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

Wow... we all need to apply to work the office... great potential to be upwardly mobile with all these promotions happening... lol

 

Well another driver of Abilene spoke to me yesterday and just mentioned what I previously writing and I just found out very late yesterday that is true! I'm very happy for "Cam" and his promotion the guy has helped me when I had a problem in the past. But "Ryan" I'm still trying to really figure out!

 

So what is Cams new role?
And I can’t say that I know who Ryan is.

 

Ryan was the Midwest planner (you know how you sit forever in OH, IN, IL?).
Cam is over all of dispatch now, I think.

Yeah, they are so upwardly mobile that no one is actually working. Oops! Did I say that?

 

Ok... so the person who was over all of Dispatch is now our Driver Development Manager... so Cam stepped down from all of Operations to be just over Dispatch? Then Ryan stepped up from a Planner to over all of Operations?

I might have that wrong...
it’s so hard to keep up... LOL

{returns to rearranging deck chairs}

 

No, no. Heck, I don’t know. It’s so hard to keep up.

 

Exactly!
And when he fanallyyyyyyyyyy! Send you a load it was something crappy or you bounced around like a jackrabbit.

 

Like RC said "it's just hard to keep up" The next time I get to Richmond I'm going to ask.... "Ok, who's on first now?"

 

Got a load yesterday: Pick up a trailer full of peanuts in the southernmost reaches of Georgia (stereotypical, no?) and haul them to the northeastern bits of North Carolina. According to the broker, the receiver is expecting delivery tomorrow between 8am and 11am. Okay, no sweat. Stop in Kenly tonight, hit the road in the morning, make on-time delivery, bada bing, bada boom.

Just as I'm crossing the South Carolina/North Carolina state line, the phone rings. It is Cliff, my driver manager! He has some new instructions for me.

For those of you reading this who aren't Abilene drivers, one of our biggest accounts is Boars' Head. We haul a LOT of Boars' Head lunchmeat and cheese, and we routinely deliver lunchmeat at 5:00am to the provisioning companies who are going to take the stuff off our trucks, put it right onto their own trucks, and deliver it all to grocery stores and delicatessens in the area by 8:00am. It is a BIG HASSLE for them when we are late, and they make sure to pass that big hassle back to Boars' Head, who then passes it back to Abilene.

Abilene REALLY doesn't like Boars' Head deliveries to be late. So they will move mountains (in the fashion detailed by this post) to make sure those deliveries get there on time.

Now, what eventually came to light, after a few phone calls, was that my full instructions were:

* Drive to Florence, SC (which was 45 minutes in my rear view mirror), drop my trailer full of peanuts, and hook up to a reefer full of lunchmeat from another driver.
* Drive the reefer full of lunchmeat to Walterboro, SC, and swap it out for an empty trailer from a second driver.
* Drive the empty trailer back to Florence, SC, give it to the first driver (the one who was originally hauling the reefer full of lunchmeat), re-hook my trailer full of peanuts, and deliver it tomorrow as per my original instructions.

Okay, whatever. As long as I'm paid, I'm your dude.

I had actually started driving towards Florence before I got the contact info from HQ for the first driver. So when I called her to find out where she was, I was about 30 minutes away. I explained to her that I was coming to get her trailer and I was bringing back an empty for her.

"What's this about a 'late load'?" she asked.
"I dunno nothing about that," I said. "All I know is I'm coming to swap trailers with you and I'll be bringing you back an empty."
"So I won't have a load?" she demanded.
"Beats me," I replied. "All I know is I'm coming to swap trailers with you."
"Well give me your number and I'm going to call my driver manager and straighten this out. I'll call you back."

So I gave her my number. And she hung up without telling me where she was.

Okay, whatever.

Time passes. Now I'm 15 minutes away from Florence. She hasn't called. I call her back. No answer.

Now I'm 10 minutes away from Florence. She hasn't called. I call her back. No answer.

I call my driver manager back. I explain the situation. He says she's at the Petro in Florence.

I pull in to the Petro in Florence. I find her truck. She doesn't seem to be in it. I drop my trailer next to her truck, and then park bobtail on the other side of her truck. I get out and bang on her truck.

No response.

I get back in my truck and call her again.

No answer.

Well maybe she's gone to the bathroom or gone to take a shower or something. Not what I, personally, would do if I knew another driver was coming to swap trailers with me, but other people have different ideas. So I'll wait a bit.

20 minutes go by.

I call my driver manager back. Explain that this driver has taken a powder. Not in the truck, not answering the phone, I can't take her trailer because it's still hooked to her truck. Other than that, everything is fine, how are you?

After we hung up, I went into the main truck stop on a hunch. I can't say that I know many of my fellow Abilene drivers, but I felt like I recognized the voice on the other end of the phone when I talked to this woman earlier. And we don't have that many solo female drivers in any case. And I thought there was a chance I'd recognize her.

Sure enough, she was in the restaurant. Chilling. Relaxing. She'd had herself a salad and some pudding and was just doing a whole lot of nothing when I rolled in.

"Hey, I'm here to swap trailers," I said.
"I think those plans have changed," she replied.
"Not as of five minutes ago when I talked to my driver manager," I said.
"Well let me call my manager and straighten this out," she replied as she pulled out her phone.

So she had her phone with her the whole time and just wasn't answering it when I called.

She starts a very engaged conversation with "Donna" and wants to know why she has to swap trailers and why she can't deliver the load herself and why I'm bringing her back an empty trailer and yadda yadda yadda.

And then MY phone rings. It's Cliff, my driver manager! I let him know that I found the other driver in the restaurant.

"Is she moving her @.$$ to swap trailers?"
"Nope!" I responded. "She's sitting there arguing with HER driver manager about it."
"Jesus Christ."

And from the murmured bits of conversation I caught on the other end of the phone as he spoke to other folks in HQ, I began to get the impression that this other driver is a huge PITA, and this is not the first time she's been a hitch in everybody else's collective giddyup.

I go back over to the driver, who is apparently on hold with her driver manager. I said "Look, whatever else is going on, I still need your trailer. Why don't we swap out the trailers and then you can straighten out whatever you want about the empty one I bring back while I'm, y'know, taking your trailer down the road."

She refused. Said she wasn't doing anything until she resolved this with her driver manager.

Okay, whatever. I'll be in my truck.

Ten minutes later she comes out, drops the trailer, and gives me the paperwork. I roll out of the Petro in Florence with her trailer 58 minutes after I arrived.

 

And that right there is a big part of the problem here. I do believe, if they get rid of drivers like that, things might get a little better. I’m not going into a long rant about this chick, but, the end result is this, we do what we are told. Period.