Deliveries

I got up a 2:30 am and drove across the street to the first drop. They have a stop sign going into the place, I stopped then drove into the lot which had very little room to park. I went in to check in and they asked me where my gate pass was, I asked what gate. Seems they have a guard that sits in his pickup out by the stop sign and checks you in and gives you a door to back into. Then you go check in with the lady in receiving. Well, he had taken the moment I arrived to be his bathroom break and was no where around. The sign didn't say "stop and stay" just "stop", I had done that. Well, when I went on in, two more trucks arrived and came right in behind me. That presented a problem because you couldn't back around the curve to get out. The guy that was behind me was backing in and the space is so tight he got into the guard rail protecting the fence. Anyway, being the professionals we are, we got sorted out ourselves and told the keystone guard to go take another break.

I had 5 pallets for the first drop and it took them about 10 minutes to get the pallets off. Took another 75 minutes for the receiver to come around and check in the 5 pallets and sign my paperwork. This almost made me late getting to my second appointment 60 miles away. But I made it. This was a much smaller operation and I was only one of 3 trucks there. They wanted to know if I wanted to hire a lumper to pull the 5 pallets off. I said I can do that, thinking I would earn a few extra bucks to pull the 5 pallets off at this stop. They only give you a manual pump up jack to pull it off with, truck drivers aren't supposed to be intelligent enough to operate an electric jack. Plus if we did that the lumpers wouldn't get their money. Problem was, the trailer was pointed down hill, which meant I had to pull the 2000# pallets up hill. In my younger days I did that a lot with Color Tile. I got 1 pallet up the hill and went and found the lumper. Charged me $50 to pull the other 4 pallets off. The previous place charged $15 to do the same thing. Makes you want to scream. Glad it is the shipper's money.

After this stop I drove over to Marietta terminal and sat the rest of the day, and attended the safety classes today. I will spend another day here on the yard rather than fight my way across Atlanta at 4pm and just leave at 8am to go make last drop. I will head home next week, and Corey (grandson) should be going back out with me for 3 weeks. May have to start painting the house when I get in. What fun.