Is There A General Process, Guideline Or Best Practice For Picking Up From Shipper And Dropping At Reciever?

Fixing to go out with my trainer Thursday. One question that's been floating around my head that I didnt ask when I was at school, Is there a general rule of thumb or practice that you do for shippers and receivers? Or specific steps one generally takes? I would guess it differs from location to location. If it helps narrow it down, Driving dry van regional. I understand most of the paperwork, but I dont have mental ownership of it if that makes sense.

The thing that is constant/doesn't change are the papers. When you get a load, you get a Bill Of Lading (BOL or "bills") that basically describes your whole trip. You sign a bill when you pick the stuff up. On delivery, that same piece of paper is given to the receiver. A receiver person signs it and gives you a copy. That signed received bill is now MONEY to you - you send a copy of it to your office and the trip goes into your paycheck.

Other procedures about your truck and trailer depend on the place you are at. This just one reason you go with a trainer - to learn how the load dispatch works. There are too many different things that go into the pickup and delivery of your load. The most common part is a gate guard will check you in/out and tell you what you need to do.

So the thing to take true ownership on every load is the BOL. It is a legal document. I got one of those clipboards with a paper-holder compartment to keep the current papers and the finished, signed ones till I got them sent in.

Good luck on your training!

In addition to the good advice above I'll just add.....treat the shipping/recieving clerk and the gate guards with the utmost respect and niceness, even when they are piecing you off. I've been 5-6 hours early and unloaded immediately when a driver and his wife pieced them off by yelling at them and being disrespectful over wait times. I backed into the door, the driver asked when my appointment time was I told him 5pm, he was even more angry and told me his appt time was noon. Respect goes a long way with them.

Yeah, what Mikey says /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

You are just doing your job, the guards and dock people are just doing theirs. It's common for the receiver & shipper people to treat truck drivers at the lowest common denominator (which can get pretty low). It's not hard for you to act and be above average.

Though it never hurts to ask, the worst thing that can happen to you is to get a "No!" answer. Most of the time the local people have all the marbles at their own shop.

Davy, I like the information given to you so far. There will be differing procedures at each place you go. There is almost always a guard shack or scale house that checks you in by verifying your paper work and giving you some basic directions of how it works at their plant. Covid changed a lot of our procedures this last year. I had customers that came up with ways of doing "no contact" deliveries. We didn't even check in with a guard. The guard was replaced with signs giving us instructions of how to proceed.

At one particular customer there was only one door, and since I drive a flatbed we would pull into that door to an unloading area inside the building. Typically we would hand our paper work to the forklift operator who would hand it back to us after unloading the product. Now the signs instruct us to unstrap our load, lay the paperwork on the trailer, and get back in the cab to wait. After the unloading process, the forklift operator would lay the signed paperwork back on the trailer and we would have to wait until he gave us the signal by honking his horn. Then we would get out of the cab and grab our paperwork before pulling forward and through the building to our exit.

All of this stuff will be gone over with your trainer. It won't take long for you to get a feel for how things work out here. There is no textbook method. Each facility will have their own procedures. I understand your wanting to get it in your head how things work, but this is one facet of the job that you will just have to be exposed to a little before you get a feel for it.

Mikey's advice was excellent. Always be professional. Some of the clerks you come across are real pieces of work. Don't allow yourself to get down on their level. A great attitude will always serve you well out here. Many truck drivers don't get this, and you never know what kind of driver the guard just got finished dealing with. They have some pretty good reasons to think we are all a bunch of loudmouthed know-it-alls. One of the things that can make a big difference in your performance is being able to get in and out of a customer in a decent time frame. Rude obnoxious truck drivers don't ever learn this lesson. They are too busy trying to prove how important they are. Don't be that guy!

Yeah, what Mikey says /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

You are just doing your job, the guards and dock people are just doing theirs. It's common for the receiver & shipper people to treat truck drivers at the lowest common denominator (which can get pretty low). It's not hard for you to act and be above average.

Though it never hurts to ask, the worst thing that can happen to you is to get a "No!" answer. Most of the time the local people have all the marbles at their own shop.

This...this right here. Errol makes a point so fine, many forget its importance. I've only been solo a bit over a week and no matter the time I show up at the receiver, I start with a big smile and a warm greeting. Set the tone on how you want your interaction to go. I was 5 hours early to a noon drop and they let me park on premises and still where able to get me back on the road before my appointment time. Be happy, be flexible, be humble. Sound off early that you have never been there and that you don't want to make a mistake. You'll find it goes a LONG way! lastly, take a moment to talk about them if you have time. I found a guard at a receiver that was a Marine at a base I was at once. You can bet we'll remember each other and be able to help each other. Everything else the other posters said is spot on. Be flexible and as my new Marine buddy said to me "Semper Gumby".

All good information.

In keeping with the theme of “treat others the way you want to be treated”;

Realize that many of our trucking brethren believe it’s their God Given right to project their miserable attitude onto every professional they come in contact with.

Most of the people working at shippers and receivers expect to be treated poorly. Approach them as suggested in this thread and over time you’ll be know as professional and pleasant to interact with. Reap what you Sow!

Great question Davy! Really good stuff in this thread.

*like

As I wrote earlier:

The guards and dock people are just doing their [jobs].

My point is whatever it is that has you messed up - missed appointment, the tandems , another driver gets "in" before you - may not be their doing. So blasting on them only makes two people mad.

So as P.O.'d as you may be, just work on getting your job done.

Thank you all for the info and advice. I definitely plan on being polite and professional with everyone. Im guessing its like any other form of business and well, life in general, you get more flies with honey than vinegar. I am really comfortable with communicating and making sure people are comfortable no matter what their job is. From time to time I used to have to deal with shipping and receiving and loaders in the construction industry. If you were good to them, they could make your life easy, or at least smooth when things happen. If you were an a$$ to them, your day could get really crappy really quickly.

One of my earliest postings here: A Trucking Fable For Our Time