This load of household from Anchorage to Arizona is over. Back to the normal daily grind of trucking in the Lower 48.
It’s refreshing to have your decisions confirmed. Like the decision to
leave Graebel. The Albuquerque
move coordinator really screwed up. Expected everyone else to do her
job for her. I arrived in Fort Defiance in the middle of the Navajo Nation
on the Arizona New Mexico border, a crew of three and a small truck
drive 150 miles one way and no one at Graebel has talked to the person
that’s moving. Long story short, I get more money for waiting around
and driving to Albuquerque, crew is highly upset having to leave at 5am
drive 300 miles for nothing. It took them till 7pm to unload and all I heard from the I/C (owner operator) that was doing the unloading was how much he’s worked and they’re not paying in a timely manner. He’s done 17 jobs this month and has only been paid for 6. Some from last month haven’t been paid and he’s got payroll to do on Friday for his crew.

I’m standing around watching the crew work hard in really hot weather
talking to the Operations Manager (who’s also standing around) and
after I tell him I used to drive for Graebel, he tells me how Graebel
is desperately short on drivers. My two cents = Should have paid mo’ money. I was pretty happy with the Vegas agent. When they moved us to Corporate fleet, I got new people that handled all my stuff, like payroll, permits and such. I could walk into the Vegas office and talk to whoever was handling my account, I was helped and listened to. I’ve always preferred smaller companies.

Another one of our drivers is pulling recoveries (left-over household
shipments) for Graebel and hating every minute of it. The decision from my
dispatcher (ex-Graebel dispatcher), we’re not doing any more for them.
They even have another one of our drivers pulling a
Graebel trailer for one trip. It gets our driver to where his trailer is, so it works out.

One of the reasons we left was when we did a recovery, it paid more, but
sometimes it meant more waiting around to get loaded or unloaded, which
is why they paid more. We were supposed to get detention and layover,
but we find out that if that’s how they planned it, it’s not a layover.
Every time we would show up at a Graebel
warehouse with a recovery, everyone hates loading or unloading
recoveries. They’re usually
already
late when we pick it up and it becames a priority when one shows up on
your doorstep. Plus, instead of us taking it to the residence, they’d have to unload it into the warehouse, load it again onto a different truck and unload it at the residence. Major PITB.

My dispatcher and me were talking and we’re giving Graebel another couple of years before some kind of
restructure happens. Graebel in Anchorage says they’re three weeks
behind on their shipments and the one we took is the only one that will
be on-time in a very long time. It’s almost a sure bet we’ll have something out
of Alaska next time if we plan it right.