Okay i got back Wednesday night, spent Thursday at home and Friday it was back to the truck. Well i got my load assignment, my trailer was ready but still sat at Brooks which is about 100 miles away..............not good !
You see with this new shift im doing, ive got 2 and a bit days to get where im going (which is normally 2 and a bit days drive) spend a day or a day and a half tipping and reloading then i got 2 and a bit days left to get back.
I took an empty up to Brooks and swapped it for my loaded one, then took the backroad straight down to the border, by the time i got to the border the meat inspection was closed so my plan was to clear customs, renew my I94 visa, drive round to meat inspection and park on the door so i would be first to be checked through.
So i got to the border and there was a queue of about 20 trucks in front of me so i sat there till it was my turn (over an hour). When it was my turn i pulled up to the hatch, engine off and held it on the footbrake (if you dynamite your brakes they get all upset apparently). This pain in the ass border guard took my paperwork and my passport as he should but he mixed all my manifest up. 3 times he asked me if i had any meat products, fruit, vegatables, tobacco or booze in the cab, he also asked me numerous times if i had anyone else in the cab with me. No wonder the queue was building up. I have to say at this point that he was one ugly son of a gun, im not saying that to be nasty but he looked as if he was made up of the spare parts that no-one else wanted. (For Lord Of The Rings fans) If Gimli the dwarf ever mated with a female Ork then thats what the offspring would look like.
Anyway, after Gimli's little boy child had finished with me i queued up for the scanner and got my truck x-rayed or whatever they do and toddled off to do my I94 Visa. By the way every non American (i think) has to have one of these things in their passport, its a waiver for a work visa so you can legally work inside the USA. The Customs officer who dealt with me must have been as rude ans Gimli's son was fugly (by the way fugly is a real word, its an abreviation for F*****g Ugly, look it up if you dont believe me) He told me to fill this form in and i had to use his pen, he kept interupting me to take my fingerprints, he also took my photo, when i smiled he just froze and glared at me. I was going to ask him if it was for his blog but thought better of it.
Thank god you only have to do that every 3 months.
Next it was round to Aphis to sort out the manifest, after an hours wait there i was told there was a problem with the paperwork, i was going to tell her it was proberbly "Fugly's" fault when he messed it all up but didnt, i went round to the broker and the kind lady there did something or other so when i went back to Aphis they stamped it and sent me on my way.
Then and only then could i go to meat inspection where i backed onto the door and closed down for the night.
Next morning i got delayed again as they were doing an extra audit for ecolii or something, it held me back an hour anyway, when i was done i went into the back to fax it back to H&R and the auditter had got his laptop plugged into the phone line.
He said he would be done in 20 mins but by then i just wanted to get away, i was refueling at the Pilot in Shelby anyway so i planned to fax it from there.
Well that was a mistake coz the woman who served me hadnt got a clue how to use the fax, all she could do was get it to make copies, i was going to ask her to sell me a stamp as it would have been quicker.
Once that was done, i was on my way south but i was just about at bursting point.
Then a funny thing happened, i got a message on the satelite asking why i was going to be late for my Sunday delivery and why i didnt clear meat inspection yesterday..........
.........................and thats when i exploded (verbally).
Well the poor disptchers got an explanation okay, i pulled over and sent back a message that just about fitted on 2 separate emails, and i drove on and waited for the response.
2 hours later i got the reply thanking me for the detailed reply.
Im now delivering at 10:00 in the morning and i am sat at Lodi Flying J which is about 40 mins drive from my delivery, i would have updated at Jerome last night but i was so tired
Hi Lyndon,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds an absolute nightmare. How do you know how to do everything? Surely you need more than one mentor trip to the US to know everything you need to know!! Also, do you have to wait this long every time you have a drop/pick up and at the border? Is the meat inspection just a one way thing, or do you have to go through all the hassle on the Canadian side for US goods? I presume the Canadians don't mess you about as your a Canadian carrier??
Andy
The training you are given at H&R plus the big red book give you the theory and the mentor trips are really helpfull but the reality of it is, you learn as you go along.
ReplyDeleteSome lessons are easy, most is common sense and the rest im afraid you tend to learn the hard way.
Its the same as any other job, course or whatever, the class room stuff gives you the basics, the rest is experience.
You never stop learning in a job like this.
Normally border crossing takes about 15 minutes and meat inspection 10 minutes upwards.
With me and bad luck i seem to save it all up and spend it all in one go.
Makes life more interesting.