May 8, 2008

A Picture is Worth a ..........

lot less time of having to complain.... I have conceded!!





Here is a portion of last weeks' load.......










I am wasting my breath. It seems the more I "complain", the worse it becomes.



I reminded the guys on the dock that one particular customer requires his material to be loaded on the rear of the trailer for ease of unloading. After mentioning this three weeks ago, they have loaded his material in the most obscure and perilous configurations. To avoid having the freight rejected due to being unable to unload it, I simply charm one of my other customers into reloading my trailer..... I should NOT have to do this on a weekly basis, AND I am running out of folks to charm.....



This week, not only did they load it in a ludicrous manner, but they gave me a spring ride trailer with no center support posts to hold the load up. The trailer was very difficult to open or close and I have cuts and bruises all over me, just simply from trying to open the damn thing, but I will not complain ever again. My palms are bruised from pushing, and at one point I even struggled so hard, I walked right out of my shoes... That broke the tension in me, and reminded me to stop and laugh a little more. Who knew that when I finally got the trailer unloaded, I would find NINE support posts stacked in the nose of my trailer, unused!! I am sure they will testify that the trailer had support posts, and I am sure they will neglect to mention they opted not to use them!!



Oh well. Rumor has it that I have been given "The Most Difficult Driver To Please" award. Really? I render requests directly from the customer. My own complaints are kept silent. I abuse the customers I deliver to, by repeatedly asking them to reload my trailer.... I should not have to ask.. The load planner stated I have too many demands compared to the other drivers.....Could that be because I have more customers.... A typical Florida delivery has up to FOUR customers per trailer.... My load has between TWELVE to TWENTY every week....... Of course I have more requests......I care that the material arrives undamaged. I care that no one gets hurt unloading it..... I care, damn it!! A lot of our other drivers do not! But seriously, I have more customers to appease, that alone should count for something. Not to mention, I am unloading alot of my load double parked on city streets. Bad place for a load to fall off a trailer, if you ask me...



If a customer has to hand unload every piece of metal, I make the request to not load it underneath thousands of pounds of someone else's material, as they cannot physically remove the obstructed material by hand.... Please place "generic customer's" material on top.... They don't care.... I have to find someone en route to move it!! Can you tell this is infuriating me. I should not have to struggle so hard just to be good at what I do, but they keep throwing obstacles in my way.. I guess that is part of the reason our NE customers love me so... I always take the time to accommodate their individual needs.



Anyways, I just wanted to let out some steam...... I will inevitably be doing all of my bitching here, because I am sooooo difficult....



Damn the mules!!! Just load the wagon!!

2 comments:

Mike said...

Is there any way you could tote someone with you for part of your trip to see this unloading extravaganza. I fear they won't understand until they see for themselves.

Not that I would want to be cooped up with someone in a truck for a week.

Terry said...

If we actually took someone, they would then have to fix the loading errors, as they are extremely evident... That would defeat the purpose of being lazy... They wouldn't go anyways!!