Working Line Haul for a Food Company

@motocross25 I saw you worked for Estes, I think if I was going to work for an LTL company they would be my first choice. It seems to me from what the You Tube drivers freighthauler87 and truckingthroughlife who both work for Estes, both of them say as far as the math goes and trucking is really a numbers and math game, they said that Estes for the most part is really pretty good place to work. I know the reviews on this board are a mixed bag, but most of what I've heard is Estes is pretty decent over all on the line haul side of it, seems to be that the numbers are there for 90% of the cases. The only issue, seems to be and freight hauler87 seems to deal with this a little bit more and I think it's also his terminal is, some terminals are run better than others and some of the communication between central command and the terminals as far as what the game plan is sometimes seems to be lacking, for instance a big winter storm is on the way and the state highway patrol has shut down the highway. Yet, the dock manager at terminal A is looking at a bunch of freight on his dock and he's got 2 trailers worth of freight going to terminal B, 3 trailers worth of freight going to terminal C, 1 going to terminal D, 1 going to terminal E and 6 going to terminal F and this guy just wants to get the stuff loaded and out of the terminal and get it down the line, because on the other side of it he's waiting for 13 trailers to come back at him so he can get those on his city trucks and out the door and for delivery and all he cares about and rightly so is getting the outbound stuff out and getting the inbound stuff in and then on city truck and out for delivery. So he's loading trailers and the yard hostler is hosting and line drivers are coming in and leaving the terminal mean while the state police have closed the road due to a bad snow storm and an OTR truck from some no-name company just slid off the road a mile from the terminal and is in the ditch and the state police are saying no-mas, but this dock manager is just sending them out anyway, granted he's just doing his job. Meanwhile central command at Estes is saying yeah we better cool our jets for a couple hours, because it doesn't do us any good to have a handful of trucks in the ditch as well, but nobody at central command has bothered to call the terminals and say hey, cool it for a few hours and will monitor the situation. Now say a driver calls in to central command and says hey dock manager over at A has 8 of us all loaded up and ready to go and he's standing at the exit gate of the terminal flailing his arms telling us to go meanwhile there is a state police man standing out side the gate of our terminal with his arms folded looking at us and moving his head left to right telling us no go. Um, what do we do?

Then the central dispatcher says Oh yeah, put the dock manager on the phone. A small conversation ensues I imagine it goes something like this:

Hello this is Riggins dock manager over at terminal A
Hi, Riggins this is Joe central dispatcher for your area, hey I heard you were going to send your guys out?
Well yeah nobody told me not too, I guess they said on the AM radio there were restrictions, but I don't know anything about that I never heard a narry peep out of you people.
Well that's true I can't say anything there because we didn't say anything to you, however you could have picked up the phone to call us.
Well since when is it my job to call you? I have 13 trailers full of freight I need to get out and 6 of them are going to terminal F and he's got 8 for me and said he was sending one of his guys down, although I haven't heard or seen any evidence of that.
Oh well terminal F called the ball 3 hours ago don't go there, they are closed you wouldn't even be able to get into the yard, the gate is locked and the lights are off they are all across the street at the local watering hole.
So are you saying I should call the ball?
Yes call the ball and check in a few hours later.
Okay.

Riggins then hands the phone over to the driver and standing the snowy yard he looks up at the line haul trucks and makes the cut it gesture and that's that for that. Everyone turns the rigs off climbs out of their cabs and punches out and hops in the car and goes home.

Riggins then walks over to the gate and closes it puts a pad lock on it and walks into the terminal walks over to the light switch and starts turning everything off.

Meanwhile in the back corner of the lot little billy is way way way in the back corner wrestling with converter dolly J56117 which has been out in the freezing rain for a day and the lock jaws are completely frozen and it won't hook, but thankfully on his final circle around the yard Riggins sees Little Billy and says don't worry about that not today, we don't need that not today go home Little Billy and Little Billy says "Oh gee thanks Mr.Riggins that's mighty white of you, if I unfreeze a few more convert dollies do you think I can up grade my car drivers license to a real live Class B CDL and drive the straight truck around the city doing all the clean up work that the big trucks miss or are to busy to get to can I?" Riggins pats Little Billy no the head and says sure can, sure can.

End of my fictional story, but I thought it had a happy ending.

Anyhow over all not a bad place, but each terminal as one person said jokingly is "independently owned and operated"

 

I had an early run tonight way early like 8:30pm early, but I woke up today and my Uvula was way way swollen and I ended up at Fairview Hospital in the ER and was put on an IV and given heavy allergens and other medicine to be better and kept in observation. I’m kind of out of it now, but my Uvula has come down. It is better then it was, but not 100%.

 

So missed my nice double run to Wheeling Park today good paying load to and missed my normal bid run which is also a decent payer. Don’t get me wrong I have vacation and flex time so I’ll still get paid but not what I wanted.

boooo this was no fun!

 

Oh thanks I’m much better now and back at work.

 

Thanks for the reply. Truth be told in a lot of ways here at Gordon Food Service our night transit that I do is really pretty well organized, some of our drop yards are a little rough, but it's nothing compared to some of these Estes terminals that I've seen and our main warehouse has plenty of room and is set up really well and pretty efficient. Usually our loads are out on time if it says 11:45 usually by 11:30-11:45 they are loading and ready to go obviously now and then there are snags and slow downs nothing is perfect 100% of the time and dumb things can and will happen. But were pretty organized and so far this past month or few weeks now have been running on time. I know Freighthauler was not real happy with his Memphis run and Chuck doesn't seem to care as much, but I know Freighthauler was not really thrilled with his bid runs and was trying to figure away out of it around bid time.

I have heard though Estes lets you do your job they aren't to big on micro management, although where I work at GFS I can't say we are either so there's that.

 

I didn't bother to take any pictures, but last night I had a 36' trailer to shuttle to a terminal in the Akron, Ohio area, not much to say about that first time in a long time that I had a 36' trailer. Other then that not much to say pretty good run.

 

So hi guys, busy week for me this week 1 hook and 3 double runs this week 2 of which were Akrons which is good, so not bad this week. Anytime I get a double run to anywhere it's good and I don't care if it's a single or regular doubles. The run to Akron were singles, but I suspect tonights is a 36ft trailer so cool. But busy week this week weather is supposed to go down the toilet tonight will see. Hopefully I can beat the weather I have a really early release so will see what happens.