My new adventure with Gordon Trucking

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It comes out sideways for some reason... will have to take another pic

 

Sitting at the Heartland-GTI yard in Phoenix. My truck is being relentlessly attacked by this bird. He can't kill the invader nor does he get hurt. Idiot.

Except for the free fuel, this place is dead. The truck wash is closed so I don't get to wash three weeks of road grime off. I was hoping to do so here; it's the ONE thing HTLD offers that I like. So far, I'm not impressed with their yards. There's no consistency in how they operate.

Next stop, somewhere two hours east on I-10 for my break on the way to my next fuel stop in Anthony, Texas.

 

At the TA in Eloy for my break. Honestly, I am enjoying the sunny, warms days I've been in for a while. I know what's in front of me, but maybe my DM's will keep me south/west for a bit. Even without a working APU, which has been a major inconvenience. I haven't broached the topic of getting it repaired - really repaired - with my DM's yet; it's the weekend crew and still a bit too early. I'll probably do it as I'm on the way north for hometime.

I hope the powers at GTI understand how critical equipment is to me and to others. It's the reason why I'm here and not at some other carrier. The takeover by HTLD really is irrelevant until the equipment changes from what we operate to what they operate.

 

I had rancho fix my APU. It took about a day and they had to replace the cannister but now things are working good. Got 3300 miles this last week and I just finished a relay to Lathrop yard then have to go to woodburn for a monday drop and hook.

So far I have been to 2 heartland terminals and talked to a few of there drivers. One thing is for sure some like it and some hate it. Most of the GTI drivers I talk to are saying the same as me.

That is to wait and see approach...

 

Heard a rumor today that Heartland has run into an unexpected glitch while attempting to combine the Gti qualcomm system with their people net system. I guess it's not as simple as they thought and thus running both companies as one cannot be done without completely changing gti over to peoplenet.

this is cost prohibitive so both companies will run separately until something is figured out.

that is if you want to believe this rumor. The problem I have with it is you would think a company as successfully run as Heartland is would have had a better plan before shelling out half a billion dollars.
Doesn't make sense unless something else is afoot such as the reason not to continue growing the gti system and simply bring all new equipment and personnel into the heartland system until the gti system just fades away through attrition.

all new trucks could be equipped with peoplenet and be dispatched directly through the heartland system. As trucks are traded in by gti they will not return to the gti system. Seems simple enough to me.

Might take a year or two to complete but it would be the most cost effective way to assimilate gti.. one bite at a time rather than trying to digest it all at once. And yet this could have been the plan all along.

 

Methinks it's more of an expected unexpected glitch....I would say that merging Qualcomm and Peoplenet is something akin to merging Windows and Mac.....

Probably like Tow says they will just switch the new trucks over to peoplenet and just go through a natural wastage kind of thing until all the Qualcomms are done. You would have thought that there would be some strategy put in place by the various IT departments....or maybe they just wanted to stretch it out to get some nice big fat consultancy fees. Who knows!!!

Oh well, headed out this morning for Fargo, leaving Bloomington on Amtrak and should pull into Fargo early tomorrow morning all being well!

 

When I worked for LinkAmerica they merged the system from Qualcomm to People net pretty flawlessly. The computer systems in the office are not Qualcomm or people net specific. I doubt they are putting everything on hold because of something like that.

 

This is true. I was on the conference call we had last Wednesday and this issue was brought up.