A Week In Review

This Past week started out well but, went a little south after that. And I don't mean south as in direction. I've had only two loads this week and not for lack of freight, but rather, a slight tear in the inside wall of the trailer caused what should have been a two day run turn into a four day run.

The first load went off without a hitch. Pick up at shipper. Deliver to receiver. No problem. The second load however. I arrive at shipper, back into assigned dock and sit for three hours. The whole time wondering what is taking so long. I felt the dock plate go into the trailer only a few minutes after I got in the dock but, no forklift.

I was going over all the possible scenarios in my head: Did I arrive at break time, are they just drastically understaffed... Unbeknownst to me, The shipper had rejected my trailer and was on the phone with my company trying to figure out what to do next. Would have been nice if somebody had let me in on this little secret.

The trailer was rejected because an earlier forklift impact had bowed the side wall of the trailer out so far it caused the kick plate to separate and bend inward toward where the freight would be.

With my trailer being just wide enough to accommodate two pallets side by side, this particular shipper was not willing to risk their product being damaged during loading or shipment.

It's Friday. 4:30 in the afternoon. The chance of finding an open trailer repair shop... Nil. But I call my company shop anyway. Their advise. Take it to a Truckstop over 90 miles away and see if they can get it patched up enough to get by for now and they'll fix it proper next time it comes by the terminal. I told them this would probably just be a huge waste of time. This was bigger than truckstop shop damage but, they tell me to go anyway.

I drive up to the truckstop, find a mechanic and tell him what my problem is. Sight unseen, they're not sure if they can fix it or not, so two of them follow me out to my trailer. I open the back and they peered in. Instantly they both start laughing. I don't know if it was at me or that the damage was just so funny looking. They said it wasn't anything they could fix and I would have to go to a specialty trailer shop to get that kind of damage repaired.

This is the part I love. The part where I get to call my shop and say told ya so. Well past 6:30 at night nothing in the way of trailer shops is still open so they tell me to find a spot for the night and we'll try this again tomorrow.

I awoke the next morning to my cellphone ringing. It was my shop saying they had found a place that could fix the trailer. This could have waited til after 7:00 couldn't it?

A short drive and I was at the shop. The mechanic immediately climbed in and went to work. But after more than two hours, he came to the conclusion that this was bigger than he thought and he wasn't able to fix this kind of damage. He just didn't have the proper tools and such.



He presented me with two options. there was a shop a short distance away that could probably do the job, or... there is this guy he knows (there's always a guy) that does really good work and he could come there and do the work in their yard. Well I'm not the decision maker here so I passed this information along to my shop, sat back and waited for them to tell me what they wanted to do.

About an hour later I hear all this banging coming from my trailer. I go back to see what all the ruckus is. Apparently my shop decided to go with the mobile mechanic. Thanks for never calling me back. What is this keep the driver in the dark week?

Mobile Mechanic (background) and helper

Well apparently "this guy" had all the right tools. In no time they had the wall straightened, the gap closed, all the rough edges ground down and they even sealed the joint with a nice layer of caulk.

In fact they did such a nice job that if you didn't know where to look, you wouldn't be able to tell there ever was any damage.

The next day I drove the 90 miles back to the same shipper and this this time, thankfuly, passed inspection.

Mobile mechanic's truck backed up to mine for easy access to their tools