What's The Strangest "rule" You've Encountered At Customer?

Picking up a load at Red Star Yeast this morning in Cedar Rapids IA and they require you to wear hairnets on top of head and facial hair, safety glasses and a hard hat. You walk through the shipping door and its maybe 5 feet before you get to an enclosed room for your paperwork. You're no where near any product.

What is the strangest rule or policy you've encountered at a customer?

What is a "customer"??

I've heard from our P&D drivers we have one "customer" who takes LTL companies right away to avoid detention pay. They only have 1 door so if a OTR driver is there they make them move, have the LTL guy pull in unload usually 2 pallets then finish the OTR driver.

You're no where near any product.

Along these lines, picking up a trailer drop and hook style at a paper mill. A nice warm summer day, I was wearing shorts, and missed the sign saying long pants were required.

A supervisor caught me in the trailer yard. All the loaded trailers were sealed, I was in a trailer yard of all places. I had to get into the sleeper and put on the long pants or I would have been kicked out & reported.

Also the CAT plant makes people have steel toe boots, hard hat, goggles and hearing protection to drop and hook a trailer in a lot a couple miles from the factory.

Every Menards store I've delivered at has docks that are graded downhill by at least 2% grade. They want us to use wheel chocks on both sides of the trailer tires.

So far, I've never encountered a trailer rolling away uphill.

Picking up at egg farms and their bio-security protocols are fun. First question me on the last 3 loads I've done, specifically if I've hauled any poultry. Then I'm issued the exact paper smock, hair/beard net, and foot nets that I had to wear during my wife's C-sections. Not allowed out of the truck while on the property, but if you absolutely must exit the truck you must wear all the issued protective stuff. Truck goes through a machine that sprays the truck and trailer exterior down with some sort of cleaner. Dang spray left a nasty white residue all over my truck. An employee meets you at the dock and will pull your tandem release so you can slide them to the rear, and open your rear doors so you can back in. When loading finished they will come out to close and seal the trailer doors, and release the tandems again so you can slide them up a bit. They'll hand you the paperwork through your window and direct you to leave the property.

Plan B I totally forgot about the egg farms! I pickup at an egg farm probably every other week. We have probably 15 every week. We drive through the sanitizer to get the (bottom) of the truck/trailer clean. That's recent for where we pickup, before last year they required all trucks to get a truck wash. They give us the same protective gear but we're still required to do our tandems and opening doors etc. I'm always asked something to the affect of "have you been in an area with live chickens in the last 3 weeks?" I always want to smack em upside the head and say I seen ya a couple weeks ago!

Every Menards store I've delivered at has docks that are graded downhill by at least 2% grade. They want us to use wheel chocks on both sides of the trailer tires.

So far, I've never encountered a trailer rolling away uphill.

I can confirm this.

On a side note.... Quite possibly the worst places to deliver on a saturday afternoon. Nothing but people in 4 wheelers never even noticing a giant truck with a 53 ft trailer trying desperately to maneuver into dock while they fly all over looking for a 2x4.

The worst I've encountered was a shipper that wouldnt let me use the bathroom. They had a sign in the shipping area going in that said no public restroom. I asked where the bathroom was and they told me the same, no public restroom to which I replied that I wasnt the public I was transporting their product. Still, no restroom allowed. They thought a previous trucker might have stolen something from the locker room/ men's room so blanket policy, no restroom usage. It was at least 45 minutes to a truck friendly place to go. I had no bottle to go in. That was the one and only time I have peed on a shipper or receivers lot. (I know I know but what ya gonna do?)

The worst I've encountered was a shipper that wouldnt let me use the bathroom. They had a sign in the shipping area going in that said no public restroom. I asked where the bathroom was and they told me the same, no public restroom to which I replied that I wasnt the public I was transporting their product. Still, no restroom allowed. They thought a previous trucker might have stolen something from the locker room/ men's room so blanket policy, no restroom usage. It was at least 45 minutes to a truck friendly place to go. I had no bottle to go in. That was the one and only time I have peed on a shipper or receivers lot. (I know I know but what ya gonna do?)

Being LTL we run into a few places like that. "No Public Restrooms". But if you're LTL it's ok.

Their explanation is OTR drivers bring in bags of human waste and deposit it into the trash cans; wash dishes, clothes, etc., and generally just **** the place up.

Not my words - theirs.

The local FedEx Ground terminal - which is contractors - has a sign in the bathroom - NO HUMAN WASTE IN THE TRASH CAN!