I know as company drivers you're pounding out the miles and trips and things might blend together, but please have a look at the bills, make sure it's going to the right place. Make sure pickup numbers match, signatures are present and everything is good to go before moving on to you're next load. Do it as if it was part of your pretrip.
Great point Sid!
I've had this kind of thing happen to me in several different ways. On this dedicated account I'm on I often show up after hours to grab my pre-loaded trailer. There may be 10 - 15 loaded trailers there waiting on drivers. Our paperwork is in a file cabinet inside the warehouse. Each load is in it's own brown legal size envelope, and it's labeled on the outside.
Sometimes my envelope is labeled with a certain load but the enclosed paperwork doesn't correspond. Other times another driver has taken my paperwork without realizing it. I've even showed up to get my paperwork only to find my trailer is missing. Each time a driver could have avoided all the confusion by double checking everything.
I am dogmatic about checking all the details. I even look over the tags on the loaded materials to confirm I have the proper materials to match my bills and stops. They say "the devil is in the details." You'll someday understand that saying if you don't pay attention to the details.
I had that experience of getting the wrong BOL back from a receiver. I was fortunate because there was another driver from our company that had just unloaded before me and the warehouse guys got the paperwork mixed up so I had his BOL and he had mine. I just called my FM and let him know and the office fixed it when the paperwork was processed the following week.
Operating While Intoxicated
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So today a receiver handed me my bills and I took one look at it and told her it wasn't mine. Turns out she gave mine to another driver that was just pulling out of the lot. Thankfully we flagged him down.
I know as company drivers you're pounding out the miles and trips and things might blend together, but please have a look at the bills, make sure it's going to the right place. Make sure pickup numbers match, signatures are present and everything is good to go before moving on to you're next load. Do it as if it was part of your pretrip.
For o/o's the details of the trip are far more important than the sheer amount of miles and the amount of hours that we run and this could have become a real issue.
Thanks and happy trucking.