A different view
Here' s my story for Monday. Sort a view from the other side of trucking.
Friday: Booked a load that paid $1500 for 485 loaded miles. That's $3.09/loaded mile and $1.82/ESM (every stinkin' mile) after permits...think it's BS? Keep reading. It's 9' wide x 10' tall, requires a top tarp and a double drop trailer. Pickup at the pier in Newark at 09:00 Monday and deliver in Toronto the next day. I fill out the permit app's and fax them away to the permit service and $70 later it's sitting on the fax machine. So far so good.
Monday: Delivering the head haul Sunday and spending the night in Mahwah, NJ he braves rush hour and arrives at the P/U. The guy with the crane says we ain't loading you until you pay $400 loading fee :shock: Driver calls me. I call broker. Broker denies any knowledge. Broker calls customer (who come to find out is actually a trucking company). Trucking Co. makes a phone call and next thing you know we're getting loaded. Hmmm. LOL.
Driver gets loaded, tarps (in the rain) and is on his way. Driver stops for supper at NY/PA line and calls me. Says shipment is supposed to cross at Niagara but wants to know if he can cross at A-bay so he can stop at home. Only 25 miles out of route so he faxes me BOL and invoice with PARS sticker, I fax to Customs broker. I call customs broker to confirm that we're cleared. Yes. Few hours later he's in Canada and home by 11:30pm. Woo Hoo gotta love easy money back hauls. :roll:
Tuesday: 08:00, approx 100 miles from delivery, in our warehouse our trailer is ready to leave. We call consignee to ask for directions and he knows nothing about the shipment. :shock: :shock: He was supposed to call when he wanted the shipment. He has no crane scheduled for off load. It was a good call to stop at home.
Back on the merry-go-round. I call broker. Broker calls shipper. Few hours later, we talk to consignee and say screw it, arrange it for tomorrow. Then I get a call from a nice (somewhat tense, but not as tense as me) lady who asks where her shipment is. I say who are you. I am freight forwader and you are late with my shipment. :shock: :shock: :shock: I take a deep breath and say hold please.
A couple minutes later she is still holding and I say, who are you again? She says I have contracted XYZ Trucking to move my freight. I said well I'm working for L***** on this one. It seems that Freight Forwarder contracted XYZ Trucking and XYZ called L***** and L**** gave it to us. She said REALLY? This has been brokered more times than I can count.
I forgot to make one call. The one thing I took for granted was that the consignee knew it was coming. Now the load sits on our trailer....all $200,000 of it. We lost a head haul tomorrow because we cannot reload until it's off. Just another day in the trucking biz.
Who knows what Tuesday will bring, but I know this. We're loading a vehicle in Newark tomorrow at 07:00 that's getting an RCMP escort into Ottawa. This should be interesting.
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