Refused my first load today

Experienced this same scenario at same shipper as @Chewy352 today. I politely gave them options...1) push all bundles together 2) allow me to place vertical bracing then push bundles together 3) get it off my trailer.

“It’s not going anywhere.” “We ship it like this all the time.” Explaining they don’t ship legal fell on deaf ears.

Wouldn’t allow me on my trailer until I pulled out of bay and into tarping area with side rails (cuz they’re all about safety ).

Blocking placed then they really didn’t want to sandwich everything together for me. Loaded 3 more trucks ahead of me. Told me they considered pulling the load. Talked them into oh, 5 minutes more of work (if that). First time at this shipper...hopefully the last.

Currently out of hours at parked at this dump.

 

I deal with plant safety departments on almost a daily basis. Most safety personnel are idiots. They go by some sort of safety manual that was written by other idiots, and lots of times their procedure makes things less safe. Bottom line is they are educated beyond their intelligence, and they aren't going to take advise from some "stupid" truck driver.

Most are the company ##* hole, hounding people on petty things, while completely ignoring serious safety issues.

Worst I've seen is Alcoa. They had a policy that nobody could stand on the trailer deck without fall protection. Evidently somebody at one of their plants had fallen off a trailer and died so they made this policy. I had backed up to the dock to unload a forklift, the problem was there was no way to be tied off to walk out onto the trailer so I could drive the forklift off. Had to wait until the went and rented a scissor lift, and had a guy on the scissor lift that drove along side the trailer as I walked on it, sort of like a moving handrail. They had no problem with me driving the forklift off the trailer unsecured though. Now you tell me, are you more likely do die stepping off the side of the trailer or driving a forklift off the side?

 

Some of the stuff they come up with is unbelievable. My dad always used to call them "educated idiots"

 

I call them the "Good Idea Fairies", after reading the book about how it went down taking out Osama Bin Laden. GIF's actually wanted Seal Team 6 to bring a Pakistani cop car on the chopper, to run interference with the locals. Too heavy. Nobody knew the correct configuration of a Pakistani cop car, etc.

If you can, you drive. If you can't, you're Safety.

 

I just stepped into the flatbed world a month ago. Daycab work, and all I haul is the company product. Got tasked with picking up some returns after I dropped off at a regular customer. Get to the job site to pick up some ductile iron pipe and some crates of misc. couplers and other "small" items. I'm strapping down the pipe and the guy loading me flops a crate that's full of 12-inch iron pipe fittings on the deck. This crate is a breath away from falling apart. I look at it and go "oh hell no". I say "Hey man, that crate's not going to hold together for the drive back".

"Uh, just put a ratchet strap around it".

No. Not going to happen. I tell him to get it off of my deck, I'll have to come back to get it at another time after it's been put in a container that's not going to explode. He starts in with "Well, my boss isn't here right now to ask about that. He'll be pissed if he's going to get charged for you guys to come back and get it."

My internal dialogue was "I don't give a squat-@#$%@ if your boss is going to be pissed"

The external dialogue was "I don't want it on my trailer, and since I'm just picking this up because I was in the area anyway I'm pretty sure there's not going to be a charge so let me call and confirm" (Nope, no charge, I'd come get it the next time I was in the area on a scheduled delivery was what my boss confirmed with me).

So after I say that the guy felt a little better but still sideways commented that he thought his boss wasn't going to be happy. So in the theme of this thread, I didn't care. It's not his boss's license and job at stake if something stupid happened because I allowed some un-safe, piece of crap crate to stay on my deck. My license (and conscience), my rules.

The crate #### near fell apart when he pulled it off of the trailer.....

 

Nope.

It's one of those things that's kind of funny to look back on, but at the time all I could see was bad news. I don't screw around when it comes to things that could wind up killing some one. Wouldn't be able to live with myself if someone got hurt because I decided to take a stupid risk.

 

I have a son who hates people in general & enjoys being an analorifice, told him he was well suited to being a safety man.

 

Tell him TQL is hiring.