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

Finishing up a reset,heading up to Bangor,Me for Monday morning delivery.

 

Here I sit, at the Loves on I-65 just south of Indianapolis.

I have been here for two hours. I pulled into the repair bay 90 minutes ago.

The thing they had to fix? Both of the mudflaps on the empty trailer I retrieved from Orly Drive were hanging on by a thread.

They fixed the mudflaps an hour ago. I've been sitting here ever since waiting for someone at Volvo Action Center to authorize payment.

 

And the reason you didn't just do it yourself????

 

90% of drivers these days, 1. don't carry any tools 2. Don't want to get dirt under their fingernails. And finally 3. Would rather sit at a shop for countless hours and let a shop do it. I ran into a driver one day at a Petro, he had a small marker light out on the the rear bottom corner of a trailer. He had been waiting over 3 hours to get into the shop. Really? Go pay for the dang light and in 10 minutes you can be on down the road. I carry numerous bulbs and lights in my tool bag along with fuses of all shapes and sizes.

 

That's seems to be a recurring theme. My last breakdown repair at a freightliner liner dealer had Volvo authorizing the repair then giving the dealer the runaround on actual payment. There is also the issue of Volvo being a 3rd party who has to get authorization from our shop and sometimes they can't get it in a timely manner.

In the past I have paid for repairs upfront on my credit card and submitted receipts for reimbursement as that is the quickest way to get going again. I don't do it if the bill will be hundreds of dollars as I can't risk that kind of money should the company decide they don't want to pay up.

 

I'm not sure if you work for Abilene or if you do, when you started. During orientation last year I was told that I was not supposed to do any work on the trucks. I have some tools and mechanical aptitude so I have on occasion "broken" that rule, but others may not be so inclined.

 

And that is a prime example of how this company has gone from one where if another driver saw you on the side of the road, they would stop (and help you if they could) to see if everything was okay to a bunch of snitches.

Another example...I brought a loaded trailer back from CPWM in Windsor. No mudflaps. Just completely gone. Don't know if the driver that dropped it didn't notice or if they were stolen while at the shipper. Doesn't matter. I noted it on the trailer condition macro, brought it to the yard, wrote it up, SPOKE DIRECTLY TO JOE (key point here), told him it was loaded and would need to be done ASAP as it was loaded and needed to depart the yard either that day or earlier than the shop opened on the next day. Did it get fixed? NO. Did I get questioned about it? Yes. Did I have my ducks in a row? Yes. Did I leave the pink copy of the repair request for the next driver so they would know what was going on? Yes. Did I photograph the macro and the repair request? Yes. Only thing I didn't do? Record my conversation with Joe. Next time I will.

 

I got that load Monday morning. Had to be in Nashville that night at 7:00pm local time. Absolute latest I could leave if I wanted to get there an hour early was 9:00am Richmond time. Planned on leaving at 8:00am just to give myself extra buffer.

Unfortunately, thanks to a sudden case of the Mississippi Quickstep, I didn't even get to the yard until 8:20. No problem, though, still plenty of time. Be on the road by 8:30 or so and we're golden.

And FM is on the phone telling me the load shoulda been on the road over an hour ago. Not by my calculations, but whatever.

Only I can't find the trailer on the yard.

Drive around the yard a couple times, no luck. Where the-- Oh THERE it is, over by the shop. Getting two new mudflaps put on it. At 8:30am. On a trailer that my FM is telling me shoulda been on the road at 7:00am.

Ended up rolling out of the yard at 9:05am Richmond time. Got to the Cost Plus World Market at 6:03pm Nashville time. An hour early.

Just like I planned...