The Fuel Hauler Thread

O/O are rare out west too.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean dude. These people either give us all the respect in the world, or think we are a bunch of idiots. I didn't even make less than $16/hr when I was hauling food grade...

Of course, this field could be lucrative off the books as well... I was delivering a gas station out in the middle of NOWHERE at about 3AM this morning. Last delivery, I was about to drop my last compartment. 2 sketchy dudes drive up to me in an old white Honda and as I'm re-spotting the truck to drop my last compartment of premium, dude jumps up on my truck and starts speaking Spanish to me. I was so mad I almost drove off with this guy hanging on to my passenger side step. He tells me in broken English that he only needs $5 worth of gas and he doesn't want to use his debit card, and he just wants to buy the gas from me, directly, off the truck--and he's going to pay me in cash.

His friend gets out of the car and these guys both have me cornered at this point. I'm like, "No, yo no puedo aceptar el dinero para la gasolina, es contra la ley.." These guys wouldn't take no for an answer. At this point, I'm convinced I'm about to be murdered in a dark alley. The conversation goes back in forth in broken Spanish for the better part of ten minutes, and it feels like an escalation of hostilities. Finally the dude is so excited that I spoke Spanish, he busts out his wad of $1 bills and gives me $2 cash for my time. "Coffee, for you, coffee for you my friend, me llamo Juan Ortiz amigo," and I just took the dude's money because I wanted the situation to be over. They drove off into the night. What a hell of a way to begin my weekend.

I had to charge the customer 15 minutes of delay time for that.

 

Your lucky man. I was delivering in Soledad once at a station that got robbed. Sketch central. One time at the same station I asked these dudes politely in Spanish to move I could get the truck to the tanks. They moved and parked ON the regular pot and left the car to go inside to get beer. Laughed their ##### off coming out. Kind of a rough station to get into ... One guy got fired for getting into it with a customer

 

We had a night driver that got loaded for this station then went into the office to eat his lunch. While he was in there this guy goes into that station and shoots and kills the operator. If he didn't stop for lunch we're sure he'd be dead today.

 

Well my job search for a fuel hauler just came to an end. I got in with United Oil (Sentinel) in Gardena,CA. I will start on Tuesday. I have a choice to either work day shift or night shift. I've never hauled fuel before so I don't really know which would be better. What are the ups and downs of both shifts? Thanks in advance.

 

Well day time start shift at a lot of companies is 2-4am which is too early for me IMO. That's the biggest con. Other than that it's basically the same. Day shift hits AM rush hour, night shift hits PM rush hour, nobody really has it easy.

 

Is it possible to get 5 or 6 loads in the day shift?

 

Lol you looking for that extra penny per gallon? Yea but it depends on how far away the deliveries are. I can and have done 4 or 5 loads in about 8 hours because they were all in the South Bay along sepulveda/willow and that's where the old tesoro carson rack was.

So yes it's possible on either shift depending, BUT do not underestimate how much physical work is involved in pulling that many loads. It will wear you out and I don't think you could sustain that for a week straight. I know I couldn't.

 

I liked night shift better. Less traffic after rush hour and nobody in the stations to get in your way. I didn't mind pushing my way through on day shift in a T&T but I dreaded it when I was in a semi. I could barely get a semi into most stations on day shift because we only did Chevron stations-very tight and small. Both have ups and downs I guess but like plant says... Day shift in fuel is too early for me to wake up. I prefer the go in at 1 or 2 pm bartender start time.

 

LOL you already knew. I didn't realize how much physical work was involved. I guess I will soon find out. Is it pulling the hoses the hard physical work? Or the loading part?