What's new

ABF | What do you like about ABF/ What do you hate abou ABF?

Personally I think it makes sense to give one to us given the volume of cubes we do and that we cant even get started on them until we have done the rest of our days work. If we had another guy and another forklift who could spend all day at it it would be a lot different. Typically I have been working 8 hours before I even think about starting on cubes and 99.9 percent of them go to the college town 45 miles away. I don't know how many guys canaries terminal has or what volume of cubes they do or if they have more than one forklift on the dock but I can tell you taking our lift from the dock to do cubes sure puts the hurt on moving freight on the dock.
 
ABF doesn't believe in having extra equipment sitting around so I would bet that canary doesn't have a forklift to spare off of his dock. And these days no forklift=little to no movement of freight on the dock. And yep! new doughnuts in the curb climber position. I prefer to look in the mirror and see them climbing the curb rather than watch them get dragged sideways into it, or even worse, a storm drain.
 
ABFer said:
ABF doesn't believe in having extra equipment sitting around so I would bet that canary doesn't have a forklift to spare off of his dock. And these days no forklift=little to no movement of freight on the dock. And yep! new doughnuts in the curb climber position. I prefer to look in the mirror and see them climbing the curb rather than watch them get dragged sideways into it, or even worse, a storm drain.
Click to expand...

We are a Next Day Exchange Point terminal, which means we have 11 towmotors for 12 employees. Brothers....you broke my heart when you explained the trials and tribulations of the Princeton setup for cubes. I've been singing the praises of having a completely mobile towmotor while condemning our current overcounter-balanced, tire-spinning, stuck-on-a-pebble Two-Cuber to the point where my TM usually locks the office door and climbs out a back window when I come in from a Relo-Cube run so he can't hear me whine and scrofulate about the terrible conditions he has me work under with our assigned equipment. I guess I didn't know how good I have it.........or, at least ,in ABF terms, how much worse it could get. Oh, well.........I guess I'll buy that military-grade jockstrap and just suck it up. Doesn't mean I won't quit bloviating about how hard our TM makes us work under such terrible conditions.....I do that for practice......( TOP SECRET!.......Brother Boilerpeddle...this is between you and me, mainly to help you out...There is a LEGAL way to get 3 cubes on a Two-Cube trailer. Two extra 20' chains and two more 15,000 rated binders would do it. In some of my previous incarnations, I was a flatbedder and a carhauler and I am aware of the load securement requirements in the FMCSA regulations. I won't do it with a loaded cube because the exact weight is always an unknown ( yeah...the entire contents of a library plus a welding rig...3500 lbs., right?)....but it's perfectly legal if it's done right. Under pain of listening to me excoriate him further, my TM has done a "Sgt. Schultz" every time he might suspect me of moving 3 cubes. It is my call each time, based on each individual Relo move. Sometimes I can.......And sometimes I can't. Seems to me, brother, this secret information could help you shorten what appears to be an abnormally long day for yourself. This information may be controversial.........so keep it to yourself......)
 
Oh, hey....Wait a second! Brother Boilerpeddle......you just got your Princeton setup,....so you no longer have the old Eager Beaver? And I went and told you Top Secret Information about how to haul 3 Cubes? Good Grief!.... Brother Boilerpeddle, please disconnect your computer and dip it in water for about 3 hours. That should delete the Top Secret Information I had inadvertantly given you. If I had been paying attention, I would've noticed your previous post in which you said you had gotten a 45-footer. I guess my wife is right, sometimes my flapping gums obscures my view...or in this case, my flying index finger.........Sorry about your computer, by the way.....
 
Glub glub glub.
I happen to have "heard" of "someone" haulong 3 cubes on the beaver as long as one was empty. It was...er... might have been, hauled on the forks and strapped down using extra ratchet straps. Alao heard of a distant terminal hauling one up top over the fifth wheel but i never could figure out how to strap one. Supposedly the newer cubes fit right over the frame and sits pretty securely.
Now to find a big bucket. 3 hours really?
 
Boilerpeddle said:
Glub glub glub.
I happen to have "heard" of "someone" haulong 3 cubes on the beaver as long as one was empty. It was...er... might have been, hauled on the forks and strapped down using extra ratchet straps. Alao heard of a distant terminal hauling one up top over the fifth wheel but i never could figure out how to strap one. Supposedly the newer cubes fit right over the frame and sits pretty securely.
Now to find a big bucket. 3 hours really?
Click to expand...

One over the 5th wheel would be illegal. ABF tractors aren't fitted with "headache racks" and there is no bulkhead on the trailer. Hauled on the forks might've been right......3 hours minimum. Use the bathtub....( don't tell your wife...they are usually suspicious of our honorable methods, and she'll think you're up to something. Trust me...)
 
We had five relo cubes to deliver, we had to put them one in a van at a time and spot the pup. Five single trips, we have no relo cube trailer. Now that is one of the things I hate, this happens a lot.
 
truxforever said:
We had five relo cubes to deliver, we had to put them one in a van at a time and spot the pup. Five single trips, we have no relo cube trailer. Now that is one of the things I hate, this happens a lot.
Click to expand...
So the customer had to use a ramp to load their goods? That kinda negates one of the best selling points of the cubes, that you get to load everything pretty much at ground level. Seems like it wouldn't take long to justify moving a trailer to your location. I know of at least two terminals that have two. Usually a Princeton and one of the old ones...:duh:
 
What I like about ABF is my customers and most of the personal that we work with. I worked with Murray Babb at Transcon lines before we came to ABF and he is one of the best that ABF has to offer.
What I hate about ABF is the company union, That is managment that will stick together even when a crime is being commited. Akron has a TM and Dispatcher that are the two most hated asswholes I have ever seen in my 35 years in the business, And yet they can do no wrong. They will lie so much that it is never their fault always the mens fault when something happens. You will never see eather of these two protect a worker only protect themselves
 
grovercxl said:
So the customer had to use a ramp to load their goods? That kinda negates one of the best selling points of the cubes, that you get to load everything pretty much at ground level. Seems like it wouldn't take long to justify moving a trailer to your location. I know of at least two terminals that have two. Usually a Princeton and one of the old ones...:duh:
Click to expand...

You are right they had all cubes dropped at one time on the ground at origin, they did not like the ramp and van thing. They were an older couple and did the work themself.
 
pipe layer said:
What I like about ABF is my customers and most of the personal that we work with. I worked with Murray Babb at Transcon lines before we came to ABF and he is one of the best that ABF has to offer.
What I hate about ABF is the company union, That is managment that will stick together even when a crime is being commited. Akron has a TM and Dispatcher that are the two most hated asswholes I have ever seen in my 35 years in the business, And yet they can do no wrong. They will lie so much that it is never their fault always the mens fault when something happens. You will never see eather of these two protect a worker only protect themselves
Click to expand...

I can relate to that one buddy. And the company has no avenue to correct that problem. Then after they do you that way they come out and ask you to give 'em 15% of your pay back!!! What makes it worse is if you do get a good sup they go and promote him/her away from you and leave you with the trash. If that trash isn't good enough to work with the higher levels of management it would be nice if they sent them off to R&L, Vitran and the likes. We have it good where I am for now, we just have one turd left in the office. These guys think they're the smartest kid on the block. They think we can't see it when they screw us. Funny, for years they train us to be a-holes then they act surprised when they find out we're a-holes.
 
truxforever said:
We had five relo cubes to deliver, we had to put them one in a van at a time and spot the pup. Five single trips, we have no relo cube trailer. Now that is one of the things I hate, this happens a lot.
Click to expand...
I have heard of that and we have offered that to a customer who had a gravel drive that we couldn't get down with the forklift but they ended up coming to the terminal with a rental truck to get their stuff.
 
canaryinthemine said:
One over the 5th wheel would be illegal. ABF tractors aren't fitted with "headache racks" and there is no bulkhead on the trailer. Hauled on the forks might've been right......3 hours minimum. Use the bathtub....( don't tell your wife...they are usually suspicious of our honorable methods, and she'll think you're up to something. Trust me...)
Click to expand...
My wife has learned not to question my methods a long time ago. Happens when you bring home reciepts for things like a plunger, industrial air compressor and 37 pounds of grape tomatoes. Or she comes home to find me baking a pistol barrel in the oven. She just tells her friends "He is either saving the world or planning to take it over"
 
I like that the ABF Teamsters weren't taken in by the company and the union's plea for taking a wage concession.
 
truxforever said:
We had five relo cubes to deliver, we had to put them one in a van at a time and spot the pup. Five single trips, we have no relo cube trailer. Now that is one of the things I hate, this happens a lot.
Click to expand...

That sounds embarrassing I do hope that they are advised of that up front. I would expect that one trailer would cost less than five cubes and if I were them I would be majorly pissed about it if I didn't know about it until it happened.
 
Boilerpeddle said:
My wife has learned not to question my methods a long time ago. Happens when you bring home reciepts for things like a plunger, industrial air compressor and 37 pounds of grape tomatoes. Or she comes home to find me baking a pistol barrel in the oven. She just tells her friends "He is either saving the world or planning to take it over"
Click to expand...

Ha!......I think I just found my long-lost brother from another mother!
 
One thing I do like about ABF that actually had me concerned before it happened was the advent of the new PDA system in our terminal. Training was done in the middle of the work week, and I'm proud to say that all of us picked it up pretty fast. It's fairly simple and once you get the hang of it, actually easier than the old browsers. Much more information is provided to the driver/dockworker. The only qualm I have is wondering how long those delicate little styluses are going to last.........( Great for cleaning earwax!)......These PDA's are similar in size and appearance to what Estes is using, but theirs' is an Edsel compared to our Shelby. Estes doesn't seem to trust their drivers with as much information as we get on the new devices, too.
 
ABFer said:
That sounds embarrassing I do hope that they are advised of that up front. I would expect that one trailer would cost less than five cubes and if I were them I would be majorly pissed about it if I didn't know about it until it happened.
Click to expand...

On the subject of Cubes.....Anyone out there aware of any terminal subcontracting out cube work because of employee distaste of loading/unloading cubes? I had a customer who said her cube was picked up in Rhode Island on a roll-off flatbed. A week later, she was moving back to Rhode Island (..didn't work out with her boyfriend...) and she was told same procedure on the delivery end....fairly close to Providence.........not that R.I is an exceptionally big state, and stem time would be a problem.......By the way, we have used the Cube-in-a-trailer-with-a-ramp as a "Plan B" in cases of accessability.
 
Docker said:
I like that the ABF Teamsters weren't taken in by the company and the union's plea for taking a wage concession.
Click to expand...

That , Brother Docker...as contract time approaches..should be an entire topic! I'll make it stronger and say that I am PROUD that ABF Teamsters didn't get taken in. Not all the "salesmen" out there are selling used cars and oceanfront property in Montana......
 
canaryinthemine said:
One thing I do like about ABF that actually had me concerned before it happened was the advent of the new PDA system in our terminal. Training was done in the middle of the work week, and I'm proud to say that all of us picked it up pretty fast. It's fairly simple and once you get the hang of it, actually easier than the old browsers. Much more information is provided to the driver/dockworker. The only qualm I have is wondering how long those delicate little styluses are going to last.........( Great for cleaning earwax!)......These PDA's are similar in size and appearance to what Estes is using, but theirs' is an Edsel compared to our Shelby. Estes doesn't seem to trust their drivers with as much information as we get on the new devices, too.
Click to expand...
Now that you bring it up, They do seem to listen when I say I need x. They either tell me why it cant be done or it gets done. When they say "we'll look into it" its not the GFY I am used to, they are actually going to look into it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top