Stress

 My stress level starts to go up when we are on our way to pickup or unload for a customer. How hard with the customer be to find? Do we have accurate directions on roads a truck is legal to drive on? Are there low tree branches or overpasses?


We are constantly looking for new customers in a new town that we are not familiar with.  As I start to pull off of the ramp into a new I am watching my GPS for the next turn.  I am watching the road in front of me for the turning lanes.  If there are two turning lanes, I want to be in the outside lane so I can swing wide to make the turn.  I am also watching the traffic patterns, how narrow the lanes will be, how close are the signs and the trees to the street?  If the limbs of the trees are too low they can damage the truck or even poke a hole in the box.  then as we get closer to the customer, we start looking for what we hope we will find - the shipping and receiving sign with the customers name on it.  What often happens is there is an unmarked driveway and then the building with the name of the company.  We then know we have just missed the driveway to the docks and now we have to find a safe place to turn around and try the approach again.  Once we are on the customers property we still have to keep our guard up as some of the places have forklifts zipping all over the place.  Then we have to look for the shipping and receiving door that is often unmarked and we just have to start guessing which door to try.  We then are assigned a dock to back into and once we are backing into the dock we can breathe a sigh of relief till we take off for our next destination!

 To see newest blog:

http://www.expeditersonline.com/trucking/writer1/index.html