Murphy's World

Lost in Translation

Dear Murphy,
Fourteen years ago, before cell phones, I loaded some vinyl fencing near Des Moines, IA, and then I couldn’t get rid of it. I was trying to deliver the first stop at a horse farm in Glen Gardner, NJ. My directions said to go into town, drive past a few bankrupt Shell gas stations and turn right on the first unmarked road. I was then told to go up the mountain and make several more turns on more unmarked roads.

I went past several defunct gas stations and turned right when I could. I made the corner and went four winding miles until I came to a tunnel with a 10' 6" opening. I was contemplating backing down when a guy pulled up behind me. He said he was on his way to a wedding rehearsal, but he would scout the route with me.

It was the right road, and we found the farm and crew, but it took three hours to get around the tunnel. By the time I got there, the construction crew had left. I called dispatch, and they told me to unload the final stop (400 miles away) and come back to this one the next day.

I called the customer the next morning only to hear that semis couldn’t get within 10 miles of his house. My company then decided to take the trailer back to our NJ yard and argue for more money on the load. It took four days of different drivers’ time to get it off.

G.I. Joe
New Jersey

Dear Joe,
If I had a nickel for every bad set of directions given to over-the-road professionals, I could buy every trucker in the country their own global positioning satellite. The directions you received were beauties. The only thing missing were the famous last wordsevery driver fears the most: “You can’t miss it.”

Whenever dispatch or the customer gives me directions and tells me that “I can’t miss it,” I know I’m in for a heckuva wild goose chase. I'm not surprised that it took four days and four different drivers to get the load where it needed to go. Of course, a little communication between your company and the customer could have stopped all of this foolishness before it started, but that would have been too easy.

Regards,
Murphy and Lucky Dog