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

I wonder if the "bomb cyclone" took out Arlington. Messaged my dispatcher about any updates, haven't heard a peep back from him. It was only supposed to be the equivalent of a Cat 1 hurricane, which isn't catastrophic for us in FL, but for the weather lightweights up in the PNW, it might be life altering.

Update - finally heard back from him. Said lots of wind damage and some trees down. They had just lost power at the office and the backup generator only powers certain systems and his computer wasn't one of the systems, so he can't see if there is any kind of update or not.

Update 2 - he just sent me an updated form from the broker...it is exactly like the 1st one they sent yesterday that was rejected. I told them yesterday the paperwork they're looking for has an id number that starts with 2 letters and 6 or 7 numbers, the vessel id and the id #'s for the crates I am picking up. Pretty specific info, and the CSR/broker for this supposed world wide transportation solutions company can't seem to provide us with the right paperwork with that information...told dispatch that perhaps they should ship this with another carrier, we don't need to deal with incompetent people like this.

 

Pull a tanker, don’t even leave home if you can’t make the delivery, they’ll reschedule. The right company will give you something that you CAN make. I can’t even remember which door opens first on a van.

 

That’s been suggested to him for years.

 

Could you drop that load at the rancho yard for another driver to deliver

 

I think it might be too far for their local drivers. But I gotta get it loaded first...

 

Finally got loaded, but not without a battle. They sent me a 2nd form, with a new number added, but none of the items listed on it. I was assured by my dispatcher that this would be enough according to an email from someone at the port he was CC'd from. When I went to get the new form printed at the Love's, you could see the number on the screen, but when he printed it out, the number wasn't there. It took having him save the form as a Word doc, then printing it from Word to get it to show. So I proceed to the port, and this time they let me check in, then have me join the dozen+ other drivers in the staging area and instruct me to wait until someone comes and escorts me to the loading area. Almost 2 hours later someone tells me to follow a red truck pulling a stepdeck over by several yellow cranes. When we get to the cranes, the load foreman starts being a major #######. He said I have to have what I am picking up listed on the form and he can't load me without it. After several heated minutes of screaming at each other, I told him that it was someone in his office that said the paperwork I was sent would be what I needed, that's all I have, that's all I will be given, and if it wasn't enough, sign the form I gave in refusing to load me and I quote, "I will get the #### off this #### hole of a port's property, and the ####### load can sit here until hell freezes over, and he can explain why to his boss why the customer didn't get their load" (which based on what little description of the load I saw, is a military load). He says fine, I'll load what I think you should get. Now, the guy in front of me is picking up the other half of this load and had exactly the same issues, but that guy received the proper paperwork after 2 days of fighting. While waiting to load, the load boss then jumps in my #### about opening my tarp while waiting, I inform him that my stepdeck's tarp can't be opened first because it overlaps my drive tires, so once it's open, I can't move the truck. He said that it has to be opened before I pull under the crane to load. I said, in another elevated volume level "IT CAN'T BE MOVED ONCE IT IS OPENED BECAUSE THE DRIVE TIRES WILL RIP THE ####ING FRAMES OFF THE TRAILER", and he walks off ranting to his crew about it. But once his crew sees what I am talking about, they're chill about it and give me the 2 minutes it takes to open it once I am lined up under the crane. They load me in short order, and I secure the load shut the tarp and roll out, right into Houston rush hour. I only made it to the other side of Sealy TX and called it a night. After my interactions with that load foreman, I can see why there is a "no weapons" policy for the port. An armed, less stable driver would have shot that mother ####er...it was all I could do to keep from knocking him out with my winch bar...the inability of tolerating an extended visit to the Galveston gray bar hotel kept me from unloading on him. Rest assured, this will be my one and only visit to that dump of a port ever. (With all the trash and debris just lying around, it truly looked like I was picking up at the city dump). Makes me long for a grocery warehouse delivery!!!!

 

Sounds pretty bad, but still far better than any grocery warehouse.

My assignment for this week was to bobtail from Burton, MI to Kent, OH and pick up a preloaded van trailer. Run said trailer to El Dorado, AR and drop it, then pick up an empty van to return to Kent, OH and then bobtail back to MI. All paid hourly BTW.

 

wish i could find that kind of job

 

I would deal with grocery warehouses 7 days a week before I would deal with another ####### like that...and I bet he was an overpaid union lowlife to boot.

 

Most likely, but still better than grocery warehouses.