Fun with Freight
You may not know this, but we book all the trucks that come into Christensen’s ourselves. We want to find savings that we can pass on to our customers, so we put in the work to not only find the best, affordable plants, but the best, affordable freight. We coordinate everything with our vendors from the day it is to be picked up to the time it is to be delivered. Because of this, we have had some very crazy things happen when trying to get a load picked up or delivered.
Just this past week, we had to troubleshoot a driver (an outside contractor, not a Christensen's driver) being arrested for theft... with a load of our plants on the stolen trailer!
Some drivers have been unmindful of what they would be hauling while they bid the job. They arrived at a nursery to pick up only to realize it was plant material and drive away because they didn’t want to get their truck dirty.
We once had a driver who didn’t pay attention to the delivery address and drove from Oregon to some other random Plymouth and called and said they were ready to be unloaded, only to find out that they were about 9 hours away from where they should be.
(Fun Fact: There are 2 Plymouths in Michigan, but the Plymouths in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky & New York are all closer when driving than the other Plymouth in Michigan!)
This one may be my new favorite, mostly because it happened very recently. We had a trucking company that was to pick up a load on Tuesday at nursery “A” out in Oregon. When the driver showed up a day early (Monday) and it wasn’t ready, the trucking company sent them to Nursery “B” where they had a pickup for Thursday. Nursery “B” wasn’t ready either but said hang on and we will get you loaded 4 days earlier than we expected. After the driver was loaded and rolling down the road the trucking company called us to schedule the delivery. That is when we found out what was going on. We were not going to be able to unload the truck until Monday the following week because of all the other trucks we had coming in and that is when we expected the material to be here. The trucking company understood and said 'that is fine,' and we would see the truck on Monday. But a few hours later they called back and asked us if there was anywhere else, they could unload the plants. As you know this is our only location, so we had to say no and let them know that next time don’t pick up a load 4 days early.
The last one I have is about a driver that we use all the time. He is one of our favorite drivers that delivers material to us. He is here so often that you may even think he works here. While he is being unloaded, he is one of the few drivers that hang out in the store area. Mostly because he will make coffee and help clean up the store at times.
There are many more stories that I could tell about trying to get our material here, but it is spring and we’re all pretty busy. You probably have some stories like this as well. If you have time on your next visit, maybe we could exchange some stories while you pick up your orders.
