Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

Job sites are my biggest complaint..

We do LTL long haul and a job site can be an absolute day killer......In the summer time a good bit of our deliveries are schools and colleges...


"we didn't know you were coming" oh yes you did, I was standing there when the office called you..

"we didn't know you had a truck that big" oh yes you did, you were told it was on a 53 with a T660 pulling it..

"we didn't know you need a dock to unload" oh yes you did, I was standing there when the office called you and told you we need a dock or a Lull..

"we didn't know you didn't have a lift gate" oh yes you did, I was standing there when the office told you no lift gate over the phone..

"can you come back tomorrow" uuuuuuuuuuuuuum, no.....I'll be two states away tomorrow..

 

I hear you on the schools. We did a lot of school books. However, since it was "local" we all pretty much knew what to expect at each school. As an example, a high school we hit at least once or twice a year would try to tell us to either enter or exit a driveway where they had strung power, phone and data cables from the main building to a portable class room. Even our lift gate bobtail wouldn't go through there without tearing that mess down.

 

What a week (plus)

WE had new years day off.
Got up at 1:30am Friday for my somewhat regular route that leaves the terminal at 3:30am. It goes to Los Lunas NM (I'm out of Denver), then Albuquerque spend the night, then off to Santa Rosa and Tucumcari NM then home. About 1150 miles, 10 stops (usually, less this time, one place is on a college campus and closed for holiday), home by mid day the 3rd day. Usually about 1300 to 1500 pieces. Get to work there's 3 inches of snow (none at my house), get truck, get trailer, mostly works (yeah). Get to pueblo, have to pee and get some caffeine and roads were not pretty and trailer tire flat. Mind you this route is DESIGNED to run 14 hours 15 minutes (which is idiotic but that's another rant) any delay and the first day is toast. 90 minutes for the guy to show up adn throw a new one on. (90 minutes to show up, 10 minutes to do, I'm in a reasonable sized town, arrrghhhhh). Get to my stops (6 hours later) and realize that the same freaking tire is low again. Call the help line and say well you can meet me at my hotel cuz I'm not spending the night on the side of the road. Make the first 3 stops, 4th will have to wait til next morning, guy shows at hotel and fixes tire. First guy didn't tighten the fill tube things. (don't rent a ryder truck if moving). Deliver deliver, back on time and off I go to Santa Rosa. Get up the hill out of albuquerque and it's freaking snowing. HARD. What the? Between Santa Rosa and Tucumcari there is 12 inches of snow, cars everywhere. In fact I got to my delivery (it's a Dennys in a truck stop) and had to go get the guy with the loader to remove 8 inches of snow because I couldn't get in, kept getting stuck. Melts mostly off get home next day.

Difference between food service and OTR? AT the truck stop a driver was saying "yeah, the roads were terrible (they were) and I"m just shutting down for the night". And I said "yeah, the roads were terrible and now I"m late". There is no "shutting down".
So 13.5 hours friday, 12 hours saturday , 7 hours sunday

Monday, take a regular guys route, apparently he had an accident in the truck up in Idaho (we go a long ways) and is freaked out, so back to Albuquerque on a different route (i've never done), although this time I'm in a truck without elogs so heck on paper I can do anything. Route is designed to end up 100 miles from Denver tuesday night (you know, if our trucks did 65 you could make it, idiotic but again another rant). Anyway I'm jamming, the deliveries aren't big, maybe only 1100 pieces on the truck and well I'm on paper. I make it back tuesday night (at like 13:45 hours after a 13 hour day monday. It would have been 12 hours but I got stuck in idiotic albuquerque shutting down a 4 lane freeway at 5pm for what reason I do not know. 1 hour 15 minutes to go one mile. I was PISSED.

Call work and say I can run a local, so do a local wednesday. Although I stayed in a hotel tuesday night because it was barely 10 from back to terminal to leave time. Logs at like 6 hours because you sit a lot. icy icy icy, was not fun up until noon. Actually get to go home at like 3:30, eat and crash into bed at 5:30pm (first time home since midnight friday)

I'm ok though cuz I've got like 11 left (these numbers aren't exact) and I'll roll hours on friday so run my usual Tucumcari route thursday. About halfway thru the day Thursday I realized my error. (anyone else catch it?). My work doesn't update the elogs with the paper logs so they'll never find it. (idiots) but it certainly explains why I"m so freaking tired. 11 on thursday, 13 yesterday. Got up the hill from Albuquerque and it turned into total ice. 3 semi's UPSIDE DOWN, too many cars and SUV's UPSIDE DOWN to even count. again, fun factor of zero!!!

realized it's actually 30 miles shorter to go thru Dalhart Texas and come back thru eatern colorado, plus I25 was total ice from the reports. Eastern was dry and just put on the cruise. Made it to Lamar last night and got in this morning about 9am.

4 routes, 4 truck loads (48 footer, figure probably 120,000 pounds total, none were very big, all around 32,000lbs each and all around 1100 pieces each, so 4400 cases), the albuquerque loads are all hand wheel in, about 3100 miles about 37 stops. Should have grossed around $2500 for 9 days. I'm exhausted though.

Ain't even trying to work until Monday.
So, apparently guy who needed some time off isn't coming back "it's in corporate's hands" (which never sounds good), so I might get his route on monday/tuesday/wed morning and then my usual one I"ve been taking on thurs/fri/sat morning. Won't know until tomorrow (sunday) because well, we don't plan anything in advance.

 

Self explanatory...

 

Sooo tired of the same yellow toothed hillbilly that complains about what I delivered.
I didn't build the load,stupid.Every Friday he pisses and moans,throws a tantrum,tells
me all about his 10 years of experience driving a forklift,and ruins my day.
I don't care...Get it off my trailer,brush your teef,and sthu..
I can drive a truck,and still drive a forklift better,but you don't hear me bragging..

 

Yellow toothed hillbilly: "This load is just thrown together, whatasa matta wid yer dockhands, ain't they gots no brains? Hell, I dun gots 10 years xperiense on fork lifts, I sure woulda not dun build de load like that!"

OPUS: "Excuse me sir, you must have me mixed up with someone who gives a schidt."

Sometimes you gotta talk to them in language even they can understand!

I had one stop that was a diesel shop. The owner was close to the owner of the outfit I worked for, and many times I saw him when I'd deliver there.

Well, the parts man was a crybaby from a way back. He was never satisfied with anything, was always totally pissed off at everybody, and tried to take it out on the folks who delivered to them. He was always threatening to call the company and complain about me, until one day I grabbed my cell phone speed dialed my company and handed it to him.

Funny thing, I didn't have nearly as much trouble out of him after that. . .

 

So, someone in CT's management re-paper'd all our trucks 60k...months ago

Supposedly receiving the 80k reg's 1st part of January...we fricken past that
90% of all CT's Az fleet all 60k at the moment...turned all the gddam trucks down to 63..(due to 20m lawsuit he paid)...

Im only 1 year on the highways (20 yr ditch digger lowboy dood)...so i ran em all over 60k for 3 dam months, passing az cali border, retardedly, yes, i know....every night, I believed the regional manager dood when he and I stood alone and he looked me dead in the eye and said "I'll get that 1st part of january"...###### barry meyer tool em-effer

So, no more favors...three weeks now...been refusin trailers, running light and legal...It took one tall young skinny DOT scale cop to stop me (cuz i look like trouble) and ask for paperwork...he looked at reg, then back at scale board, then back at reg, then back at scale display...thank god i was only 14k THAT night...Normally im 67 to 72k...be back diggin ditches!!! lol

anyways, if i had a pont, i forgot it

rant-check

 

well
another route, another truck OOS. These are all like this long before I get them. In fact (I looked at the old inspection reports) this one goes back months

it just shuts itself down while running down the road. No warning, no lights, just bleeeppppppppppppp
first time as I rolled into the scale house.

POS.

F freightliner
F Ryder
and F our crappy "fleet management'

every freaking trip. Honestly if the trailer was mine I"d have it fixed, but hey our motto is "F you, I got mine" so back in the fleet it goes. Most things work on it. Sometimes.

At least i actually had the truck and trailer washed. I simply refuse to drive these filthy POS's anymore. Tired of it, wash the effing truck.
2 gallons of antifreeze in 600 miles.

some truck

and then I thought I finally had a regular set of routes. Albuquerque monday/tuesday (supposed to run into wednesday morning, but I"ve made it back tuesday night both times, 13:30 + on the elogs). wednesday off, then my Albuquerque/santa rosa/tucumcari route on thurs/fri/sat morning.

but noooooooooooooooooooooo
somebody is coming off 6 months of medical leave (never even heard of the guy) and he of course has more seniority and might want it.
bah

 

Wow, LoneCowboy! Its sounds a hellva like NEMF there! I drove a 20+ year old crapNational last night, after leaving my second of 3 Home depots I noticed I had no headlights!! Nodda, Zip! Thought it looked awful dark in front of me! Pulled over on the shoulder of the LIE service road and called the office/mechanic! Sat there for an hour, needless to say the 3rd HD didn't get done! I'm so done with this cheap, poorly managed outfit! Monday morning might come with a 2 week notice! On a side note, the 2 other guys that do HD at night got fired! They had a fist-brawl on the dock over a tractor! Priceless!

 

fighting to get a tractor or fighting to NOT have to take a particular tractor?

that's wild BTW.

Feb 22nd I get a $2000 signing/staying bonus. But Feb 23rd, well, craigslist might get a look.