Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

I dropped the trailer and sent empty and end trip on Saturday night, finally got a load at 10:30 this morning (didn't make it to Walmart ). I was there long enough to get a reset in sitting on that yard. The place was quiet enough, but lack of facilities really got to me.

Nothing spells "homeless" more than having to use a store restroom to wash up and use the bathroom. Just another low point of my OTR experience but useful lesson nonetheless.

 

Maybe im asking for to much, but one would think if your company has fragile, high dollar freight that is carried by basically one trucking company, and those drivers are not supposed to touch the freight, then before sending a driver 500 miles maybe, just maybe, someone should make sure the fragile freight is not delivered 2 weeks early, and there is someone onscene willing to unload it....

So my 1 cooler was 2 weeks early,no contractor, manager did not want to unload it. After numerous calls, dispatchs plan is that i unload this 1cooler. I did, but only after getting it in writing to my personal email and a qc msg. Pix were taken showing no damage as well

 

Two weeks early is nothing. How about delivering to a place that only has a couple walls up.

 

"Today i spent an hour doing other drivers work that they chose not to do. I pulled approximately 110 nails from the floor of trailer XXXX that had been left. This is not acceptable driver behavior"

Sent this to dispatch this afternoom not really expecting much, but mostly just venting/bringing it to their attention.

About 15 ninutes later get a message basically stating i was right, thanks for handling it, heres a lil money for your trouble, and most importantly to me, previous driver was notified of issue and charged a "cleanup fee"

I dont really worry about a few nails or a lil bit of trash, but this was crazy.

Im glad the company actually took some punitive action because im sure this isnt the first trailer dropped in a out of service condition by that driver.

 

I only counted 92...

 

Well, glad I sent a nice friendly reminder.

A couple things lead me to believe they knew I was coming on HT and were orchestrating the loads to get me home Sunday night.

Nope, after I sent friendly reminder my FM called to confirm where I was taking HT and said they did already have another outbound load on me...

So that was removed and the Deadheaded me home... HT was to be Monday/Tuesday but Tuesday/Wednesday actually works out pretty good too.

So one day late but it's all good.... this time.

Stay Safe.... be back out Thursday am.

 

Consider yourself lucky. I spend most days on most trailers doing that. I showed pics to the brass, (posted here too) got a ... you're right, thanks for the work .... and nothing else.

Far as i know, they didn't even call the previous driver let alone penalize them. Maybe they'll start.

 

Enjoy the HT. And yes, just because HT is " approved" doesnt mean they "know" about it. Lol .... like everything else here, we gotta stay on top of the details.

 

I never tell anyone about nails in the trailer. I just pull them and go on. It's no big deal. I hardly ever have to pull nails. The receiver usually pulls them all.

 

I only told about one time and thats cause it was after many others. But I'm not talking about a few nails either. All the cribbing on a full HP load and half of it still nailed down is a bit much when rushing to find an MT.

As far as a reciever, of all the loads I've pulled, only 1 had a reciever thus far. I unloaded all the others and with no onsite dumpster, also had to deal with getting rid of the scraps and straps.

For a company that boasts we don't handle freight, sure seems odd to me. Just saying ....