Note that I’m not referring to the receiving of gifts as being Hellish in any way. In fact, I’m always happy and willing to accept gifts. Feel free to keep that in mind.
No no, this is more of a work related story, one NOT involving the abomination that is the transition to SAP. Specifically, it refers the part of my job that involves receiving goods…big goods delivered by big trucks.
Normally it’s not a big deal. Truck pulls in, you unload truck, you check off everything you got against the packing slip, and so on. Bing bang boom, pretty damn simple. And the vast majority of the time, it’s fine…bizarre conversations with possibly brain dead shippers aside. But this week, things have changed a bit.
One of the big trucking companies out there is Rainbow. And that’s despite the fact that they actually haven’t existed for a couple of years now.
No, they aren’t some sort of undead trucking firm, shipping loads of brains to ease the pain of being dead. Many moons ago, they were purchased by Manitoulin transport and essentially shuttered…only, taking the name off the trucks costs money. So they didn’t bother doing it. So now, Rainbow trucks drive around, advertising something completely and utterly nonexistent (which is actually kind of awesome).
To make matters more confusing, Manitoulin put the Entity Formerly Known As Rainbow (from this point forth known as EFKAS) underneath another of their holdings, Central Carriers.
Will this actually become interesting? Only one way to find out!
Okay, fast forward to a couple of months ago. A few of the EFKAS drivers start talking about looking in to forming a union. Central cracks down, firing them. And I mean ALL of them. Every single EFKAS driver was let go as of a couple weeks ago. Central took the opportunity to wipe them out and replace them with scrub noobs fresh out of driving school, since they can pay them less.
Anyway, so one of the trucking companies that we use the most (and yes, many of their trailers STILL read Rainbow) has let go every single experienced driver that they had. And over the past 2 weeks, my appreciation for those experienced drivers has risen a hundred fold.
We don’t have a big yard. And the entrance is a squeeze zone, what with the picker truck parked just inside the gate, the pickup trucks of any field guys who are in the shop and the occasional welding truck parked along the sides of the ‘corridor’ trucks have, and the double parked cars in the lot out front. It’s a tight fit. So most drivers new to the yard really take their time backing in, ands that’s fine. Nobody is really going to complain about that.
Not these guys.
First off, every single goddamn one of them drives in forward. ALL OF THEM. We have no rear entrance. There’s only one way in and out. And now they have to back out through the tightly packed vehicles all the way to the road, where they then have to back on to the street. This doesn’t strike me as easier. Probably 80% of the yards in any industrial park need trucks to BACK IN. But no, They pull in and drive halfway in to the yard…and not slowly. One dude with a ridiculously thick Eastern European accent and wearing the scent of ‘human stench’ must have been doing 40, which is a bit much…
Now, the second problem with these guys pulling that far in to the yard is that the yard forklift is typically stored out back. And it isn’t small. It’s now stuck on the wrong end of their truck. So now I get to tell these fucking geniuses that they have to back out, and they may as well just back in when they pull back in. This takes these guys an average of HALF A FUCKING HOUR to accomplish…half an hour during which no other vehicles can enter or exit the yard. We had a gigantic crane from Canada Crane (ours broke down) and the flatbed truck that had just been loaded with 25,000 pounds of pressure vessel stuck in our yard for twenty minutes because one of these morons was backing his way out. Hell, I told Eastern Euro guy what he had to do, and he proceeded to back up about 10 feet and then just sit there. Yes. Very helpful. In Soviet Russia, YOU’D BE KILLED. MOVE YOUR FUCKING TRUCK! When I went out to see what was up, he told me that he wasn’t sure he could get out. YOU GOT IN, DIDN’T YOU? Or does your truck change size when reversing?! AND YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY.
But he doesn’t take the cake. Nope, that would be the guy who decided to pull FORWARD and try to go around the building. Like I said, there is no other way out. We SPECIFALLY TOLD HIM SO when he asked. I have no fucking idea what he thought he was doing. Anyway, he stopped halfway around when I guess it became obvious that we weren’t lying to him for some reason and there really wasn’t a back exit…and now he’s practically jack knifed his trailer around the corner. There are gigantic parts and vessels and the like all over the yard, and he’s pretty much stuck. It took AN HOUR of moving stuff around with the forklift to get this guy enough space to free himself, followed by 45 minutes of him backing him out of the yard. Just brilliant.
We did have one guy park at the side of the street out front and actually come ask us how we needed him to pull in. This was greatly appreciated. Seriously, why more of these twats don’t do likewise, I’ll never know. they’re tying themselves up for large chunks of time if they’re wrong, and that’s time they aren’t spending picking loads up at other sites.
Oh, but that’s not all! We have bonus stupidity!
Another Rainbow guy came in (driving forwards of course…we BARELY had enough space to squeeze the damn forklift around him) with a couple of skids to drop off. Okay, cool. And waiting…and waiting. He’s in the trailer, the doors are open…what the Hell? After a couple of minutes, Nick and I start wondering what he’s doing. He’s just sort of standing there near the doors. Once we get up to him, he tells us he doesn’t have a pallet jack.
…
You have a trailer full of skids weighing thousands of pounds…and you don’t have a pallet jack? HOW does that seem like a good fucking idea?! What were you planning to do, just He-Man the fucking things out the back? And why the Hell didn’t you flag one of us down and tell us this FIVE MINUTES AGO?! So we had to forklift one of ours up in to the trailer so he could get our skids to the back door…at which point he tries to close the trailer and take OUR pallet jack. I told him he was welcome to it, just as soon as he fucking paid us for it. Like right now. This jackass gets mad at ME, getting all upset because we must have more than one (we have three), so we can spare it. It was at this point I told him to shut the fuck up and open the doors and wheel our pallet jack to the back. He finally did. WHAT THE FUCK?! GET YOUR OWN, MORON!
Oh, but the dumbassery isn’t limited to the drivers! No no! We had a load of freight to send to Grande Prairie that I called in, making sure to specifically mention several times that amongst that freight were 2 40 foot long lengths of 18” pipe. These things are huge. They weigh about 8,000 pounds each. The woman assures me that it’s all good, they’ve got flatbed trucks.
Later, in pulls a truck pulling a standard trailer. The one time one of their guys backs in, and it’s under these circumstances. Perhaps their flatbeds are just showpieces that are never to leave the yard or something. And the cherry on top was that the guy was mad we wouldn’t try to load it up in his trailer. I don’t think that my actually laughing at him helped, but it was totally deserved.
So…much…suck.
The moral of the story : DO NOT call Rainbow Transport to ship anything for the foreseeable future, and not just because they don’t exist.
Other Blog Challenge Participants
Liam – http://www.bisonweb.ca/blog/
Chad – http://grindingpixels.blogspot.com/
Tammy – http://tam–i–am.blogspot.com/
Erron – http://erron.wordpress.com/
Vlad – http://www.analogcoast.com/
Kim – http://www.mynaturebaby.ca/blog/
Shaun – http://expeditionoftruths.com/
Peter – http://crazywookiecookies.blogspot.com/
Earl – http://earljwoods.blogspot.com/
Zita – http://ignitestrategicsolutions.com/
Brad – http://kickmeoutsoon.blogspot.com/
Natasha – http://blog.naturalurbanmamas.com/
