Jan 11, 2010
Paid to haul an empty trailer
will has been driving a truck for 27 plus years. in that time he has seen trucking company's do very odd things. he thought the oddest load was hauling 6 mattresses' from reno to portland. until yesterday that is....
we arrived at sea-tac fedex for our load going to okland. we talked to the dock manager and he told us where to wait. it was getting close to our 4 pm pickup time when he came over to us and said there was no freight to put in the trailer. we asked him if this was a new run or was freight late or something and he said no, in fact there are 2 trailers scheduled to go to okland. so we called our dispatch, asked what to do. they told us to run the load. take the empty trailer from seattle to okland. even the gate guards were shaking their heads when we left. the guards joked that they would have to seal the load, dont want any of this good seattle air escaping before it gets to okland.
so now will says he has seen everything. as we were leaving the other swift driver showed up, guess we will be seeing his empty trailer in okland too.
we showed up at fedex okland airport and everyone there was confused about why we were trying to deliver an empty trailer. the first guard said we were at the wrong gate because we had an empty trailer ok. so we back up and go to the next gate. and that guard kept telling me where to leave the empty trailer.. we told him we need to treat this delivery as if it were loaded. so where do the loaded trailers go, and who signs the loaded trailer delivery sheets. 'the empty trailers go over there.' finally our dispatcher said ok. and will was calling fedex to ask them, and the lady on the phone had it all together, she said she would put it in the computer that we delivered on time.
good grief.........cant say that i blame them about being confused. but most of the people we talked to spoke english, so after explaining the situation over and over again, we were getting frustrated why we weren't getting the answer we needed. i guess from everyones response the other swift driver with the other empty trailer had not arrived yet.
anyway. thats done. now we are sitting here at the brooks ranch restaurant in fresno we will wait here until 2am when we will go to fedex and wait there until our load is ready. mondays is soup and salad bar at brooks ranch. navy bean and minestrone. ummm good.
love and miss you all,
leslie
