Riding with the Turntable Trucker: Day 3 Hustle
(The most intense customer development I’ve done in my life)
Summary
I rode with the Turntable Trucker aka Charles aka DJ Joonie C from Des Moines, IA to Los Angeles. We had 48 hours to get to LA to deliver the goods in the trailer and I did my best to capture my experience along the way.
I traveled with Charles to learn as much as I could about the trucking industry straight from the source: the driver. With 20+ years behind the wheel, Charles has some brutally honest insights about the industry and has been a great guy to hang with / learn from.
This is “customer development” in its grittiest form: digging in to intricately understand the profile, habits, demands, and emotions of prospective customers / users. I’m a huge believer in this process, as it will be vital as Andrew and I build WorkHound during the Straight Shot accelerator.
Combining this trip with my interactions with a number of other drivers, these are aggregated insights of what I’m learning about the trucking industry.
You can find the pre-trip post here: 48 Hours to LA with the Turntable Trucker.
You can find the Day 1 recap here: Riding with the Turntable Trucker to LA: Day One
You can find the Day 2 recap here: Riding with the Turntable Trucker to LA: Day Two
Day 3: Las Vegas, NV to Los Angeles, CA
The rush
It was all on Charles to get to the distribution hub in LA on time. He had to be at the loading dock by 7:30am and we were still outside Vegas.
I woke up in the back of the truck to the blaring of electronic music mixed with the rumble of the truck roaring down the road with no sun in sight. Charles was in go-mode with no slowing down.
After 3 hours, we rolled into LA with the sun still not shining. We headed towards a gritty part of the southern side of the city. We parked near the hub to wait to unload. The waiting games began.
Hustle and load
The supply chain depends on a vast number of things, people and actions flowing in a near perfect harmony.
Making a scheduled delivery is one of them.
The hustle to get freight to the drop, mapping out how to beat traffic, when to sleep and eat was a hell of an experience.
Ask any driver and the one rule in trucking is constant: “Be on time with the load.” It was a hell of a ride.
We had three loads we had to pick up all across Los Angeles, it was a mix of grapefruit and lemons from the orchards to take back to Des Moines.
If you live in Des Moines, next week when you buy a lemon or grapefruit, thank Charles!
Waiting game
Trucking is not predictable. After a beautiful drive on Monday, Tuesday’s delivery day was the ugly, gritty, unpredictable, frustrating part of trucking.
It took us 7 hours to get the freight unloaded at our destination. SEVEN HOURS!!!
We passed the time by grabbing breakfast outside the hub and getting some DJing / rapping in (more on that shortly.)
Throughout the day we were stuck in traffic, waited ridiculously long times to unload and load the truck and were dependent on everyone else but ourselves to keep moving.
I was certainly exposed to the less glamorous side of trucking.
National Regs and E-logs need to factor in flexibility
National regulations and electronic logs need to keep evolving to the many variables that exist in trucking. Appointments to load and unload freight have zero consideration for a driver’s hours of service. If loading and unloading take 14 hours, a driver will drive very few miles and make hardly any pay for a day. If they reach 14 hours of work, but still aren’t done, they have to stop and finish the rest the next day. I can imagine this causing serious ripples in the supply chain while the kinks are worked out.
For the day we had, the average driver would have made about $6.71 an hour.
And it would have been 100% legal.
That is infuriating if you’re paid by mile. Luckily Charles is paid a salary (a rarity in trucking) and can handle loading days like the one we had.
Lumpers
I laughed when I heard the name, but lumpers are a rising annoyance / convenience in the industry (it’s all about perspective).
To get the freight unloaded on Tuesday morning Charles had to pay a third party company (independent of the customer he was delivering to) a hefty $300 to empty the truck. Luckily Charles’s company covers the cost of the service.
Lumpers are the third party group between a carrier (trucking company) and the customer (receiving the goods) that will unload the truck for a cost.
If Charles didn’t pay, he would have been tasked with unloading the truck himself, usually with no tools provided by the customer.
Lumpers are a heated topic in the industry, as some companies make drivers cover the cost of hiring the unloading service.
Drivers almost never want to pay for this, so they’d unload the freight themselves, possibly injuring or exhausting themselves. Since drivers are the key asset to keep things moving, companies really need to cover the cost of this service.
The trucker becomes the turntablist
Waiting to get unloaded isn’t all bad for Charles, it’s showtime!
Charles was like a kid at the candy store after breakfast as he pulled his turntables from under the bed and set them up in the back of the truck. He was giddy as he set pulled out his pretty extensive vinyl collection and set up his GoPro to record his latest scratching session.
Within 15 minutes, he was set up with his turntables connected to the trucks speakers and the beats running off of his phone. Charles turned into DJ Joonie C and got to scratching.
Charles is a DJ built on the roots of hip-hop. He loves break beats, supports emerging producers, DJs and artists and scratches some clean cuts.
I was working from my laptop in the front of the truck, but it was like having my own personal DJ show. Ultimately, I leaned over and asked “Hey you got a microphone?”. Charles quickly replied “Hell yeah, let’s go!”
And then the DJ had an emcee. I started freestyling for about 15 minutes before Charles yelled out “Man we need to record this!” So we did.
As promised, I did some rapping and Charles did some super fresh DJing.
Here’s the video:
Max + The Turntable Trucker Freestyle / DJ in the Peterbilt
I think we make quite the team!
Wellness
Staying fit on the road is extremely hard for drivers. There’s barely any time to squeeze in and after 11–14 hours of working, most drivers are too exhausted to then do physical workouts. Some truck stops have recommended walking paths and fitness rooms. The food usually available is not healthy at truck stops, meaning drivers need to go out of their way to eat right.
I did a few sprints and walked around while waiting to load / unload freight, but it felt awkward with no one else around working out.
Working out is very much a mental and social block. When you see people running outside, you can’t help but start to get the urge. That doesn’t exist at truck stops. There’s no movement or visible workouts, thus not much inspiration to do so.
After 3 days I felt a lot slower and was glad to be able to stomp around Los Angeles when we made it to the city.
The full supply chain (how Des Moines gets lemons)
A number of folks over the past week have reached out to me wanting to learn more about how this truck worked within the supply chain.
After experiencing this first hand, I wanted to share just how intricate the supply chain is for lemons! My estimation is that there are about 12 steps for your lemons to go from the field to the food you eat.
Here’s the flow of lemons from California to Des Moines:
•Lemons are picked earlier this week in the fields of southern California
•They are picked by seasonal workers and loaded on a truck and sent to distribution centers across LA where they are boxed up
•The food distributor in LA receive an order from a Des Moines food wholesaler
•The Des Moines wholesaler hires Charles’s trucking company to pick up the fruit in LA
•The LA food distributor assembles the order, loading the fruit in boxes on multiple pallets
•Charles drives to LA and unloads a truck of processed foods south of Los Angeles
•Charles travels to 4 different locations around Los Angeles to pick up a variety of fruit at distribution centers, usually taking 1–2 hours to load at each location
•Charles hustles back to Des Moines with the fruit stored in a refrigerated 53 foot trailer to deliver the fruit to the wholesaler in 2–3 days
•The wholesaler unloads the fruit from Charles’s truck and then breaks down the orders for different grocery stores and restaurants
•Trucks are sent out around the Des Moines area and delivered to grocery stores and restaurants
•Grocery stores and restaurants unpack the orders and either stock the shelves or use for cooking
•Customers buy lemons at the grocery stores or indulge in lemon-infused cuisine at restaurants
Exhausted
There came a time at the end of day 3 where I was about to collapse in the passenger seat from exhaustion. I knew Charles had to be tired too, but he’s built to handle long hours. When he felt the sense of tiredness he pulled over to the side of the road, drank an energy drink and stretched out before loading back up again.
I thought about my own experiences driving across the middle of the country and how many times I drove damn-near hallucinating, but was too stubborn to stop. After seeing a professional like Charles admit when he was too tired and pull over to take a break, I realized all drivers need to embrace this.
“You can do a lot more with friends than you can with money”
For those of you that know me well, you know I’m an avid duck hunter. One of the biggest reasons hunters embrace the culture is because “You know a man a lot better going out than you did coming in” when going on a hunt.
This same sentiment was very evident on my trip with Charles to LA. Charles essentially let a stranger into his home, I’m forever grateful for that. We talked a lot about life, about family, our goals and our struggles. We found a bond over hip-hop and a desire to make trucking better for the driver. I learned a ton and I hope Charles felt the same way.
After 3 full days together, I can say I have a friend in Charles. As we wrapped up our trip he told me: “Man, this is the most fun I’ve had on the road in a while.” Despite the long journey, the limited sleep and the painful waiting game, the trip was eye-opening and exhilarating.
Charles is damn good people. If you’re ever looking for a quality, passionate DJ, give him a shout. I’m excited for the road ahead for both of us.
The sun was nowhere to be seen late Tuesday night as Charles and I wrapped up the journey in LA and split ways. Charles geared up for the road back to Iowa and I stuck around LA for a few days to visit old friends.
My grandfather had a saying that I always loved, “You can do a lot more with friends than you can with money.” It held true here as it always has.
Connections:
Max: Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // Snapchat: MaxOnTheTrack
About the author:
Max Farrell is co-founder of WorkHound, a software company tackling driver turnover issues in the trucking industry. Max also spends time driving innovation inside corporations with Create Reason. Prior to WorkHound, he worked with Iowa-based payments startup Dwolla. In addition to professional efforts, Max is also a facilitator for Startup Weekend. In his spare time, Max is a sound hip-hop artist and avid sportsman.
