Fired From Walmart...

Sharon

How much experience do you have? Your whining about five guys that got fired shows that you have less experience than you are leading us to believe. Do you have one year? 3 years? 3 years you're still learning what goes on out on the road. 10 years? If you have that much experience, then you know it's none of your business whether these five guys got rightfully fired or not. If you're one of the five then I can see you asking. But you're talking about five other guys so again I'm going to tell you it's none of your business. If you want to get trained you ask for it for yourself. Those guys will land on their feet at another company. Their DAC record will probably have an annotation of not following company policy. When they go to another company and get asked about it they can give as much or as little information as they want.

As for PackRat, he wasn't wrong. For you to make comments about his heart transplant was very inappropriate. For as little as I like beards, that's actually a nice looking clean beard. However, it still doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand, which is you are being nosy about other people's business and becoming contentious when presented with factual information.

Oh yes, I do know about being fired. I violated company policy and May 9th was out of a job. I talked to a company and told them that I had plans for Memorial weekend and I could come to them shortly after that. They didn't even care to know what my violation of company policy was, but I told them anyway. Some companies are fussier, but many are still dating to fill trucks and as long as you didn't roll a truck, get too many tickets or kill somebody in an accident, a person can find a job pretty readily.

See you next tuesday!

That's highly inappropriate, George.

First of all..I just heard about 5 drivers being dismissed today..not sure if they are all from my company..inside the walmart office..they have signs about all the accidents this year..I was just concerned about companies that hire outside companies and give those drivers little to no training about how their company functions and no procedure or direction..I am not playing victim because of that concern and don't appreciate the bullying and unkind remarks...

Why the attack rat...what the heck...

Yeah.

Your previous post from more than a year prior was, "Overweight and Punished". Now Walmart is The Bad Guy?

One question for you: how much responsibility do you put on yourself as the driver?

Attack? Facts is what I deal in here. No apology that I didn't jump on the bashwagon with you. I did the same gig as Jamie, just with Crete out of the Cheyenne DC in 2021 for six months. I never pulled a trailer from a dock until a team leader or manager giving me a verbal "okay" beforehand.

My own orientation for contracting for WM loads was very brief, too. I asked lots of questions on anything that was not clear, though. I wrote down lots of notes, too. I still write down lots of notes. If there is ever a doubt, there is no doubt.

You wrote that five drivers had been dismissed. Which were you, number one or number five? If I was aware of others being fired, you can bet I'd be extra vigilant and not taking any shortcuts. Sounds like a serious infraction to me, similar to some videos I've watched on line. The "I hope nobody is in there when I pull out of the dock" excuse is 100% wrong at any customer.

Good luck.

Sharon

How much experience do you have? Your whining about five guys that got fired shows that you have less experience than you are leading us to believe. Do you have one year? 3 years? 3 years you're still learning what goes on out on the road. 10 years? If you have that much experience, then you know it's none of your business whether these five guys got rightfully fired or not. If you're one of the five then I can see you asking. But you're talking about five other guys so again I'm going to tell you it's none of your business. If you want to get trained you ask for it for yourself. Those guys will land on their feet at another company. Their DAC record will probably have an annotation of not following company policy. When they go to another company and get asked about it they can give as much or as little information as they want.

As for PackRat, he wasn't wrong. For you to make comments about his heart transplant was very inappropriate. For as little as I like beards, that's actually a nice looking clean beard. However, it still doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand, which is you are being nosy about other people's business and becoming contentious when presented with factual information.

Oh yes, I do know about being fired. I violated company policy and May 9th was out of a job. I talked to a company and told them that I had plans for Memorial weekend and I could come to them shortly after that. They didn't even care to know what my violation of company policy was, but I told them anyway. Some companies are fussier, but many are still dating to fill trucks and as long as you didn't roll a truck, get too many tickets or kill somebody in an accident, a person can find a job pretty readily.

My apologies. Bourbon. A little loose lipped today.

Sharon were you fired? No? Okay perfect, then go about your business as usual. Do you have all the details of what exactly transpired or just rumors?

These drivers that pulled a trailer from the door that had rollers or pallets still inside....did they bring those back to the DC? If they did as they were instructed (banging on sides, checking dockplate is down etc.), seen there was an issue (not empty) and still took trailer well I'd say that's their own fault. If i were dispatched to do a trailer move or grab an empty and it had stuff in there that wasn't supposed to be I'd be verifying with the store or my dispatcher before I do anything else. I've never pulled any freight for Wal-Mart so I'm not aware of their policies. To me this seems like common sense isn't so common anymore and they goofed up. If your company is contracted with Wal-Mart I'd assume these drivers still have a job but they're not allowed to pull WM loads anymore. However, I still feel you're making a big deal out of something that doesn't affect you. If you ever run into an issue that you felt you weren't trained for call you dispatcher or better yet communicate on your ELD so it's in writing.

I work for a grocery chain and nearly daily I'm hooking up to a trailer that's still being loaded. Company policy is after you get the green light walk to make sure dock plate is up and door is closed. Then I need to verify by looking at pallet tags it has the correct stores on it. If I leave the gate with the wrong trailer regardless of how far I get I believe it's 1 week suspension, and 2nd within a rolling year is termination but I could be wrong. It really isn't difficult to make sure you're doing something correctly, And make a phone call/walk inside to shipping and get clarification. How long have you been doing the Walmart loads? Have you run into any issues? What company do you drive for?

Again, I think you're making a bigger deal out of something than you need to. I didn't see any issue with Packrats initial comment yet you're getting so defensive about these drivers getting fired when I guarantee you don't have the whole story.

Doesn’t Walmart have the red/green dock light system?

A quick glance to see if the dock plate is down and a hit on the side of the trailer is not good enough.

If that’s all they did prior to pulling it then they deserve to be fired.

Whether Walmart is giving outside companies enough training is really irrelevant, the process you described before pulling the trailer away from the dock could get someone killed.

Doesn’t Walmart have the red/green dock light system?

I've not delivered to Wal-Mart stores but most retail stores regardless of company do not. Many also don't have any sort of locking mechanism to lock the trailer into a door. The reason is most deliveries they receive the driver is inside anyways so unless the driver forgets to set their brakes that trailer isn't going to pull away from the dock while being unloaded. I'm sure the distribution centers have the lights and locks but retail stores (where Sharon's gripe occured) likely does not but one of the guys that have run dedicated, or Turtle (walmarts private fleet) would be able to answer that for sure.