Loading and Unloading hassles

This is why I will never pull anything other than tanks. Very little wait time and 99.99999% you get treated with respect. My last load pulling dry van was to Sysco in West Jordan Utah. Those ####### made me sit for 11 hours. The company had to pay lumpers to unload it. Wtf? It's their freight. When all was said and done they told me some of the freight had been damaged. When I asked to see the damaged freight I was told it wasn't that bad and they were going to accept it anyways.

 

You would be very happy working for Aaron's.

 

I've been to places that roll out the red carpet. Drivers lounge, catered food, some even shuttle back and forth. There are certain military bases and nuke facilities that do the same. There are some loads where the people that load me have to meet me on the other side to offload me. They will take you bar hopping.

 

If it was normal, I would unload the freight off my trailer. If I had the equipment to do it, I would unload the freight off my truck. Neither of these two things happen in my world, or the world of any trucker I see, at the places I deliver the freight that is on my reefer trailer. I soooooooo, look forward to pulling a step in Sept.

 

IF only it was just the driving...

The driving is the least of it and as I get more accustomed to being in the driver's seat, the driving is the relaxing part between the problems/challenges/complications of the drops and stops.

Out with my trainer today I did two loads of auto parts and one to a food distributor and got treated pretty well at all three places, good friendly people. These were local runs with live loads/unloads. No driver's lounges or catered food, but nobody gave us the hairy eyeball, either. It's better to smile and be professional and polite than engage the sour pusses. If they suck you into their drama, they win.

That part of human psychology that involves showing strangers you aren't hostile is in full play at these places and a slightly pleasant look on your face will go a long way towards putting people at ease and getting on with the job at hand.

No sign of lumpers at any of our locations today, just friendly dudes on very fast forklifts.

I had no idea what I was in for when I started CDL school.
No. Idea.
It's not necessarily bad, but it's definitely not what I expected.

 

From my experience the worst two types of places to deliver are MOST grocery warehouses and union steel mills.

Tankers are the best for shippers and receivers. Detention pay starts at 1 hr. for most tanker companies.

 

I have set up to 35hrs at a Tyson plant waiting on enough chickens to meet their maker so my load could be completed.

 

Yeah,you meet all kinds. Hostlers in a rage yelling ,no matter where you're at in the parking lot( thats where they're going of course) . Pantera hippy unloaders that just need one more thing to go wrong and they're going home. Some security guards that apparently hate their jobs Some places actually hostile when you show up on time. Can be amazing. However you have a few good customers that are friendly. Maybe not at first,but friendlier the more times you show up. My favorite is " We thought you were going to show up Thursday,todays only Tuesday, Nobody called us! I just play along,stay calm,play the game and focus on gettingunloaded and on down the road as quick as possible.Hopefully dont have to go there again.

 

Them Syscos have a shady scam going. I too fell victim to " 100 bucks to unload you,unless you want to unloadit yourself". Wait a minute,these are mixed pallets 2500 lbs each and I dont have a pallet jack. Apparently the receiving clerk was keeping 30% of her 5 man lumper crew fees, slowly unloading 3 trailers at a time. Pretty good racket.