Granted, without tracking, we wouldn't be seeing these little quirks.
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shipping rant
- Thread starter Ratranger
- Start date
I may have the solution.
That sure spun out of control quickly.
About a dollar fifty?
I spent 28 years in long haul trucking. Never worked for FedEX, UPS, or USPS but hauled for all 3.
One Baltimore based company I worked for pulled UPS trailers filled with goods from the Home Shopping Network who fulfilled orders out of Dallas, TX. I rolled into the UPS terminal in Dallas one afternoon, found my assigned trailer, and started to hook up.
Now let me tell you, those UPS trailers were nice. We're talking 30 years ago and they had powered landing legs. Hook up the air lines, hit the button.... no cranking your arms until they turned into spaghetti because the last driver left the trailer too low. And it was fast too.
But something didn't look right.
I looked up at the top of the trailer and low and behold the sign on top indicated the trailer was 14'-6" tall. Now 14'-6" trailers are pulled in some western states but nothing over 13'-6" gets pulled up the east coast and my bill of laden said, Boston, Mass. I went inside, found a telephone and called my dispatcher.
As has been the story of my life, no one ever listens to Billy Jones. My dispatcher accused me of trying to get out of going to Boston as none of us liked going there. When I went over his head his supervisor called me a liar saying he had been in the business a whole lot longer that I had and had never heard of a 14'-6" trailer. Either I pull the trailer or consider myself fired on the spot.
Not relishing the thought of hitchhiking over 1,100 miles home I did what I was told but I also called the Greensboro terminal manager and told him to arrange for someone else to take the UPS trailer from Greensboro north. He warned they would fire me and I said I didn't care.
An angry Baltimore based driver met me in Greensboro in the middle of the night, hooked the trailer, and headed north. He didn't want to go to Boston either. I gathered my things from the truck and went home figuring I'd start looking for a new job.
At 7:00 AM the Greensboro terminal manager called me, "When you're ready I've got a drop and hook California load for you."
"I thought I was fired." I replied.
"Not anymore," he laughed, "that dumbass they sent from Baltimore didn't get past Richmond before he ripped the whole top out of that trailer you tried to warn them about. Heads are rolling in Baltimore this morning."
This is the company I was working for at the time: https://www.cowansystems.com/
Woa! Back on topic?
I’ve been in trucking 25 years as a dispatcher and logistics guy. I’m all about the head haul/backhaul triangulations and as little deadhead as possible. To hear all these routings back and forth just makes me cringe. Makes me wonder how they make money... oh that’s right, $35 to ship a box from IN TO NY.... what was I saying?
I've been wondering how they made money since Deregulation began.
The best way to make a small fortune in trucking is, well..... start with a large fortune!
Just like in racing, burn it up.
Biil I think I know where that truck drive was working last week:
This picture was taken about one mile from my house! From the looks of that truck body he miscalculated by a bit more than a couple inches!
I think someones Amazon packages might have been late that day, and some might have lost their smile too!
