Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

Had a bit of a stupid attack this morning. Had to go to one of those companies that had such a long name that it showed up as a three letter abbreviation, which is fairly common.

Anyway, I head out that way and as I get close, I check the computer to see what building number to go to since they have like three separate locations on two different roads.

I kinda didn't recognize the number so I punched it into Google Maps real quick. Then my GPS told me I was over half an hour away. Didn't seem right since I should be there in five minutes. Then the GPS kept telling me to make a u-turn. Then it hit me. I got one three letter company completely mixed up with another three letter company.

Not only was I not in the right city, I ended up crossing into the wrong state. Absolute bonehead amateur move. I can not believe I did that.

 

Not gonna lie. I am a huge fan of DRL and I personally have them on all my POVs and I hope they mandate them like Canada does. As annoying as my comment sounds, it is deeply rooted in me running in Montana for so many years, and you are literally 10 times more visible in the wintertime with working lights during the daytime. This was especially true if you drove a white or gray vehicle that perfectly blended in with the snow.

With all that said, Mack is right with his OP. It's not a law in his state. So he was right to tell the confronting driver to take a piss.

 

I have a rant. It kinda reflects off of doing some amateur mistakes. It's deeply personal but I felt like anyone willing to read this would benefit from it... Even if it was just a laugh at my misfortune.

My biggest screw up was running convoys in Iraq. Like I got us legit lost and worse.

I was running with the 70th Medium Truck Detachment, an Air Force unit under a Army battalion. Our mission was to move supplies from Kuwait into and out of Iraq. That's it. We would run 48 ft trailers. We could haul 2 x 20 ft connex or 1 x 40 foot connex. We could also run rolling stock (which were Humvees and non connex equipment and such on our trailers).

I was "voluntold" to be Lead Vehicle Commander".(LVC). I was initially impressed with the "commander" title until I realized that I was third in line if our convoy got f##### and had my Convoy Commander (C2) and my assistant convoy commander (ACC) been killed.

A standard convoy of linehaul trucks going into country consists of 7 military trucks and about 35+ civilian "white trucks" going in. There are like 5 white trucks between each 1 "green trucks". You also have some escort gun trucks in the mix

I was appointed LVC and I told my C2 that this was as my first rodeo and I just recently been promoted to E-5. Like i legit pulled my uniforms out of alterations before I started the combat training element.

Anyway, my C2 told me that it is what it is... And me right now "I is in the very front of the convoy" and that I needed to step the **** up to my rank which I just sewed on. He told me "I understand that if we get hit, your truck is usually the first thing to go. Tough titties, nut up and shut up".

I explained to this jerk face C2 that I was unqualified for the job and that I have a terrible family history of navigating. Like I completely suck at finding places. It's hereditary in my family to get into a wreck or get seriously lost.

So the mission drops. We are supposed to leave Camp Arifjan, Kuwait and head north to Camp Buehring, Kuwait.. stay the night and pick up your Army escorts and then push north thru K-Crossing into Iraq. Pretty simple ######## instructions right?

All was well until things fell back on to me and I was running this crap show of a disaster. I left Arifjan and was in the front and made a right turn instead of a left on King Abdul Highway. The next 20 miles are basically unmarked. Bunch of squiggly lines that nobody could read. Finally halfway to the Saudi Arabia border I checked my military equivalent of Qualcomm.

Not only was I NOT leading us to Buehring, but we were 10 miles away from invading the wrong country.

Bunch of capital written messages from experienced drivers in my element trying to contact me cause I didn't program my radio right and couldn't hear them.

Btw, this story is about to get worse.

I told my idiot of a driver who I specifically instructed to take an offramp to get to us turned around and then him choosing to run our truck through an off road trail onto a sludgy sandpit only to get stuck.

We then had a six wheel drive HEMMIT tow truck get itself stuck trying pull us out. I am on the SAT phone with my C2 only to get yelled at and reminded of my incompetent leadership and being a terrible NCO. 12 hours after I initially leave, KBR or Halliburton show up with a 50 ton wrecker to pull my 915 and the HEMMIT out of the sandpit..

I wasn't court martialed, but my C2 fired me the next morning. He punished me further by making me ride out the next two missions on detail flight "so you can think about how much you ####### up". The reality was that all the other C2s in the battalion laughed at him for missing his spot time and getting stuck.

Three ####### weeks of racking rocks and doing "booty duty' on Camp Arifjail. They also made me fill up all the coolers on post with fresh bags of ice.

I wiped away tears of joy as this peckerhead grounded me. As his next linehaul went out the green truck directly behind the LVC got hit, and that could have been me. Count your blessings while my dumb arse is behind picking out rocks bigger than my first and putting them in a different bin.

 

I've almost done that as well. I was at the Billings MT barn and hooked to trailer # 286627 and coincidentally #286629 was also there. It's super easy to get things mixed up. It's frustrating when you are running triples and you catch it after your middle box is the wrong trailer.

 

Also surprised the government stepped in. As I said before, the money is just there to maintain their operation costs and make payroll. It's not to make a run aground ship seaworthy, it's just there to pay for the fuel for the pumps dumping out the floodwater. That company is such a spectacular disaster, I am surprised I haven't seen a oil covered seagull walk out of it. Absolute waste of money. If anything this pandemic has taught us that there is no situation too severe for the government to make even worse.

$700 million for 29% of the company? That evaluation alone should show you the business incompetence of the Treasury Department! Who is the one making these kinds of decisions? It's absolute madness. What are they going to do, nationalize the LTL sector like how the government is running the USPS at a deficit? We'll never get that money back. Even if you liquidate all of our equipment, it's pennies on the dollar. No other LTL company on the planet would buy our junk.

I talked to a tow truck driver after I broke down. He said he brought back roughly ten percent of our fleet today cause the trucks won't stay running. I am riding this out till the end but I am starting to feel bad that my health insurance and pay is pretty much paid largely by the bailout. Once they collapse, there are plenty of competent companies that will pile on to the frenzy of new accounts and will need those of us displaced. If the government will quit paying for YRCs life support machines and let them finally collapse that is.