Welcome To Camp Beauregard

Lynn called me just as IO and Myself were pulling into a shipper to load a load .   we had been out for about six weeks and was picking up Kabota tractors right in town.   As we talked,  she explained the mess the drivers currently at the camp were causing.  Most of them were Million Milers or Road Stars and had been with the company for years.  She told me that FEMA had gotten with my company and wanted to put a new group of drivers in that would do the work. Ones that would not try to run the show and cause all kinds of trouble.    And thats why she wanted me.  Because she knew I was one to get the job done.

She asked me for the names of other drivers that would be good.  Plus she had a few of her own that she wanted to use.  But all in all,   She tried very hard to put in drivers that had done her a good job in the past.  She wanted me especially because of our past working and personal relationship.  She would call at times and discuss what rate she should charge or just talk about her niece or dad.

Any way, we drop the load I was supposed to pick up and drop my trailer at my drop yard.  Never even go to the house, and we are sitting at Camp Beauregard, LA first thing the next morning. What a welcoming committee. Twenty five angry drivers. Mad as hell because they are getting cut loose. And the company rep. mad as hell too. To their way of thinking, they should not be replaced till the job ended. It just wasnt fair. But from my understanding, the job was never going to end the way these guys were working.

So here a new group of drivers show up to replace the old group.  The old group as you would expect has no intention of leavening.  Nor does the company rep want them to go.  So we have seven days to play out who stays, and who goes. Most of these drivers, being long time company drivers, Were calling corporate  friends with any kind of storey you could think of about the new drivers. True are not.  Just to muddy the waters.

The company rep. pretty as she was, was bound and determined to get us fired as quick as she could. So she would make up work, tell one of the new guys, and he would go do it. Then she would call corporate and explain how only one are two of us were working and the rest just sitting on our ass.  She left out the part where she never asked us to do anything. She just though it and expected us to know to do it. 

So the old guys, up in the office with the rep.  The new guys in the drivers room, waiting on taskers.  What else would you expect?    Ice trailers, coming back from disaster sites need to be cleaned out.  Up until this point, Prisoners were brought in to do the job.   But not today, she calls up and cancelled them.  Then she sends for us and we are supposed to back these trailers up to a forty foot dumpster and unload all the ice into it buy hand.   No pallet jacks could be found of course. Nor forklifts could be used.

So to work we went. While we crawled up into these trailers, Angry as hell  because we knew she was just trying to make us quite,  All the old guys sat across the street at the office. Laughing, pointing fingers and making jokes.   Trying anything and everything to get one of us to get up in their face so she would have a reason to get us fired.   And when a tasker came up.   She walked right but her buddies and gave it to us. And the drivers that left were not even giving time to clean up.  Soaking wet, muddy, they got in their trucks and left.

On back of the trailers, we got to talking, and we knew what the deal was. Seven days and these jokers were out of here.  So we made a game of the ice. We started chucking this stuff like you wouldnt believe.  We were talking out walls and ankles and we had a blast unloading about twenty five trailers.  Some of them fully loaded still. And the more we laughed,  the madder they got.   But it got done and we drug our nasty wore out asses to the showers and went out for dinner.

The next day was dry boxes.  Ready to be turned back in. Up to this point, They were just hooked to and off they went.   But not today.  Today all the new guys got to go clean them out. No brooms, No trash cans, nothing.  That was our problem.    So again they sat outside the office, pointing fingers and laughing.  Taskers would come up, and again she would walk by her buddies and give them to us. And again we made a game of it and laughed right back.

For a week this went on. Extra made up work. Accusations and defending them.  Always making sure you stayed close to someone they could back you up.   We would ask for directions and they would tell us to go fly or send us off in the opposite direction.  Up till then they had free chow and fuel.  The rep cancelled all of the freebie stuff.

One driver was sent over a floating bridge that a loaded ice truck had no business being on.  He said when he first hit it, he knew he was in trouble, but when he went off the other side, the bridge was about two feet in the air.  When he got back and ask the old guys why they sent him that way, their reply was .. Oh .  I wouldnt go that way if I was you

So in that week, Twenty five of the old drivers got paid a thousand bucks a day to do nothing. Not one job  was giving to them.  They sat there and shined their trucks and laughed at us and tried every trick and lie in the book to get us fired.

During all this, I was talking to Lynn.   We would discuss the days calls to save her driver from the lie against him. And I would go back to the drivers and assure them  that Lynn was totally behind them.   Just do what was necessary and the week and these folks would be gone shortly.

The thing about Lynn and myself talking was this.  There are thousands of trucks out on FEMA at any one time. Thats just to many calls.   So she would pick a driver from each group and deal with the problems of that group through him. I was glad to be picked.  But in hind sight, wish I had never met this girl.