Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

It comes, up now and then, but not lately. Part of the reason is, because I really don't mind where I work or my work, another is because I'm not bottom of the board and I do not want to start over again somewhere else. Also I'm familiar enough with my companies policies and procedures and system and I just don't feel like learning another places system and having to start over again and prove my self all over again so on and so fourth.

We've had guys switch to LTL companies and then come back. Usually the transit drivers who quit and go to LTL companies don't come back, but we have had guys in the past go to Estes and come back believe it or not.

From where I sit, I just don't want to start over again I've got one more year or so to go and then I'll be at top base level pay, probably in a little while longer I'll have more vacation time as well. Plus a couple more years and I'll be 100% invested in our profit sharing which is a true thing and is quite good, we have fairly good profit sharing and 401K better then average.

Right now it's summer and it's a Holiday week and that makes things worse to the second power. I end up with all the same problems you guys do, the only big difference is every stop is an inside delivery.

Outside of that, I get the same crap you guys do, your dock workers malload a pallet, my loaders like they did today, threw everything everywhere crushed a bunch of stuff and then on top of that, overloaded two cases onto my truck that they thought they missed but didn't and the best part was the one case they thought they missed was pie filling blueberry pie filling so they printed up another sticker for buleberry pie filling and slapped that sticker on a case of fryer oil!

Your dock workers drive a fork lift through a pallet and damage everything on it. Our selectors and inexperianced loaders take a case of crackers throw it on the floor and then throw a 6-10 can on top of it and destroy the crackers it's the same thing.

Our transit guys run at night time and have goofy hooks and drops and go to goofy drop yards.

Your line haul guys might cover a bit more ground, but it's all the same goofy hooks and drops goofy drop yards paper work reshuffles. Same stupid equipment annoyances.

So that's kind of why I stay put.

 

My truck goes 63 well it's supposed to anyhow, usually it stops at 62.

 

Love these stupid holliday weeks, thank goodness tomorrow is Friday get this backwards week over.

Today I get to my third stop and the guy is usually there, but nope not today, get there nobody is home. I figure okay I'll give them a half hour. Around 7 something one of the waitresses knocks on my door. I said to her "Yeah D is usually here early."

She goes "I know, he's on vacation and E is covering, and he told me to write you a check and I told him I don't have a key to get in."

So place opens up at 8am mind you. At close to 7:30 after I wasted an hour waiting the other guy shows up to unlock the door and get started. He was pretty much out to lunch. That's the problem with these Holiday weeks all the regulars are gone and you get a bunch of subs and fillin's, including me, who either don't know or are totally out to lunch to begin with.

At any rate tomorrow is Friday and we can put this week, behind us.

 

Amen!

 

Right? Am I Right? Day off in the middle of the week everyone is off or on vacation except me don't worry I worked a full 5 day week schedule, I was at work horsing around on Tuesday trying to beat two stones together to make fire (okay I'm being melodramatic, but still! Ha-ha) However it's true this whole week it's been one of those "oh that thing was today? Oh boy, see the other guy he's not here and uhh, uhhh,..."

Today I had my second last stop some woman who worked there who I don't think was of any real authority started machine gunning me down about some rotten chicken that they had delivered to them on Monday."
I said to her "I don't know anything about that I have no paper work on anything that has to do with that, this is the first time I've ever been here, I don't know anything about that."

I knew she didn't know what she was talking about, because another woman working in the kitchen said "Uh wrong person your talking to, he's just dropping off today's order and doesn't have anything to do with Monday's order."

I don't know where these people come from, I show up to a stop, stop Ive never done, have to ask where they want everything and how the stuff is normally brought in and then they turn around and ask me about stuff from two deliveries ago and it was chicken on top of that fresh meat and fresh poultry are non returnable meaning if you buy it and don't want it, to bad your stuck with it, I don't have the authority to punch a credit on that, so you better call sales and explain your beef (no pun intended) to them, and that's another thing I'm constantly having to point on the paper work to who the sales person is.

What that tells me is, there is a head hancho who actually knows, but that person has delegated stuff off to the worker bee's without actually bothering to inform the worker bee's of things and the worker bee's don't really know up from down or left from right, so there winging it too,there just doing what they were told with the 10% of the information they were given.

 

I didnt like this week at all, i felt like i had two mondays! And dang it was hot!

 

No kidding, I'm tired as heck usually by the end of the week I'm tired, but this is a different kind of tired, I got hammered with bills today in the mail which was about right considering, I haven't been hammered with bills in a while.

It's not sunny here in Ohio, but it's grey and muggy makes you sweat when your working and all this temp routing makes me tired, I'm already ready for school to start up and things to stabalize, by all means I'll take 18-20K and fully cubed out with a route I know well, vs 11K and 400 cube and a bunch of stops I only semi know.

 

Even though I worked fourth of July it was still an oddball day. I had one customer on fourth of July tell me "Oh we get here at 10am, so you know." I said "Yeah, that doesn't matter, not to me and not today as this isn't my normal route anyhow and your not one of my normal stops."

I was running a tad low on patience when they said that and I almost said "I don't care this is the fourth of July it's not a normal day you get your stuff at 8:45am today because I can't jeopardize the rest of my route over you." This stop used to pick there stuff up at our store which is right across the parking lot from them, now they get truck delivery, as far as I am concerned they can go back to picking there order up.

A lot of these places that used to pick there stuff up and switch to truck are always a hassle, because they aren't organized enough for truck delivery and eventually end up going back to pick up.

A serious food service operation that's organized for truck delivery is one thing, but some of these places, especially these smaller joints that don't come in till real late and buy just enough barely enough to get on the truck are always a hassle and usually end up being a major thorn in our side and because they start work seemingly when ever they want to there not good candidates for truck delivery. That's why Sysco has a Will Call door, because they know some places are just not reliable and sometimes you have to let the people get it them selves.

There is a difference between food service operators who take truck delivery vs some shhmo who goes to restaurant depot and gets the stuff when they see fit.

To get truck delivery to your door, your definatly usually, usually more of a tighter ship meaning you have people there working and when you say you start at 9am,you really do start at 9am, not this, ohh we wander in 15 minutes before we open.

But that's the difference too, a bar that does nothing but frys chicken wings vs a place that has to do 3 hours of prep in the morning are different.

It's the same in the LTL world, you guys probably have stupid non deliverable stops where even the company has given up and tells the people here's the terminal address come here and get your stuff thanks for playing.

Vs a factory with a full dock and fork lift people and production numbers that they are trying to crank.

 

Are biggest thing that chaps our tails is when we tell some of the residentials where in a 48 ft simi ,tractor and trl. They say sure come on in here we get fedex in here all the time! Then we get there low trees, low lines. We have to back out. They think we are a small van.

 

We go into a lot of residential area's as well, our trailers are not really the problem because GFS pretty much is 28' trailers only, 90% of our work load is done with 28', but our tractors have full size air fairings and all we do is hit tree branches and stuff like that. I don't care to go into residential area's either.

Usually FedEx Freight around here, they put a lot of the lift gate stuff on a 28' lift gate trailer and the down town route they send in a straight truck, well they have a tractor trailer running around down town as well, but I know they have a straight truck that does a lot of the down town.