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

Doesn’t sit well with me either if management knows ahead of time who is getting laid off and doesn’t say anything. Too many want a title and position yet don’t want to do what is right when tasked with tough decisions. Don’t care or too chicken. Can’t believe this place is hurting that bad. Chris Nycum is in charge of both Piedmont and Wytheville now and I got moved over to the Wytheville DM. Makes sense anyway since I moved back to WV anyway. Got a PM done last week and only two techs were working the whole shop. Maybe some driver messed up and we got sued. I’ll just keep going til the good Lord tells me it is time to move on.

 

Ole how I long for the old days of Abilene.Sitting on the yard since noon yesterday,hometime in either run me or send me home.

 

I'm also here at the yard, waiting for a headlight assembly.

In my Kenworth, if the bulb went out, you could just pop open the back of the headlight assembly and replace the bulb.

Apparently Freightliner doesn't want you to be able to fix a broken headlight by simply replacing the bulb with a $10 third-party bulb. So if the headlight goes out on a Freightliner, they have to replace the whole headlight assembly. Which costs $900.

(Volvo does the same thing, so this isn't restricted to just Freightliner.)

 

Dropped in Grove City yesterday then sent to the Knight yard to hook a load of paper rolls going to wooster for this morning. Get there and the trailer has two flat tires, all the brakes are cammed over so no brakes on the trailer working and expired sticker and the claw on the bottom of the left door is busted off so the left door only latches at the top….idiot steering wheel holders are driving me nuts with the just grab and go checking nothing. Almost couldn’t stop with the heavy load on a ramp woth no brakes on the trailer. At least check the tires, lights and sticker. Breakdown told me wait til shop opens. Get the two tires fixed so I can empty the load so they can replace all the brakes and do a pm service. Had to go get an empty in Groveport to take to whirlpool in findlay. The load isn’t ready yet and will have to pc outta here. I keep stressing I like to start by 0300 and to please preplan me the day before if possible. Tired of this new regime insisting on middle of the day start and drive into the evening crap. Guess we can’t drive in snow anymore with the fleet messages lately saying shut down until further notice. It is like nobody is allowed to make decisions anymore at lower levels, gotta wait cuz ppl like to micromanage.

 

One the hiring standards by many of these companies are in the gutter. Secondly, it’s getting harder and harder to find anybody with a brain to hire anymore… Too many people are literally too dumb to even get by in life anymore. It seems if a computer didn’t tell these people what to do how to do it where to do it they would not know how to do it… Sad state of affairs anymore

 

I got a “Hey, we’d like you to come back and help us win and hammer out miles.” email from a Joshua Gilmore the other day. Um, not only no, but he-you know what NO.

 

Knight is starting to sound like the Heartland group.

 

@jarhead0311 I've noticed that too lately with the loads,yesterday didn't send anything till 3,and had to deliver in Charlotte last night.Im ready to roll early,the loadplanners here work banker hours, but I guess I should be grateful.

 

Got to whirlpool 1830 last night and load was still being loaded. Guard said drop empty then wait in front of the trailer until green light. Light stayed red, kept checking periodically until I fell asleep until 0430 this morning. They unlocked the trailer but forgot to switch the light. Guards wouldn’t let me pull it so parked at the Loves in North Baltimore, OH. Rob finally got an answer back from whirlpool and nobody will be in until 2200 tomorrow. Fortunately whirlpool agreed to pay two days layover so Ill grab it tomorrow. Got hometime Tuesday so couldn’t grab the load they had coming out of Indiana going to west memphis and mississippi.

 

Load assignment to pick up a pre-loaded trailer at Wytheville Gatorade turned into a live load at Wytheville Gatorade. As I'm pulling in to their lot, a guy flags me down. Says that one of Abilene's drivers has apparently abandoned his truck in one of their dock doors. Trailer is fully loaded, ready to go, but the driver is nowhere to be found. Someone said they saw the driver walking down the road.

Dunno how long the other driver was gone, but they'd assigned his door to two other trucks after him, and they had to reassign those trucks to different doors because his truck was preventing those other trucks from using that door.

Thought it over a bit, gave the dude HQ's phone number, told him to ask for Rob, said that Rob would take it seriously and would find a solution if there was one to find. Also told the dude I'd move the other truck out of the dock so they could at least reassign the door.

And just as the dude was dialing HQ, the other driver came strolling up. No clue where he'd gone or why. Maybe they asked him about it when he showed up. If, on the way out, I see the dude who flagged me down, I'm gonna ask him.