Welcome to my Nightmare.

He was over a hundred miles off route. I'd almost guarantee the chain of events started when he decided he wanted to run 40 over to 65 north instead of the permit routing. which id guess had him going up 51 to ky. That's if he even bothered to read his permit routing. And if the permit was even for this load and not another he did the day before.

 

Blade trains are a regular occurrence through Hutchinson, Ks. I used to do quite a bit of repair work at Siemens here in Hutch as well. The same people @TripleSix refers to have undercut the rate so bad, and screwed up so much stuff, they ship almost everything else by train now as well. I haven't seen a 19 axle in there in the last 2 years. I'm told there were a few loads the year before last that went out that way and maybe a couple last year. In fact there's 2 of them that have been stored in the same spot for going on 3 years now, here in Hutch.

 

@TripleSix,

You probably aren’t a golfer, but your post reminded me of this

 

Not to derail the thread sir, but I thought it'd be a good place to tell the story. See below picture of load . . . .



Agent contacts me, needs 3-4 trucks to shift pipe - short haul. I tell him I can organize another 2, and figure it'll keep us busy for 2 weeks, at a decent day rate.

First buddy (we'll call him Billy), I call wants to include his other truck on it. Sigh - OK. Cuts it down to 1 and a half weeks, but makes him good money - his other truck runs under a separate authority, and he pays him as he sees fit.

Second buddy (we'll call him Joe) that runs my 53' trailer - is all in. Also cuts him down to a week and a half.

Loads of planning and organizing. Massive hiccups on the first day, lots of communications back and forth, complications. I'm in charge of it, I get it handled.

Billy turns up to a port without a TWIC. Neither Billy nor his other driver. Joe and I can escort, but only one at a time. Billy gets pissy early on and threatens to 'go home'. Sigh. Causes lots of problems over the next few days.

Joe is solid. Joe gets to it. Joe is Ultra. No problem. Billy not so much. Love Billy to bits, but it seems if he could do less, he probably would.

I spend the Friday prior cutting up chocks for pipe with a chainsaw, pre-drilling chocks for ease of nailing, buy nails, bring hammer. Enough for 4 trucks.

First day - because of all the headaches, I haul the only load. The other guys still get paid the day. Point being, I have dunnage with chocks in correct places, set up to go. Evening of the first day - I 'instruct' all to get chocks set up to match. Joe gets to it, Billy and driver do not - despite repeated requests.

About Day 3, Billy has still not employed chocks. He leaves one strap in the middle of the load, releases chain on the top stack, gets down and releases the only strap holding the top layer, and lo and behold, the two 10,000 lb pieces of pipe proceed to roll off the deck - toward him.

He was very lucky to have had his eyes up, and just enough time to have backed out of the way - otherwise he'd be dead.

First thing the unloader asked him was 'So - what do you think about those chocks now?'

And all I could think of was having to look his girlfriend in the eye over the casket, and know it was ultimately me that was responsible for the situation. And it bothered me.

But what do you have to do? Short of doing the job for Billy? All the equipment needed, supplied willingly by me, yet risks his life through sheer laziness? Billy's been driving a lot longer than me.

I'm not so much on the babysitting now unless I absolutely know who I'm involving in the deal.

 

I don't think "Billy" is worth the trouble. That day would have been the last day I spoke to him professionally and that would have been to say. Good bye.

Not worth the risk to lose your assets.

 

"We're still friends in my book Billy: but you're fired."

YOUR name is riding on the success or failure of a project & ones in the future in the eyes of that agent bc you organized the extras @blairandgretchen.
I will, and have, cut a mother####er off from work I organized for causing ANY issue. My name is on it: only THE best operators get to touch the situation.

Pride Through Professionalism. I know you seen it on my shirts and jacket. I don't deal with any ####in half steppers.

I get pretty lit up about people that don't strive to be THE. VERY. BEST. They can be at whatever they do.

 

I worked for one place briefly. All open deck. I was told to leave the spreads open and the trailers aired up when you drop them at the yard, loaded or empty. But but isn't that hard on landing gear, tires, fuel mileage.....? Yes it is, but then we don't get overweight tickets and guys driving with a trailer with no air in it.
Sigh
You can't teach them to open and close axles? Or turn an air valve?

Different company, most of the trailers don't have working dump valves on the trailers. And the spreads stay open because the owner got tired of paying to fix the airlines when guys would open and close the spreads. Now the owner complains about the tire bill at the end of the month.
He put 4 new tires on a trailer, and a driver first trip out put a winch too close to the tire and chewed it up. I said if we had dump valves we can drop the air out of the bags and check tire clearance.

I'm not the best, I may not even be an A gamer. But it's discouraging that standards get lowered to the lowest denominator, instead of bringing them up to a higher standard.

 

Remember, those famous words
“You can’t fix stupid”

 

Lesson learned.

And I wear those shirts on a regular basis - but only on days where I am 103% sure I'm about to look like a champ - because what an a-hole I would look like wearing a shirt proclaiming "Pride through Professionalism" - if I wasn't about to deliver.

And they're not even my companys' shirts.