Nick Burner
Well-Known Member
I bet it looks kick ass on someone’s pickup
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Every week, it's SOMETHING.
- Thread starter llazy_llama
- Start date
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
So I didn't notice this morning because it was cool outside, but the AC is also not working. I hate it here.
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
Bonus brokenness:
First, a bit of context. I work a rotating schedule of 4 days on followed by 2 days off. During day shift on those two days, anyone could be in my truck. Sometimes it's an experienced guy whose truck is out for maintenance, but more commonly it's a new guy floater who doesn't have his own assigned truck yet. This is why problems so commonly occur on my days off. However, this truck is usually moving on the night shift, too. Sunday night through Thursday night, my new counterpart Tyrius is operating the truck. He's a good dude, lots of experience, and I was able to train him personally when he joined the company. But of course on his nights off, there's always a chance that a new floater on night shift may have the wheel. That's what happened last night.
I checked my tire pressure before I even left for work this morning so I would know what I was walking into. 2 flat tires. Low enough to be a concern, but not so low that a puncture was likely. So I came in even earlier than I usually do to handle it. My truck was not where I parked it yesterday afternoon, so someone clearly drove it on night shift. Instead, it is parked on our down line. I go to ask the dispatchers if the wonderful fellow who drove my truck decided to tell anyone what the supposed problem was. He, of course, did not. I log in to our logging app to see if he wrote it up there. Again, no dice. I check the paperwork. Aha! There it is. "Air leak." No additional details. Where is said air leak? How severe is it? Is he referring to the tires? This seems unlikely, as he would have had to add air to them to check that, which he did not. Is it the vacuum pump? If so, that's a nothing burger. Is it the brake lines? That would be catastrophic. Is it the seat? If so, that's a known issue and only a mild annoyance. I spend a good half hour inspecting everything I can think of, and find nothing. Still no idea what he thought was leaking air.
First, a bit of context. I work a rotating schedule of 4 days on followed by 2 days off. During day shift on those two days, anyone could be in my truck. Sometimes it's an experienced guy whose truck is out for maintenance, but more commonly it's a new guy floater who doesn't have his own assigned truck yet. This is why problems so commonly occur on my days off. However, this truck is usually moving on the night shift, too. Sunday night through Thursday night, my new counterpart Tyrius is operating the truck. He's a good dude, lots of experience, and I was able to train him personally when he joined the company. But of course on his nights off, there's always a chance that a new floater on night shift may have the wheel. That's what happened last night.
I checked my tire pressure before I even left for work this morning so I would know what I was walking into. 2 flat tires. Low enough to be a concern, but not so low that a puncture was likely. So I came in even earlier than I usually do to handle it. My truck was not where I parked it yesterday afternoon, so someone clearly drove it on night shift. Instead, it is parked on our down line. I go to ask the dispatchers if the wonderful fellow who drove my truck decided to tell anyone what the supposed problem was. He, of course, did not. I log in to our logging app to see if he wrote it up there. Again, no dice. I check the paperwork. Aha! There it is. "Air leak." No additional details. Where is said air leak? How severe is it? Is he referring to the tires? This seems unlikely, as he would have had to add air to them to check that, which he did not. Is it the vacuum pump? If so, that's a nothing burger. Is it the brake lines? That would be catastrophic. Is it the seat? If so, that's a known issue and only a mild annoyance. I spend a good half hour inspecting everything I can think of, and find nothing. Still no idea what he thought was leaking air.
Nick Burner
Well-Known Member
Who the heck is in charge of new driver training? Tyrius was lucky to have you, but I guess no formal program? Most of these companies just don’t understand that avoiding multiple hours or days of downtime or even one accident would easily pay for a full-time guy in that position. I was a risk manager at a large, but family-owned company that provided little to no budget for safety and it was very frustrating. Now I insure truckers and I’ve seen the best of the best and worst of the worst. The margins in trucking are super-thin, qualified drivers are hard to find and training and maintenance are often afterthoughts. (Better margins for energy and other contractor fleets.). However with the increased scrutiny on CAB/SMS scores, MVR’s and telematics a lot of the worst have shut down due to unavailability of coverage. Unfortunately this also drives up rates for better operators. Even good carriers are getting hammered. Of course my impulse is just to say F that guy, but the reality is it sounds like a (very common) culture problem. Thanks for being one of the good guys - give a damn is becoming a rare commodity.
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
Oh man, this week has been so chaotic I hardly had time to sit and write this out. This week started on Friday, April 10th. I checked my tire pressure before I left for work to decide if I needed to come in regular early or extra early and saw one trailer tire just barely in the red (no big deal) and one tractor drive tire completely flat (yes big deal). I think to myself that this should mean the truck is parked on the down line, because surely no one is out driving around on a completely flat tire, so I decide to come in extra early. It's a Friday, so our mechanics should be in. However, the last time I had a flat drive tire, they were out of replacements and the maintenance budget for the month had already been spent, so the truck had to sit for a few days until the money appeared.
I arrive at work and walk the yard to find my truck. Strangely, it's not there. I go and ask dispatch what's the deal, thinking maybe the driver who had her out noticed the flat and called for mobile repair. Nope, he's two towns out and heading full speed back to the yard. Awesome. I catch him when he arrives, point out the empty tire that's clinging to the rim for dear life, and ask him to bring it to the shop when he's done fueling. Out of habit I ask him if anything crazy happened, or if there's anything I need to be aware of. Oh yeah, suddenly he remembers something. One of the pumps at my disposal isn't working. Just flat out refuses to turn on when the button is pressed. I instantly know what this problem is, but it's so simultaneously simple and obvious that I don't have the heart to tell him. I just say I'll get with the lease operator during the day and get it fixed. We'll come back to that.
Eventually he finishes fueling, completes his paperwork, and shuffles off out of the truck. While our mechanic is changing the drive tire, I air up the trailer tire. On the way over, I can't help but notice that my mudflap is pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle. Somehow someone managed to hit something with the mudflap hard enough to bend nearly an inch thick spring steel into deformation. Incredible. Well, it's honestly not a big enough problem to worry about. As long as the mudflap is 8 inches from the ground, it's still legal. This is probably fine.
A few hours later I make it to the disposal and have to "fix," the pump that wasn't working. The off button got stuck in the pushed in position. A quick wiggle and it's up and running again.
I arrive at work and walk the yard to find my truck. Strangely, it's not there. I go and ask dispatch what's the deal, thinking maybe the driver who had her out noticed the flat and called for mobile repair. Nope, he's two towns out and heading full speed back to the yard. Awesome. I catch him when he arrives, point out the empty tire that's clinging to the rim for dear life, and ask him to bring it to the shop when he's done fueling. Out of habit I ask him if anything crazy happened, or if there's anything I need to be aware of. Oh yeah, suddenly he remembers something. One of the pumps at my disposal isn't working. Just flat out refuses to turn on when the button is pressed. I instantly know what this problem is, but it's so simultaneously simple and obvious that I don't have the heart to tell him. I just say I'll get with the lease operator during the day and get it fixed. We'll come back to that.
Eventually he finishes fueling, completes his paperwork, and shuffles off out of the truck. While our mechanic is changing the drive tire, I air up the trailer tire. On the way over, I can't help but notice that my mudflap is pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle. Somehow someone managed to hit something with the mudflap hard enough to bend nearly an inch thick spring steel into deformation. Incredible. Well, it's honestly not a big enough problem to worry about. As long as the mudflap is 8 inches from the ground, it's still legal. This is probably fine.
A few hours later I make it to the disposal and have to "fix," the pump that wasn't working. The off button got stuck in the pushed in position. A quick wiggle and it's up and running again.
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
Oh, and someone wore my raincoat again. This time they were not so gentle with it. Can't have shit around here.
rbbrock
FNG for life
They must've needed to air out their stinky pits but still wanted to stay dry!
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
Coming down from the top of this 16' tank battery, I slipped at about the halfway mark. Wet PVC gloves on slick wet metal didn't provide enough grip to fully catch myself.
As I'm standing there taking stock of myself to see if anything was broken (doesn't seem to be), my phone rings. It's my boss letting me know that I have to come in on Wednesday, my day off, for 12 hours of mandatory annual OSHA and CPR training. I'm still in shock at the timing of this call.
Edit: I don't get much down time at work, but nearly every second I got for the rest of the day was spent sending out my resume.
As I'm standing there taking stock of myself to see if anything was broken (doesn't seem to be), my phone rings. It's my boss letting me know that I have to come in on Wednesday, my day off, for 12 hours of mandatory annual OSHA and CPR training. I'm still in shock at the timing of this call.
Edit: I don't get much down time at work, but nearly every second I got for the rest of the day was spent sending out my resume.
Last edited:
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
This week wasn't front-loaded as it usually is, which was fairly shocking. I came in on Wednesday to a fully functional truck, "fully," being a very relative term. The only real issue (which was an ongoing one) was that the sight glass on the trailer which shows how much fluid we're holding was getting pretty dirty and difficult to read. Knowing this, I swung by Home Depot on my day off and snagged a gallon of Muriatic acid. I ran that through the sight glass, then flushed it with water. Later I pulled a gallon of diesel into it and let that soak. After all that was done, it looked almost brand new.
The very next day, I got called out for a service job. The disposal I use to offload my water has a battery of six 24' tall tanks. These tanks are supposed to get cleaned out every year or two, otherwise they accumulate sand and various debris which turns into a disgusting toxic sludge. Turns out these particular tanks haven't been cleaned out for about a decade. So my task is to pull all of the fluid out of two of the tanks andpump that crap into the other tanks to allow for cleaning two at a time.
There are many problems with this task. First is that I needed 110' of hose to even reach the tanks in question. I only carry 70' of hose. I scrounged up some spare hoses to get started, but fortunately my boss is pretty great and he went and bought several new hoses for the job. Even delivered them to me himself. Lovely.
The next problem is the viscosity of the fluid in question. It looks and acts like crude oil. Because it's so thick and slippery, it gets everywhere. With water, I can just pull some air through my hoses to suck out the residual liquid left after a pull, but with this milkshake crap, I just don't have enough negative pressure to move it easily. So all of the hoses are coated inside and out with this crap, making them incredibly difficult to handle. This also causes issues trying to pump it down the disposal to return it to the other tanks, resulting in a slow offload and having to clean out the filters multiple times per load. On top that, it just plain gets everywhere. My gloves are coated, so it's impossible to grip anything. My boots are coated, so I'm slipping constantly. The ground is coated, half my truck is coated, it's just a mess. I'm pretty sure that if anyone from the EPA happened to show up, they would just execute me on the spot.
I left all the hoses in place when I called it a day yesterday afternoon, and explained the job to my night guy. All he'd have to do would be hook up and pump. So of course the night dispatcher decided to have him go elsewhere and not work on it at all last night, rather leaving the entirety of the job to me. At this point I've been on the clock for about two and a half hours, and I'm already drenched with sweat and covered in whatever this toxic crap is.
R.I.P. my sight glass:
The horrible eldritch abomination sludge:
The very next day, I got called out for a service job. The disposal I use to offload my water has a battery of six 24' tall tanks. These tanks are supposed to get cleaned out every year or two, otherwise they accumulate sand and various debris which turns into a disgusting toxic sludge. Turns out these particular tanks haven't been cleaned out for about a decade. So my task is to pull all of the fluid out of two of the tanks andpump that crap into the other tanks to allow for cleaning two at a time.
There are many problems with this task. First is that I needed 110' of hose to even reach the tanks in question. I only carry 70' of hose. I scrounged up some spare hoses to get started, but fortunately my boss is pretty great and he went and bought several new hoses for the job. Even delivered them to me himself. Lovely.
The next problem is the viscosity of the fluid in question. It looks and acts like crude oil. Because it's so thick and slippery, it gets everywhere. With water, I can just pull some air through my hoses to suck out the residual liquid left after a pull, but with this milkshake crap, I just don't have enough negative pressure to move it easily. So all of the hoses are coated inside and out with this crap, making them incredibly difficult to handle. This also causes issues trying to pump it down the disposal to return it to the other tanks, resulting in a slow offload and having to clean out the filters multiple times per load. On top that, it just plain gets everywhere. My gloves are coated, so it's impossible to grip anything. My boots are coated, so I'm slipping constantly. The ground is coated, half my truck is coated, it's just a mess. I'm pretty sure that if anyone from the EPA happened to show up, they would just execute me on the spot.
I left all the hoses in place when I called it a day yesterday afternoon, and explained the job to my night guy. All he'd have to do would be hook up and pump. So of course the night dispatcher decided to have him go elsewhere and not work on it at all last night, rather leaving the entirety of the job to me. At this point I've been on the clock for about two and a half hours, and I'm already drenched with sweat and covered in whatever this toxic crap is.
R.I.P. my sight glass:
The horrible eldritch abomination sludge:
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
Oh, wait. There it is. Knew something had to go wrong with the truck eventually.
hydro-terp
Well-Known Member
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
That's a lot of JP8. Roughly 762 barrels, slightly more than the combined contents of these two tanks.
Oh, wait. There it is. Knew something had to go wrong with the truck eventually.
Job security?
llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
If our lead mechanic ever quit, I think the whole terminal would be shuttered by the end of the week. In the time it took his assistant to fix those lights this afternoon, I watched him pull a disc brake, run a computer diagnostic, air up a tire, and repair our pressure washer.Job security?