the Army, Thank You to all that have Served !!!

 

Our appliances were for the most part Whirlpool and Maytag. Most of them going to Home Depots. I like the flat bladed forklifts that they use there. MUCH easier than having to tail gate everything, like we did at Lowe's.

And then there were those huge, ultra heavy, mega bucks Sub Zero/Wolf appliances that went to the "muck-a-muck" contractors. No docks, full trailer loads that had to be tail gated. The ONLY thing that made these loads not quite so bad, was realizing that all I was doing was the tail gating. Those poor installers that had to load them in their pickups or trailers, then get them inside the residences. . . Many of them having to negotiate stairs with these things. . .

We did do the occasional residential delivery of various appliances. But it was NOT often, and we had a company policy that prohibited us from negotiating stairs of ANY type, and another one that prohibited us from going inside residences. So those appliances were either left in a garage, or by a door, and it was up to the consignee to get them inside the house.

 

Saia, I believe

 

Might have been LTL, but we did we everything. Change oil, tires, wash trucks and trailers, do installations on all appliances. We even put Sub Zeros into high rises using an externally elevator that the iron workers had been using. We would tilt the Sub Zero on to a four wheel dolly to get it in the elevator, then it was a shake ride to the top floors. Lots of fun getting high on the job.

 

Yes, when i was with NEMF you did NOT work the dock. You just drove. It was one of the best jobs ever. i'm not sure if that has changed? If it was during the daytime and everything is still as it was, i would be clamoring to go back there.

Now, here at UPSF, you can count on working the dock if you go to linehaul, UNLESS you get a particular run that doesn't require it (yes they do exist, but rare), OR you get a run that is so long that there is no time to do dockwork----400 miles or more. But those long runs are usually taken by drivers with higher senority. OR if you run teams. Those guys are grossing $1500+ a week without even trying and only working like 3-4 days, but it's teams and if you can't sleep, it just doesn't work.