Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

I remember when I used to see all the Corn Flakes trucks every where and wished I worked for them. Then I finally got that 1 year experience and got hired by ol CF. Six months later there was an out of business sign on our gate, best job I ever had! I was a casual and top pay was 52cpm and this was in 1999 and that was a lot of money back then! It was a really good place to work and the union had a death grip on them, CF treated us with respect! That is until they started routing all their freight through their sister companies which are now called Conway. It was their way of breaking off from the union, now they punish all their drivers just for the heck of it.

 

This was back before I paid attention to LTL or trucks at all, but CF used to have a big terminal right in what is now a prime real estate spot of NW Portland, OR. Very close to downtown. Now Conway has an odd office building or two on the property, but it's been mostly empty parking lot space for years now. A property investor finally came in and has big plans to develop it into commercial and residential.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/mobile/articles/articleView/id:19295

 

Technically we aren't supposed to do inside delivery either, but only on rare occasions have I had to totally put the kibosh on a delivery stop. Usually it's some combination of lift gate/pallet jack and some piece they want moved inside without any other guys around to help. If there are guys around who will help ill do whatever. I want their crap off my trailer too of course so I'm not tripping over it the rest of the day!

 

It was my understanding that my old outfit had to pay an outrageous sum to a consignee who had a brand new carpet "ruined" by one of our drivers who had grease on his boots. That was why we were forbidden to do inside delivery.

 

Four pallets of rough stone, banded so poorly that they were starting to fall apart by the time I got sixty miles back to the yard...it isn't going to be a good day for the poor driver who ends up with this delivery.

Why the hell would anyone ship SIX TONS of rocks from Arizona to South Dakota in the first place?

 

Unloading a fourteen foot long 1600 pound range hood for a restaurant with a liftgate in downtown Oakland. Ended up rolling it on pipes, Egyptian style. Typical delivery haha

 

Landscaping. Used to haul them in gaylords to landscape outfits all over this area. 2500 to 3500 lbs per gaylord, and never a loading dock, so they had to be tailgated with a pallet jack. Or drug out with chains. . .(Actually that was easier than using a pallet jack. . .

We would not have accepted them, banded to pallets.

 

I remember I was delivering 6000 pounds of stones to a construction site. Right on the tail and the old Yellow straight trucks with half a lift gate... The landscapers had a forklift and wouldn't even help at all. I told the GC I cannot deliver these but she needed them that day. I told her about the land scapers forklift and how they refused to help! Within two minutes she had them taking everything off that truck without me moving a finger.

I will say I have never seen a woman general contractor even with doing construction with my dad. AND SHE WAS HOTTTTT. thought she was the home owner, and wasn't much older than me. The girl who answered the door was the home owners daughter, super hot blonde who kept giving me smiles... Too bad I was still with my ex at that time...

Another rant, apparently with UPSFs new contract I fall under the 4 year plan instead of the 3 year to top rate because I was hired after a certain date. I was there to vote no on that pathetic contract and I still get screwed. Thinking it's my sign...

 

If they were still in business there'd be a chance I'd be working for them. My friend who worked there says the old CF yard is where the CWF yard is behind me at UPSF