ABF | Breakdown

Now this is funny. How did that peace accord turn out?

I don't know,....... you're retired, Von......did you have to promise to do indoor household chores? .........

I think I've met my match in negotiating skills.......If I don't do as she says,.....she'll drop the "nuclear option" on me and quit feeding me......

She knows I'll get real cranky.......looks like I'll have to buy gun locks and bury the ammunition in the back yard........for my own protection.......
 
I don't know,....... you're retired, Von......did you have to promise to do indoor household chores? .........
I have found that it is best if you start by setting the bar low and keeping it there, if you catch my drift. And no matter how much you do there will always be something else that 'has to be done' whenever you finish that last urgent task...so there is no real advantage to completing that first task in the first place, unless you are unable to fend for yourself in the kitchen, then you are sort of...ummm...errr...already leveraged. And taking extra care to do things right can only boost your own personal pride, as everything you do will be deficient in one way or another. On that note, another helpful hint, if you do things bad enough you won't be asked to do them again. And it is most helpful and highly recommended that you have a garage (detached and distant is best) with a big, difficult project underway at all times.
 
I don't know,....... you're retired, Von......did you have to promise to do indoor household chores? .........

I think I've met my match in negotiating skills.......If I don't do as she says,.....she'll drop the "nuclear option" on me and quit feeding me......

She knows I'll get real cranky.......looks like I'll have to buy gun locks and bury the ammunition in the back yard........for my own protection.......
Don't buy her any kitchen knife sets this Xmas. von
 
I've always been of the opinion that if it's not plowed, 'my truck doesn't need to go there.
I was the same way 18 years in the city. One time I got stuck after dispatch telling me to go ahead & try it. 300.00 wrecker bill. Company lost money on that delivery. Ever since I just said it was to dangerous & brought it back. A lot of times it wasn't the weather but a bad driveway rutted out, low branches, etc. They never remember the extra mile you went just your mistakes. And they do remember them in the form of a Article 46 letter. Burn me once, shame on them. Burn me twice, shame on me. von.
 
I have found that it is best if you start by setting the bar low and keeping it there, if you catch my drift. And no matter how much you do there will always be something else that 'has to be done' whenever you finish that last urgent task...so there is no real advantage to completing that first task in the first place, unless you are unable to fend for yourself in the kitchen, then you are sort of...ummm...errr...already leveraged. And taking extra care to do things right can only boost your own personal pride, as everything you do will be deficient in one way or another. On that note, another helpful hint, if you do things bad enough you won't be asked to do them again. And it is most helpful and highly recommended that you have a garage (detached and distant is best) with a big, difficult project underway at all times.

Started doing a few more to help out, but, she wants to do most of them her way. It seems I never can do it just right or her way. Have you ever suffered that comment from the other half?
 
Here was a good one, we have this rattle trap International at our yard that by all means fleet should absolutely put out to pasture why they are holding on to that piece of garbage I have no idea, but it's S-H-O-T shot. Any how they sent it out today and the driver who drives it didn't want to drive it, so he kept calling in at every stop complaining about the truck.

The truck does have an exhaust leak and it is annoying, and so on and so fourth, but he could have made it through the day. This particular driver isn't exactly high on managements list. Anyhow, he complained enough to the point when I was done, they asked me to go bob tail my nice truck out to him and do a tractor swap at a stop. I've never heard of anything like that, one of our veteran drivers said "I've put up with a lot worse then an exhaust leak for a day."

Anyhow I get out there and that driver was all huffity puffity telling me he was going to quit which I know management would be perfectly okay with. Any how we switched trucks and he drove my assigned tractor for the rest of the day, I hope he doesn't think he's going to be driving it from now until forever, management better nip that one in the bud.

It was funny on my way out there one of the bosses called me and said "Swap tractors with him and then get out of there, do not do not stay and help him make any deliveries at all, swap tractors and leave do not help him out side of that. You've been at work since 1:45am he didn't leave the yard until after 5am this morning."

I said to them "I left my two wheelers at the yard."
They said "Good"

The stupid thing was, by the time I got out to him he only had probably 3 stops left, he was more or less unhappy that they assigned him that International to drive full time and wanted to cause management trouble and that kind of behavior is exactly why autonomous trucks are now in the works.

Anyhow maybe 3-5 more years of this route driving racket and a transit spot will open up and that's exactly where I am headed.
 
Here was a good one, we have this rattle trap International at our yard that by all means fleet should absolutely put out to pasture why they are holding on to that piece of garbage I have no idea, but it's S-H-O-T shot. Any how they sent it out today and the driver who drives it didn't want to drive it, so he kept calling in at every stop complaining about the truck.

The truck does have an exhaust leak and it is annoying, and so on and so fourth, but he could have made it through the day. This particular driver isn't exactly high on managements list. Anyhow, he complained enough to the point when I was done, they asked me to go bob tail my nice truck out to him and do a tractor swap at a stop. I've never heard of anything like that, one of our veteran drivers said "I've put up with a lot worse then an exhaust leak for a day."

Anyhow I get out there and that driver was all huffity puffity telling me he was going to quit which I know management would be perfectly okay with. Any how we switched trucks and he drove my assigned tractor for the rest of the day, I hope he doesn't think he's going to be driving it from now until forever, management better nip that one in the bud.

It was funny on my way out there one of the bosses called me and said "Swap tractors with him and then get out of there, do not do not stay and help him make any deliveries at all, swap tractors and leave do not help him out side of that. You've been at work since 1:45am he didn't leave the yard until after 5am this morning."

I said to them "I left my two wheelers at the yard."
They said "Good"

The stupid thing was, by the time I got out to him he only had probably 3 stops left, he was more or less unhappy that they assigned him that International to drive full time and wanted to cause management trouble and that kind of behavior is exactly why autonomous trucks are now in the works.

Anyhow maybe 3-5 more years of this route driving racket and a transit spot will open up and that's exactly where I am headed.
Just a question Mike did you shop the truck for the exhaust leak or don't you have a shop,to fix and it gets sent to a vendor? have a safe one
 
Just a question Mike did you shop the truck for the exhaust leak or don't you have a shop,to fix and it gets sent to a vendor? have a safe one
I'm at a yard and we almost have neither. We send our stuff to our warehouse that has a shop, but at the yard were kind of screwed we can get road service, but bosses have to get that approved and for most things they just reserve all the major stuff for our shop when the trucks go in for maintenence. Road Service is semi hard for us to get and can be slow. Like okay last week the starter motor on my truck croaked. Road Service got that in a day because they needed that truck to work.

An exhaust leak though on an old rattle trap that is set to be retired they won't want to waste our road service budget on so they will just wait for the shop to call that truck back for maintenence well the shop has there schedule and sometimes they get behind.

Now I'll admit that truck defiantly has something wrong and it is a total heap and should be with the rest of our Internationals and have the markings stripped off of it and on the sell line right now. I guess there's about 4 of them that are on the sell line, how that piece of garbage keeps escaping that I don't know.

I did drive the truck in question last Thursday and it was okay something on it did break, between last Thursday and this Past Tuesday because even bob tailing the performance on it was awful.

What our bosses should do is call our fleet garage and have that truck called back and see if they can get it replaced with something better.

Now what happened was the driver on question doesn't have the best track record with management and for a year he was driving someone else's truck well that someone else came back and got his tractor back. Well that rubbed this driver the wrong way and he started wanting to make trouble for management. Some of that does happen as wel.
 
I drove for a company that has pretty nice GMC Astros for equipment ...........and one old B model Mack with mis-matched fenders, ....and a rigid seat with an old piece of indoor-outdoor carpet on it in the way of upholstery......... guaranteed hemmoroid breeder if you spent any time in it.....

It was known as the "punishment" truck...Mess up on a couple of tight schedules, and you pulled local work for a while with the B-model....,......local work being a turn between New Stanton and Exton PA.

It had a steering wheel the size of a manhole cover,.......and about as easy to turn. You're sitting down in the hole on that rigid seat.......to make a tight turn you had to brace your knee against the door to get leverage to spin the wheel. We asked the shop to replace the steering wheel with a ship's wheel with spokes........at least you could get a good grip on it......

I made the mistake one day of mounting a CB radio in it,..........for "entertainment"..as it had no other radio,.....or air conditioning,....or insulation......

All I did was take abuse and ridicule from the other drivers on the pike..........especially pulling Donegal mountain at about 26 miles an hour.......

Remarks about " how many tons of coal per mile do you burn? ".........and snide cracks about " $2500 dollars worth of trailer, and $250 dollars worth of tractor....." ,and "Anyone see the driver in that truck? or did he fall out the rusty hole in the bottom of the floor?"...........

Kind of hurt my feelings.......
 
I drove for a company that has pretty nice GMC Astros for equipment ...........and one old B model Mack with mis-matched fenders, ....and a rigid seat with an old piece of indoor-outdoor carpet on it in the way of upholstery......... guaranteed hemmoroid breeder if you spent any time in it.....

It was known as the "punishment" truck...Mess up on a couple of tight schedules, and you pulled local work for a while with the B-model....,......local work being a turn between New Stanton and Exton PA.

It had a steering wheel the size of a manhole cover,.......and about as easy to turn. You're sitting down in the hole on that rigid seat.......to make a tight turn you had to brace your knee against the door to get leverage to spin the wheel. We asked the shop to replace the steering wheel with a ship's wheel with spokes........at least you could get a good grip on it......

I made the mistake one day of mounting a CB radio in it,..........for "entertainment"..as it had no other radio,.....or air conditioning,....or insulation......

All I did was take abuse and ridicule from the other drivers on the pike..........especially pulling Donegal mountain at about 26 miles an hour.......

Remarks about " how many tons of coal per mile do you burn? ".........and snide cracks about " $2500 dollars worth of trailer, and $250 dollars worth of tractor....." ,and "Anyone see the driver in that truck? or did he fall out the rusty hole in the bottom of the floor?"...........

Kind of hurt my feelings.......
That old B model would be worth a few dollars today to a collector. I have seen several at truck shows. They look good but unless the suspension has been modified they still ride rough.
 
I drove for a company that has pretty nice GMC Astros for equipment ...........and one old B model Mack with mis-matched fenders, ....and a rigid seat with an old piece of indoor-outdoor carpet on it in the way of upholstery......... guaranteed hemmoroid breeder if you spent any time in it.....

It was known as the "punishment" truck...Mess up on a couple of tight schedules, and you pulled local work for a while with the B-model....,......local work being a turn between New Stanton and Exton PA.

It had a steering wheel the size of a manhole cover,.......and about as easy to turn. You're sitting down in the hole on that rigid seat.......to make a tight turn you had to brace your knee against the door to get leverage to spin the wheel. We asked the shop to replace the steering wheel with a ship's wheel with spokes........at least you could get a good grip on it......

I made the mistake one day of mounting a CB radio in it,..........for "entertainment"..as it had no other radio,.....or air conditioning,....or insulation......

All I did was take abuse and ridicule from the other drivers on the pike..........especially pulling Donegal mountain at about 26 miles an hour.......

Remarks about " how many tons of coal per mile do you burn? ".........and snide cracks about " $2500 dollars worth of trailer, and $250 dollars worth of tractor....." ,and "Anyone see the driver in that truck? or did he fall out the rusty hole in the bottom of the floor?"...........

Kind of hurt my feelings.......

Our International is a 2007 I think same year I graduated high school, not to date my self or anything...
Anyhow today our transit doubles drivers hooked it up to a trailer and took it back to the warehouse, hopefully it doesn't come back.

It is a piece it probably isn't close to as bad as your B-Model Mack, it has power windows which work, power locks which work, AC which works, heat that works, a major exhaust leak that blows diesel fumes into the cab, power mirrors which work, AM/FM radio that also works, I don't think the CD player works, it has a jake break that works, and a few other odds and ends that work. It is missing a drivers side exterior door handle though, pretty shoddy and it looks like heck compared to our Volvo's, but our fleet at GFS while we have some clunkers is actually pretty good, compared to other places, one of our other drivers worked for a grease rendering company and he said "The worst truck here at GFS is like the best truck, at the grease company I worked at."

Anyhow our shop will take a look at that truck and hopefully make the decision to strip the logos off of it and sell it enough is enough already. I bet 2:1 they put in a PO next year for a handful of new Volvo's. We got 14 new Volvo's this year and I am sure they will buy a couple. I know we got some new trailers as well Dispatch said they needed more 28' trailers and more 50' trailers and I've seen some 2016 trailers grace our yard. The 2016 trailers have nice LED cargo lights and the brand new version of the Thermo King Spectrum Dual Zone Reffer unit.
 
The DOT will shut down a tractor that leaks exhaust in the cab. There is no reason for anybody to have to drive one.
I took it back to the yard and I told them that, it did have a legitimate problem. The truck is gone now, they took it back to the shop, weather or not our shop will be competent enough to fix it is a different story, but yeah it wasn't pretty, but it's gone now truck was an absolute turd, to old to beat up, leaking exhaust and other maintenance troubles, the stupid thing is GFS wanted to get rid of most of there Internationals anyhow. They bought a bunch of Internationals 10 years ago, ended up being very unhappy with International to the point of actually cancelling there purchase order in the middle of the contract. However what they took delivery of they kept, but nobody liked those trucks. Same with the Sterlings we had those were not liked at all. Of course now the Volvo's are also having issues tons of recalls all kinds of goofy electronics problems, they keep buying them, but, there fondness for Volvo has reached a cool spot.
 
I drove for a company that has pretty nice GMC Astros for equipment ...........and one old B model Mack with mis-matched fenders, ....and a rigid seat with an old piece of indoor-outdoor carpet on it in the way of upholstery......... guaranteed hemmoroid breeder if you spent any time in it.....

It was known as the "punishment" truck...Mess up on a couple of tight schedules, and you pulled local work for a while with the B-model....,......local work being a turn between New Stanton and Exton PA.

It had a steering wheel the size of a manhole cover,.......and about as easy to turn. You're sitting down in the hole on that rigid seat.......to make a tight turn you had to brace your knee against the door to get leverage to spin the wheel. We asked the shop to replace the steering wheel with a ship's wheel with spokes........at least you could get a good grip on it......

I made the mistake one day of mounting a CB radio in it,..........for "entertainment"..as it had no other radio,.....or air conditioning,....or insulation......

All I did was take abuse and ridicule from the other drivers on the pike..........especially pulling Donegal mountain at about 26 miles an hour.......

Remarks about " how many tons of coal per mile do you burn? ".........and snide cracks about " $2500 dollars worth of trailer, and $250 dollars worth of tractor....." ,and "Anyone see the driver in that truck? or did he fall out the rusty hole in the bottom of the floor?"...........

Kind of hurt my feelings.......
Oh yeaah the Astro's that you could get a sunburn from the "small " windshields they had ,also were nice when the wipers got all froze up and went around the cab corner. Did that old B model have the "the shakers in front of the drives yet" ? or wqas it the old chaindrive model? lol just pokeing at ya "carany" cause you and me must be about the same age, and Mike our company refurb older tractors than the one you talked about. Just drove a '99 IH which has a life mileage of over a million miles but as I say we in carhaul are a different breed we have to be nuts to do this "nuff said everybody stay safe and warm
 
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