Lumpers and TiHi's

My out-of-the-house load this time wasn't from Buske in Springfield, Missouri, but a refrigerated load from Baxter Springs, Kansas up to Kansas City. The load info said it didn't pick up until 2000 hours, but I got there around noon anyways and the lady at their office told me "Oh, we never get out of here that late."

Yeah, right. I finally get called back to the docks around 2300 and was loaded with a whopping three pallets and the wheels turning by 2345. The load was due at a food warehouse in Kansas City by 0230 and I barely made it on time.

We deliver plenty of loads to this particular place and the times I've been there before have all been drop and hooks, but not this time. Me and my three pallets of goods had to get in line, grab a door and do a live unload and this is where I made my mistake.

Mistake, you ask? I figured I would bypass the usual lumper routine and just scoot those three pallets on to the dock myself then turn and burn. Mistake.

It turns out there is this terminology in lumperdom called "TiHi". Basically, it means when you get a big pallet of different kinds of goods it has to be separated into individual pallets, and each of those pallets needs to be organized in a certain way. For instance, there might be a TiHi for a particular product of 24x4, meaning that you're supposed to put 24 boxes on a single level in a pallet and you can stack up to 4 levels high of that product before you need a new pallet.

Now, I was only dealing with three pallets of goods on my truck with a combined weight of just under a ton. How tough could this be?

After getting the paperwork from the receiving drone I was given the news: there were a dozen different items on those three pallets, meaning I would have to break it down to a dozen different pallets. This being a refrigerated load, I'm on a refrigerated dock in my shorts and t-shirt during this little adventure.

By the time I have everything sorted out (boxes kinda look like other boxes -- you have to read the labels and sort them into their own groups) stacked up and "TiHid" it is after 0400 and I'm pooped. The back aches and I'm sweaty, even though it is right at the freezing point where I'm working. Finally, everything gets tagged and signed off on and the paperwork completed, and I retreat to the truck... slowly.

Miracle of miracles, there is actually a parking spot that just opens up at the nearby small truck stop right as I drive in so I quickly park and toss my carcass into the bunk and go to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.