Um...NOT taking THIS truck!

Um, first of all...HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Second, if you are hung over and not able to take some serious graphic descriptions of my day today, then please change the channel. This isn't gonna be pretty!

I spoke with my DBL (driver business leader) on Friday and he advised me that he had me a truck! Yay, right? No. First of all, it was a truck that was parked in Carlisle, Pa. and I am in Atlanta, Ga. Guess who had to drive a rental car 700 miles to get to the truck? That part was easy and not a big deal. When I GOT to the truck is when the drama started.

Now, brad, my DBL told me on Friday that there might be a "few personal belongings" in the truck that were the property of the former driver who had just been fired for four preventable accidents in six months. THAT should have been a red flag to me. He asked me to box up his personal belongings and just hang on to them if I would. No big deal...a few things won't be a problem to stow away on the top bunk for the former driver until I get back to ATL.

So, I get here to get to the truck and my DBL hasn't put me on the truck in the system, so I can't do anything at all as far as a load if I wanted one...which is a GOOD thing, because I'm not driving this truck. I go out in the yard and find the truck and my second red flag! As I am driving up to the truck I see boxes piled in the truck above the top of the window. I open the door and boxes fell out on top of me. As soon as the door swung open and I dodged the boxes, the funk in the truck hit me like a ton of bricks. I step up on the side steps and toss boxes away so I can get in the drivers seat and then I see it...

On the floor just beside where the gear shift SHOULD be (its an automatic, which is another reason I can't take it. I'm not trained in auto shift. Well, right there where the gear shift is is a gallon jug on its side and under it is a HUGE puddle of urine that had leaked out and was all over the front floor board. I stepped out on the step again and look in the back and there was another gallon jug and another puddle of what I can only assume is the same thing. As I was looking over the front of the cab, I see a tobacco spit can in the cup holder and it appeared that it had tilted and spilled down the front of the dash. The steering wheel had some sort of brown goo all over it, which I assumed was tobacco spit.

Remember earlier when i mentioned that Brad told me about the "few personal belongings" the other pig I mean driver had in the truck? Yeah, well, it wasn't just a "few personal belongings"...it was everything he had. EVERYTHING! Pillows, sleeping bag, nasty nasty mattress, peanut butter, food, and a round igloo cooler that was almost black, but through the nasty I could see it was really blue...I refused to open the lid as I was afraid of what I would find in there. I almost puked when I saw this. I felt like I needed a bath just by looking in there.

How can people live like this? This was the nastiest site I have ever seen in my life. And my DBL wants to have me drive this pig sty around and live in it? Not gonna happen. Ill do a lot for the company and for my leaders and bosses, but I refuse to get close to that truck again. There is NO WAY they can clean it enough for me to get in it.

I called driver services and explained the situation to them and Melissa, who I was speaking to (VERY nice lady, by the way), said that this was unacceptable and for me to to open the door on that tractor again. She said that I would need to get with Brad so he could assign me another truck. I told her that if i was going to drive for Schneider, he WOULD get me another truck because I'm not driving that one and she agreed with me.

The smell in there was terrible as well. It smelled like human BO and I really think that whoever gets the job of cleaning it should call a hazmat team out to do the job. I just don't see how people can live with themselves being this nasty. I'm just glad it was cold here and not hot. The smell would have been ten times worse if it were hot.

So, that is my story of today. I'm off for a week for Christmas and come back out today and run into this. The New Year isn't starting so well for me, I don't think. SNI put me in the hotel for the night and here I sit watching football and typing this up.

I think I'm going to take a shower or two. More later, guys!

 

Im not cleaning this truck. Im not touching his spit covered steering wheel. Im not going to mop up his urine from the floor that spilled out of those jugs. Ill need a hazmat team to get back in that truck. Im not going to quit, but Im also not going to drive this rolling disease either.

 

Im at THE yard. Schneider OC in Carlisle.