Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

And I don't meant to come off as a douchecanoe delivery driver that wants to fine a receiver into submission. But just on Monday I had a customer that is notorious for keeping drivers waiting. I called them up an hour before I left and told them what time I was coming.

"Oh, thank goodness you called. We really need that freight, we'll have someone waiting for you at the warehouse."

Of course nobody is there and when someone finally did show up, he is not in a forklift like promised. Just like clockwork, every 15 minutes he tells me "don't go anywhere, we really need that freight. We will have someone down here shortly". Finally after 45 minutes and an angry phone call from dispatch later the guy tells me "forklift guy is kinda behind. He will be on his way after he is done with his lunch break, just hang tight".

When does he come off lunch?

"Let's see, he gets an hour and he will start in 10 minutes"

Wrong answer. Not only are you not getting your freight today, but I will do everything I can to ensure that you will get a redelivery charge for burning up my clock like that.

 

But wait... There is more!

Of course their crap is the only thing that is too heavy to move and too wide to work around so a 18 minute backtrack to the barn to pull it off my trailer. My dispatcher met me on the dock, shaking his head "they pull this crap on us every time". I then had to drive back into route.

52 minutes of waiting at the customer, 36 excess minutes of driving to get the freight off, and a six minute chat with my dispatcher put me so far behind that I lost my pickups on the other side of the county. My pickups were cake and I would have gotten a good extra hour of windshield time heading back to the barn. So yeah, I actually lost out.

 

Lucky. From the looks of it I got a long Sprint ahead of me tomorrow