My Jobs: DEF


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DEF Kingsburg, ca
is a 48 state carrier of temperature controlled freight. It was a team operation, which means that there were two drivers to a truck.

They had only one terminal located in Kingsburg, CA. 15 miles south of Fresno

Getting the job
After moving back to Fresno from Missouri I needed a job again. These people had an add in the Fresno Bee and I went for it.

My Job Description
This company only hauled produce form coast to coast. There were always two drivers in a truck. We would load up here in California and pull the load to the East Coast as fast as we could in those 67 miles per hour trucks. Then reload with what ever and then come back. Most of the time we would come back to LA and then get reloaded down there then go back to the East Coast again.

We went to the same places over and over. All of them were wholesale produce markets in the large metro areas. Toronto Canada, Buffalo NY, New York City, Boston, Phily, and so on...

The Good Points
We did get decent money, and see alot of the country. We did get to go to Canada. We went to Toronto several times. I liked it up there.

The Bad Points
We were gone way to long. By the time we went from the West to the East then back to the West and back to the East we were both out of hours and had to sit for 1.5 days for our log books to catch up with us. If the dispatchers would pull their heads out of the behinds, they would figure out what we were telling them. If we were able to go home after every run, instead of making us do two runs back to back, we not only would be getting our much needed home time but would not run out of hours on the East Coast. When we would get back to the yard after two runs in a row, and sitting on the East Coast for two days, the dispatcher would tell us, "You have hours to run, what do you need a day off for?" They never did get it, and they lost drivers left and right...

Why I Stopped Working There.
My wife was very pregnant and getting ready to give me a son. My boss would not keep me close to the house or give me the time off I needed to be with my wife on the day my son was born. The US Government by law requires employers to give employees time off without pay to take care of family members in this and other instances. My boss told me that this law does not apply to me or this company. He refused to comply, so I was forced to quit. I was not going to miss being with my wife when my son was born.