A bit concerned! Asked to dock another driver's trailer

No love lost here for Walmart. They fired me in '10 two weeks before Christmas for doing what Loss Prevention told me was ok in regards to locking the dock doors. Amazing how they "forget" they tell you things when its convenient for THEM.

 

I agree with many of the others backing is a waste of time. He should of just dropped the trailer in the street and headed back to pick up another one.

Good job driver for helping this guy. Some would not have been so cool.

 

I run dedicated WalMart. All drivers except the yard jockeys are prohibited from pulling WalMart trailers from doors. The only trailers outside drivers pull from doors are the ones they, themselves, put in the doors. I have been to a lot of WalMart DCs, including Los Lunas and have never been asked to move a trailer before docking mine. That's with three different companies. In any case, I would have given them an odd look and told them to do it them durned selves..

One thing I tell all rookie drivers, especially women, is never, ever let someone else back your trailer for you. If it takes an hour, do it yourself. You will never learn if someone else does it. And, giving up like that blows your confidence all to hell.

Now, you can go on ahead and laugh when someone in a bobtail pulls up to straighten out. I do that all the time. Not because I don't know how to back, but because I'm a perfectionist and I don't like seeing my stuff parked crooked in any spot. I will pull up and straighten it until my little OCD mind is satisfied. If'n you don't like watching me do that, go back to your Bugs Bunny cartoons and mind your own business. As long as that Werner didn't trade paint with anybody or anything, he can call it a good back.

Meanwhile, you want to look down your nose at him and think you're better because you did one fewer pullups getting your bobtail parked. That Werner might have been a rookie out on his first run. Or, maybe he was a putz. In any case, he didn't ask you to do it for him, he didn't jack knife the bobtail and he wasn't bothering you.

 

That's kind of scary, ain't it? And what would this company do to a driver who was helping out and damaged their equipment? Now you have a mess on your hands - a driver who tried to be nice and risks his own job by messing with someone else's equipment.

I'd spot the driver and assist him from outside the truck, while he backed his own truck in. And..... it would NOT make me responsible if he hit something - he's behind the wheel.

Yeap. Even when I ran teams, and I was covered under our own insurance, I would make the newbie do it himself.

"I can't back in here, can you do it?"

"I can do it, but I won't. Put on 'yer big boy britches and it's time to learn"

 

Having a driver shag a trailer out at a DC would be dumb, they have the yard dogs for that. I'm talking at the individual stores. During the holidays, we would have 2 docks with rental reefer trailers for the turkeys and frozen pies and cool whip and often two docks with at least one Wal-Mart dry van that had been unloaded that afternoon that had been loaded with dry grocery goods. Sometimes they would drop the NEXT days trailer early as well so only one of the trailers was empty and could be moved and all 4 docks were full. Normally they took the empty but if the driver was going home he'd bobtail out without taking the empty. If a Swift driver pulling a meat/produce load showed up before that empty could be moved, they'd just sit and wait until our vendors showed up to shag the empty out.

 

I didn't run into that. Our policy is, we don't plug up all the doors. If yesterday's trailer isn't unloaded, the store unloads the trailer I'm under. I do not leave without pulling a trailer from the door. If I'm going home, I pull the trailer and park it off to the side, out of the way and then go home. Any of our drivers plug the last hole and leave will at the very least be removed from the dedicated fleet.

That goes for WalMart guys as well.

If there's a vendor in the door, we wait our turn. We're usually early anyway. Although we did have a guy almost pick a fist fight with a vendor because he wouldn't clear the door for our guy. Our guy was not only removed from the WalMart fleet, his lease was terminated and he was let go from the company. That sort of behavior is not tolerated.

Vendors have certain hours to deliver at WalMarts. When it's during their hours, we wait our turn like everybody else. Doesn't matter if it's a WalMart truck or a dedicated truck.

 

I guess policies must be regional. We were told that when Swift showed up, we had to drop everything and unload them. Most drivers were cool and would let us finish whatever vendor we were dealing with. However there was a few who wouldn't play ball. One driver would call the DC the instant we didn't bow to his wishes. Another demanded I have a manager open the emergency door when the side door was blocked due to some maintenance because going around the front was "too far to walk". The dry goods trailers were hauled by WalMart drivers who could care less if dropping a trailer in the dock blocked them all off.. The company did throw us a bone at least, if it was a multiple stop and the driver showed up before 5pm, we weren't obligated to unload the freight if we didn't have room, that really pissed off some of those Walmart drivers.

 

I walk around about 50% of the time because there isn't anyone in the back to hear the bell. No skin off my nose.

Only time I get irritated is when employees look right at me through the window, make eye contact and then walk away without calling anyone.

I had one guy tell me, "I didn't have a radio." So I asked if there was a phone back there. His response, "I didn't hear the bell. I'm not trained to hear the bell."

Another guy said, "I'm maintenance. It's not my job to call a manager for a truck." To which I answered, "When did WalMart go union?"

Then there's the unload team at the one store that, when one of them sees me back into a door, they immediately go on lunch. The whole team.

 

Orlando and I worked 0000-0830 so we were there to open the door when the meat/produce got there. We alternated our lunches so somebody was there but when we were alone, we posted a sign when we were at lunch in the window so the guys wouldn't waste their time ringing the bell and just walk around and find a manager, though there were a few guys who would stand there regardless and ring the bell for a half hour and get pissed off.

The receivers at the other store in town caught heat for taking lunches at the same time.

 

Union shops are the worst!

I got in trouble one time at a Chrysler plant for pushing the button to raise one of those automatic dock plates so I could get unloaded. Somebody saw me and went and got a manager and told me that I had performed UAW work and to never do it again.