Accidently left rejected pallets on trailer

Wait a second... You and two guards visually checked the trailer, and it was clear. But you don't say you checked the trailer again after being told the BOL had been annotated regarding the refused cases. You only mention checking the BOL.

I've never hauled anything small enough that 80 cases could go unnoticed. Do these cases exist only on the BOL, or are they physically present on your trailer?

 

I was thinking about this topic some last night. I was trying to remember more details of an incident I was involved in some time ago. Some people don't know this, but Hershey will contract out product lines to small candy makers to run when they have available line time. One such place is in New Jersey. I picked up a load there and took it to a warehouse near Dallas Texas. Once unloaded someone from inside brought out my bills. I looked at them and all the product was signed for. Upon a physical look inside my trailer, I noticed several cases of chocolate were in the trailer. I knew somebody inside screwed up by that point. I also went back to my bills and carefully looked. I saw no lined out rejections. Thankfully I was able to get back into the door. I got someone to look from the dock. About 10 minutes later I had a corrected bill, and I followed my company policy in reporting the rejected product. It's not so much I was being honest, as I wanted to make sure everybody was on the same page. I was still going to keep the chocolate regardless. My company could write off up to 5 cases without asking Hershey. So I drove over to a place I knew about, empty released and went to bed. Crap happens. None of us are perfect. Just learn to focus on the small details of this job.

 

The guard didn't say anything because it was REJECTED. It's not his or Wally's problem.

Stick to the "Dog ate my rejected lettuce" story.

With your keen attention to detail, you should be hauling plutonium or massive excavators in just a few weeks.

 

That's kinda where I was going with this... has anyone else actually verified the product was there, or was this just a freakout upon someone seeing the notation on the BOL? They're two different things entirely. Again, 80 cases would be hard to miss by 3 people in anything short of a moonless night in an unlit drop yard.

Edit: For what it's worth, my primary gig is yard jockey. I'm used to paperwork not lining up with reality, spotting empty trailers, or catching theoretically empty trailers that actually have products on them. It's not at all uncommon for a notation like this to accompany a completely empty trailer, and vice versa.

 

Scanned bills and kept it moving. 200 miles down the road, I'm told cases were on the trailer. I looked and lo and behold, yep it says rejected cases (doh).

Since I check and double check everything, I was mystified at myself for not seeing it. Maybe it was in the front or a dark corner."

"Maybe it was in that pesky dark corner.