P&D and Customers(rants and funny stories).

Showed up at a construction site once in the late afternoon with a single pallet of some lightweight plastic pieces that only weighed 200 lbs. total.
Walked up to the superintendent and told him about it. He replied "It's a little late in the day for me to unload any deliveries. I don't really have the equipment now". I looked around and saw a forklift and a telehandler parked nearby. I replied "that's ok, I can break it down and unload it by hand, it will only take a few minutes. Just sign here, and tell me where you want me to leave it." "No", he said. "If you do that it will mess up my parking lot paint." I could tell right then that the guy just didn't want to deal with the stuff that was being brought to him, so I just politely said, "that's fine, we can do a re-delivery tomorrow". I told my dispatcher and they charged $250 for the re-delivery fee plus a construction site accessorial. I guess the guy called the office later and complained about the fee. Maybe next time a driver shows up with his freight, he will be a little more interested in getting it...

 

One fine Monday morning after it had been snowing all through the weekend, I had to do an inside delivery for a store with an alley back entrance. I was fairly new to the route and had never visited this customer before. I pulled into the back alley and saw a large parking lot behind the store that looked like a cut through from the next street over. I thought it would work out well if I used the parking lot to swing out and straight line back the trailer up to the double doors for easy unloading.
After I parked the truck, I got out and realized that I had ran over a couple of parking blocks that were buried in snow... It turns out that the owner of the lot did not want people cutting through from the alley.
As this dawned on me, I looked up and saw a man in the parking lot giving me the evil eye. I went about my business, finished the delivery, and thought it would be a good idea to take a few pictures, and call it in to the boss. I just wanted them to know what happened, and that it was a minor issue, but the guy might call and complain.
As I was pulling out, I got stuck(go figure), and was spinning out for awhile trying to get my trailer over the blocks.
When I finally got free, I wanted to get the hell out, and struck some low hanging branches on my way...
About an hour later, my boss called me, and said that the guy called and complained that as I was leaving I took out his internet cable for his office... He was pretty pissed! I didn't get in trouble for the incident because of my honesty. My company doesn't typically hold city drivers at fault for hitting low hanging wires in alleys etc.
Later I found out that the guy who called in claimed that he warned me not to drive through his lot...
The a-hole deserved to lose his internet just for being a liar...

 

I must be lucky to have a good office staff, because the rare COD deliveries I've done have been notified beforehand to avoid the fiasco of waiting.

 

I had a residential delivery once in a small town when I was new to P&D. It was a couple pieces of office furniture that were fairly heavy. I called ahead and arranged for the customer to meet me at his house. When I arrived, I parked out front on the street. A nice couple in their mid to late 50's came out and asked me if I could pull through the alleyway behind their house and the guy would help me with the unloading. There had been a decent snowstorm recently and needless to say the alley was not plowed. I walked around back and looked it over, but I must have had more faith than I should have in the ability of a single screw with a light trailer to navigate through deep snow.
I got into the alley just fine, but I took out a low hanging cable to their neighbors house going through. I was a little worried about it, but it turned out that the customers were also the landlords, and it was an old disused t.v. cable, so they were really cool about it....The guy helped me to unload, but then I got stuck in the deep snow as I was trying to pull out. He brought his shovel out and I tried chaining up, but it's a little tough to do from a complete spin out. Finally, he went and got a big tow strap and his newer Dodge 4X4, and we hooked to the ICC bumper on the trailer. He was able to pull me out to the street with no problem. They were really helpful people and felt bad for asking me to get into the mess that happened. Once I was free and clear, the guy wanted to take a pic of his pickup hooked up to the trailer, so he could show it to his Ford, and Chevy loving friends. He got the bragging rights on that one!
It turns out they also owned a local burger joint in town, and they invited me for a burger and fries. If I hadn't been running so far behind, I would have liked to take them up on the offer, but down the road I went.
It sure is nice to deal with good ol' down home friendly folks, rare, but nice!