Reefer madness

I currently drive only in the "11 Western States".

"Dry" vans (the usual sort of enclosed trailer) are primarily (but not exclusively) what my company operates in the western United States. The drivers who drive the "48 States" run refrigerated (AKA "reefer") loads almost exclusively. For whatever reason, I never got any reefer loads during my training. This was not intentional; the dispatch “cards” just fell that way. I somehow made it all the way through training without knowing anything at all about reefer trailers.

When I “soloed out”, I started getting assigned an occasional reefer load. I was totally unprepared. There's all sorts of stuff that you kinda need to know and I didn't know squat about reefers. I asked around, in hopes of learning what I needed to know about pulling a refrigerated trailer. I asked several more experienced drivers, but their answers were all roughly the same: “There is nothing that you really need to know. Just turn it on”.

This is patently untrue, but serves as a good example of "male answer syndrome".

The refrigerated trailer is like a large refrigerator. But instead of it having a really long electrical cord and being plugged into an outlet somewhere along the kitchen wall, it has its own diesel engine that sits up high at the front of the trailer. The engine, painted an attractive shade of enameled gray, somehow provides the electrical power for the refrigerator unit. On the outside of the refrigerator unit, annoyingly placed way above eye level, is a control panel with a digital readout and some switches with which one can turn the darn thing on and off or control the temperature inside. The reefer unit is thermostatically controlled, which that means that the diesel engine (which provides the power) is usually being automatically turned on (and then off again) over and over, all night long, so that the food inside the reefer trailer stays at just the right temperature (though it also makes a hell of a lot of racket).

Just for fun, the reefer engine is thoughtfully mounted only a few feet away from where the driver is supposed to sleep. Actually, a reefer-equipped trailer would be perfectly happy to run all by itself even if the tractor were disconnected. (After all, it has its very own engine, fuel tank, battery, etc.) One could, theoretically anyway, disconnect and drive the tractor away to a much quieter spot for the night, and the reefer trailer would stay running all night long and be just as happy. One would also, not so theoretically, be immediately terminated for doing that.

When all is good, the driver can see a jaunty display of green lights reflected in his side view mirror as he is driving along. If the system fails and the trailer innards begin to warm up, various alarms go off. First, those reassuring green lights in the side view mirror change to a bright red. Then, the in-cab Qualcomm unit starts screaming with the noise that one normally associates with a WWII Navy submarine starting an emergency dive. And, since the Qualcomm unit is in constant communication by satellite to the bosses, the next noise that one would hear is a terse phone call from a very annoyed Driver Manager.

Luckily, this stuff usually never happens unless a reefer unit runs out of fuel. The reefer has its own separate fuel tank which, sadly, doesn't fill itself. In order to not disturb the visual appeal of the overall design, they concealed the tank in the last place that one might ever think of looking. I was not trained in reefers, so I had no clue where its fuel tank might actually be located. I just assumed, from a practical standpoint, that any fuel to the engine would obviously be gravity fed. I eventually realized that there was no way to stretch a fuel filler hose up to above the reefer engine without a ladder, so I ended up looking elsewhere, but not before staring pathetically at the top of the trailer for five minutes or so. “Or perhaps it is underneath the engine!” I pondered, as I searched for the elusive fuel tank. (It was not.)

I eventually found the reefer's fuel tank. I still have no idea as to why I had so much difficulty in finding what must have been plainly obvious to everyone other than me. The fuel tank (for those that are hoping to one day become reefer operators) is located amidships underneath the trailer. It is mostly concealed by the white, plastic shrouding that helps with aerodynamics, fuel mileage, visual appeal and reefer fuel tank concealment.

                                        * * * 

I picked up a load from General Foods in Carson, which is in southern California. It contained all sorts of good things: cookie dough, yogurt and those cans of biscuit dough that break open when you whack them on the side of a kitchen counter. The Bill of Lading specified that the reefer unit be set at 34 degrees Fahrenheit, continuous. The shipping person checked the temperature again (it had been checked right at the gate upon my arrival) and placed a seal on one of the door latches. I placed my own padlock on the remaining door latch and now I was good to go. But first I had to get scaled; I was in no mood to get a ticket simply because a load of yogurt had been loaded incorrectly. The CAT scale in Long Beach informed me that my load was pretty heavy, but legal. I paid my scale fees and bought a handmade pork tamale for the road. CAT Scales plus homemade tamales? I was in heaven!

The consignee was an enormous Walmart distribution center in south eastern Washington, conveniently located in the middle of nowhere. I arrived on time and the Walmart staffers were friendly and courteous. The temperature of my load was checked again (it had remained at a perfect 34 degrees). I was directed where to go and what to do. Part of the “what to do” was to turn off the reefer after I had backed up to the appropriate loading door. The guys unloading it are already in a refrigerated warehouse, and there was no need for me to run my engine any longer.

I sat in the cab and waited as they unloaded me. Eventually, I got a green light (loading docks have red and green lights; once they start working in your trailer, they turn on a red light. A driver is not allowed to move until the light is switched back to green.)

I wandered back to the Shipping/Receiving office to collect my paperwork. The nice lady behind the glass window informed me that there were some rejected items, items that were rejected due to “vendor damage”, which was not my fault. (It would have been my fault if, for example, the reefer had gone off and the food had spoiled, or if the load had shifted and there was strawberry yogurt all over the inside of my trailer, that sort of thing).

Whenever one leaves any distribution center with an empty trailer, the security guards at the gate perform a cursory inspection of the trailer innards just to make sure that the driver is not running off with a truckload of costly merchandise. When I got back to the front gate, I opened my trailer doors as usual for the guard, and we were both surprised to see stuff: those rejected items that the lady behind the glass had mentioned. Instead of a trailer full of emptiness, there were eight cases of refrigerated biscuits and once case of strawberry yogurt.

I retreated to the nearest truck stop and, using a macro on the Qualcomm unit, sent in a form stating that I had some “OS&D” on the truck, which is company jargon for “Overages, Shortages and Damaged”. As this occurred on a Sunday, there was nobody in the “OS&D” department to receive and acknowledge the form. My reefer was turned off now and I had eight damaged cases of refrigerated biscuits that were no longer refrigerated. The trailer temperature was rising and so were my biscuits.

But  I actually couldn’t go anywhere until someone in the “OS&D” department determined how damaged the damaged cargo actually was, whose fault it was and what now should to be done with all of it. First thing, Monday morning, I received a message authorizing for me to simply toss the offending cargo. The yogurt was no problem (I would “dispose” of it personally), but how on earth would I get rid of eight cases of refrigerated biscuits? In each of the eight cases, one or more cans had already exploded. Though most cans were still intact, they couldn't be sold, they all still needed to be thrown away and one cannot throw out biscuit dough just anywhere. Certainly, most businesses wouldn't really appreciate truckers filling up their dumpsters up with rising bread dough.

As I was pondering how to dispose of the biscuit dough before any more tubes exploded, a car drove right up to my truck. As I was parked way in the back of the parking lot, this had to be intentional. A very nice man in a brown suit got out, proffering free copies of “Watchtower” magazine. Since I was not actively shopping for new superstitions, I politely waved him away. But then I got a great idea.

I rolled down my window. “Do you like biscuits?” I asked.

After some discussion, he drove away with eight cases of biscuit dough.

Problem solved.