An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Once I got empty in Dominguez they sent me back to the Rancho yard to swap my flatbed for a step conestoga (not sure why they chose a step). Then sent me to El Monte to pick up a load of interior panels going to Hanahan, SC. The reason I question a step for this load is, the pallets are 13' long and 4' wide and I got 8 of them. The problem is, the top deck on a step is 11'(minus the room lost for the front wall structure for the conestoga). That means that the front 2 pallets are hanging off the top deck by more than 2 1/2', but you can't put a riser in because the stake pockets where they mount would put it either right under the middle of the 1-by of the pallet or past the end of the pallet. And when I mentioned that there was a SNAFU earlier, 2 of us SPD's were sent in there to pick up a load, and the other driver got there first. Only the other driver didn't give the guy his pickup number, he just told the shipper where he was headed and one of the loads cancelled. So when he got there, he assumed that the only load available was his. So when I got there, it seemed that we were both assigned to the same load. It took several less than cordial messages to dispatch to find out that the ither driver's load was the one that cancelled and the only load the shipper had was my load...so I stayed, the other driver left...but he had the flatbed conestoga, which is better suited to haul this load. Not sure if I got assigned a step because the next load needs the extra height or if it was just the last available conestoga on the Rancho yard...we shall see on Monday.

And the local guys here in Rancho aren't too happy. I guess business isn't that good right now down here, so all overtime has been cut, and 40 hours a week in this area at what the company pays per hour is tough to live on. When I talked to some of the local guys in Arlington, they said they are still getting OT, so the cuts are only down here (for now). It doesn't look like this TFI buyout is that good of a deal, at least for these guys.

 

They assigned me a 24, but it didn't have risers. My load info said I was picking up 3 pallets, so I didn't have them get me one off the shelf...hell, I didn't even remove the spare tire strapped to the upper deck until he told me I was getting a whole trailer load.

 

Hope this doesn't come off as too political for the general forum


https://youtube.com/shorts/Xr2kMW80N9U?si=yH7Pj1P9hmtJi0FX

 

Probably the same person who decided not to equip the new trucks with Prius deflectors because it added too much weight. 2 risers are probably close to the same weight as those.