Fuel for Thought

Goin for a ride!

          Ok, sometimes it's the little things that amuse ya!   Today I got to go for a different kind of ride in my van!  I'm sure some other van drivers have done this before, but for me, it was the first time ever.

         Vans obviously are  not dock high. Every now and then, this can be a problem as some places only set up to remove freight from the back of trucks.  If this happens, usually they will tell us ahead of time, and FedEx will either send a dock high truck in, if one is availible... or if its feasible, I have been paid to break the freight down off the pallets and restack on the edge of the dock. Most places we deliver to, however, have a roll up door at ground level, or a ramp that I either back up, or a forklift comes out to meet me.

        The place I delivered to today was a new one on me tho.  I drove to the building as directed, but saw no ramp. I went inside and the dock worker told me to back inside the building, and back up to one of the docks. I told him I was in a van, and that wouldn't work. He grinned and assured me it would, so I pulled around. As I lined up with the dock door, I saw I would be backing onto a large steel plate. I figured out what it was, and sure enough, when they get freight on a van, they park it on this plate, push a switch, and the steel plate raises up until the van is level with the dock.  Once the freight  is unloaded, the ''elevator'' is lowered, and ya drive off.   as I said, easily amused LOL.

Dale is a solo van owner operator with FedEx CC, and can be reached with comments at [email protected]  , or by using the comments form below.