How to irritate the shipper (Per Injun's suggestion)

DockMan

Well-Known Member
This is something that plays out in various ways almost daily but in this case was an even greater display of stupidity.

A driver ignores 4, (yes FOUR) signs that warn him to not enter the plant via a ramp and overhead door. The signs include instructions in more than one language as to where the shipping office door is. Said stupid, illiterate and lazy driver suddenly appears in the middle of a high traffic dock area. "I need my paperwork". The forklift driver responds "Do I LOOK like I have your paperwork? You need to go out that door, past the FOUR signs you ignored around the corner to the office where they do the paperwork and talk to them." The truck driver spots a door and assumes that it must be the office. He fakes a movement towards the door he came in through and when the forklift driver isn't looking makes a beeline across the dock to the door that he spotted. Now his stanky a$$ is in the shipping office but on the wrong side of the sliding window. He announces to the whole room "I need my paperwork". He is again told that he came in the wrong door but directed out another door to the correct side of the window. One of the office ladies sprays Lysol at him for emphasis as he slithers by.

Once on the correct side of the glass he knocks on the window to tell the lady who just sent him out there "I need my paperwork."

Typically we need to know a few things like who the carrier is, the destination city for the cargo and one customer uses pick-up numbers. Export loads we need a booking number. The lady at the window is in a good mood and realizes that this particular driver has some strong genetic ties to a Neanderthal.

"Who do you drive for?"
"Turdytwo".
"Your truck is at door 32. Who do you drive for? What is your trucking company?"
"I'm at turdytwo".
She stares him right in the eyes and repeats very slowly "Who do you drive for?" She gets a blank stare for about 30 seconds. Finally he gives up the carrier name and destination so we know the correct stuff is being loaded. "You can have a seat there or wait in your truck until the light turns green again then come back for your paperwork". All enunciated very slowly and clearly. This time he seems to understand. He tries to come back through the door to the office but I stop him and turn him around indicating the door behind him. He exits the door and heads the wrong way, realizes that his truck isn't to the left and finally goes off towards his truck. I pick up the paperwork for his load and head out the office door onto the dock just in time to see him walk up the ramp, past the four signs and flag down the same lift driver he annoyed before and tell him "I need my paperwork".

This time the answer his "Get the HELL off my dock!" He understood that and went to his truck.

After we got the trailer loaded and turned the signal green he popped out of the truck and headed up the ramp. This time the loader didn't have to say a word. I think the body language of the way he got off his forklift was plain enough. The truck driver ran down the ramp to the office.

I had to see how the story unfolded so I headed back to the office and got there just as he came through the outer door, marched up and knocked on the window despite the fact that the young lady sitting there was looking at him. When she yanked the window aside he remarked "They are really grouchy out there! Boy were they mad at me!" She snapped "It isn't getting any better in here!"

We finally got rid of the guy. Moments later the security guard called. Between bouts of hysterical laughter he finally told us about trying to get the guy to stop on the scale long enough for the weight to register and the guy trying to turn his truck around then getting mad because the truck behind him pulled onto the scale while he was turning around. The guard had to give him a new trailer seal because he closed the right hand door first and sealed it then tried to close the left one.

Drivers ignore those signs several times a day and walk into an area where there are multiple people on forklifts with up to 4,000lbs on the forks. The short version of the situation that knocking somebody down without doing and serious damage will cost us our job. I've started to back out of a trailer and realized the driver was standing on the dock plate or inside the trailer only to ask me how long it would take to get loaded. My answer on a good day might be "A lot longer if we have to scrape you off the wall and hide you in a dumpster."

When live load drivers show up the night crew generally has the security guard send them to a specific door only to reduce the chance of confusion. A half dozen times a week a driver will back into a door nowhere near the ship docks, enter a part of the building that is dark because that line isn't working at night, then proceed to wander around inside the plant looking for someone to load them. We've been busy working when some random person from a completely different end of the plant comes up escorting a lost driver, "Found him up by _____, says he needs to be loaded".

To give the driver the benefit of the doubt we ask "Which door did the guard send you to?"
"27".
"So why did you back into door 19a?"
"Couldn't find 27".



And you wonder why the shippers are cranky most of the time.
 
I don't think I irritated the shippers/receivers very often. Occasionally I did, of course. It's pretty much impossible not to. But I can put it all down to a lack of signage and clear directions. If there is no security at the gate and no signage pointing me to the office, then I just try doors until I find one that's unlocked and wander around until I find a real person.

One time I had a yard jockey get riled up because I refused to take the trailer at the end of the row (it had a broken tandem slider, and the axles were all the way at the rear.) He insisted I had to take that trailer or no trailer at all. I told him those trailers belonged to Swift, I worked for Swift, he did not, therefore I could take any trailer my heart desired. That didn't go over well. He went and got his buddy involved, and both of them set about trying their damnedest to intimidate me. That didn't go over well, either.

I don't recall any other scuffles. Mostly, the people I dealt with were good folks just trying to get a job done, same as me. As long as I didn't screw up their day, they didn't screw up mine.
 
I don't think I irritated the shippers/receivers very often. Occasionally I did, of course. It's pretty much impossible not to. But I can put it all down to a lack of signage and clear directions. If there is no security at the gate and no signage pointing me to the office, then I just try doors until I find one that's unlocked and wander around until I find a real person.
That's about all you can do.

One time I got to a packing plant in Smithfield, VA. It was late at night & I was supposed to pick up a preloaded trailer.

First observation was that the road the plant was on was county route 666. 2nd thing I noticed was the security guard was an OLD black man who looked like a mummified corpse that came back to life after 4000 years. Not exaggerating, ... this guy honestly looked like he was four thousand years old.

Anyway he said to go to the shipping office for the paperwork.

Nobody was in there. The computer wasn't on, and the lights were off. I went back to the guard shack, still the only human I'd seen so far, .. and he just told me to go back to the shipping office. So I went back, ... still no signs of life in there. So I started wandering around the plant.

There was refrigeration equipment running, and some lights were on, but it wasn't brightly lit at all. It was like how stores leave just a handful of lights on when they're closed.

I walked past a pen full of pigs that were squealing and I looked at them and just about ALL of them shut up & just stared at me. ****ing creepy.

I walked through a room with dead, decapitated & skinned pigs hanging from chains with hooks on them, even creepier. I walked the perimeter of the building, and there were plenty of cars in the employee parking lot, but the main entrance door was locked. Went back inside and re-traced my route back to the shipping office, .. still no humans. Anywhere. It's like everybody had simply vanished, ... it seriously was an experience I thought about writing down & mailing to Steven King so he can use it as the opening scenes for a horror movie.

I went back to the guard shack & told him I'd searched the entire plant & didn't find a single human ANYWHERE, .. but all their cars were there. He got on the phone and called like 5 different numbers & nobody answered. Finally he gave up & started digging through a cardboard box full of manila envelopes and said "oh, .. you're bills are here". I signed the BOL, he told me where my trailer was, I grabbed it, scaled it & took off.

That old mummified corpse of a security guard was the only human I saw in that entire place the whole time I was there.

Still the weirdest experience I've ever had at a shipper/receiver, though plenty of times I've had to wander around at places to find a human.
 
Best one I have ever had was a rear end plant. They had packs strapped and blocked to be loaded.

Now we are not allowed on dock for loading, but one night(It's an overnight run to Indiana and back) as I jumped up and looked before closing the doors I notice a pack is disbanded and already has one assembly pushing through the side wall. So I reverse back into the dock and head back for shipping. Lady asks "Why aren't you gone Lebanon is waiting for those"?

Told her what I saw in the trailer, and again she said "Lebanon is waiting"

So I asked for a supervisor

"I am the supervisor":eek:"Lebanon is waiting"

Told her I'll disconnect and wake me up when you repackage the bundle. Told dispatch what was going on and they knew because she had called and told them to order me to go because...........


yep you guessed it "Lebanon is waiting".

Last time I was there she was not. Her desk was now occupied by the same fork truck driver that had loaded the bad bundle that night:rolleyes: I have no hope it will improve.
 

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