It's been winter; dark and cold. I sank into my depressive phase, becoming unproductive as the layers of gauze wrapped themselves around me. It's more like a straitjacket than a cocoon; there's no emerging ready to fly away on gossamer wings. Rather, I poke my head out and look at the mess that I've allowed to accumulate around me and just want to draw the frayed ends of the gauze up to my chin like a comforter and go back to sleep.
Ack; No; Enough! Throw back the covers and arise! It's Springtime!
Oh, I've had adventures, things that I could have written about. It's been a hard winter, with lots of snow. I got stuck in the snow with my big truck three times. Twice I got myself out but I had to be pulled out of an icy parking lot on a hill that I just couldn't get any traction on. Fortunately one of the workers there had a bad ass pickup truck with 300+ turbocharged diesel horsepower under the hood and huge tires so I didn't have to involve the company and call a tow truck. Another of the workers sidled up to me as the guy with the pickup truck was attaching the chain and said, “He's been bragging about how his truck could haul a semi, I guess we'll find out.” I got the feeling he sort of hoped the pickup wasn't up to the task.
The whole crew came out to watch. Bets were probably placed. Then, with tires spinning and the pickup truck veering from side to side at the end of the taught chain we were up the hill and out onto the four lane highway, coming to a stop in the middle “turn only” lane to unhook. The only trouble was that I was now pointed in the wrong direction. I guess we should have communicated a little better before we started. With workers stopping traffic I just naturally assumed we'd be turning left, the easier turn for a big truck to make. When I realize we were turning right I thought, “Shit, I hope this guys knows that I need to go way out before starting the turn or I'll just end up in that snow bank!” I'm fortunate that the oncoming cars were just let loose from the stoplight because that hadn't been taken into account and there wasn't anyone on that side of the road to stop traffic. The driver saw what was happening though, and in his spinning swing back left kept going into the oncoming lanes and I was able to clear the turn. I don't know if the other workers were cheering or not, but I was. The situation was resolved early enough for me to make my next appointment on time, even given that I had to go many miles out of my way to get turned around. On a snowy day like that I might still be sitting there waiting for a tow truck.
My superiors know nothing of that event, or of the other times that I was stuck, or of many things, like the time that my air line came unhooked, and I don't want them to. I'm sure that allowing a worker to pull me out like that was against company policy, and probably for good insurance reasons, but it sure made my life a lot easier. Not only would I have had to wait for the tow truck, and then been late for my next appointment and probably not have gotten back in time to go home that night, it would have gone into my employee record as an “incident” and I would have had to do online training and receive “counseling.” Like it was all my fault somehow .
I would expect them to understand the heightened stress of driving in snowy conditions, however. There were many snow days and I was only late to an appointment once. I called that time from three miles away from my destination, with fifteen minuets to go before I was due, to say that I was in a traffic backup. At least I wasn't charged a service failure for that but through it all did I receive a single “Thank you,” or “Good job?” No. < >I'd left the house four hours early in order to be on time for that traffic backup, absent which I would have made the appointment, like I made all of my other appointments on equally bad or worse days.
Bitter, are we? I hope my bitching is at least amusing?
“Foobar,” that word from Saving Private Ryan to indicate the ineptitude of bureaucracy. The Company has had this account that I'm on for several years. The account requires that we have lift gates on the back of some of our trailers. The customer pays more for a lift gate delivery. The lift gates are powered by batteries that are charged from the truck alternator through a plug tandem to the plug that powers the brake lights and turn signals. Only none of our trucks dedicated to the account have that second plug, until recently. When the batteries would run down the trailer would have to be put into the shop for them to get recharged. Foobar. What a waste.
I don't know how much I've told you, if at all, about the replacement Fleet Manager who was fired. He was a little inept, but in a likeable way. He was just sort of fumbling, which cost him his job. He, however, managed to finally arrange for our trucks to have the “stinger kits,” those second plugs to recharge the lift gate batteries, installed. Now...if I'd had my last B Service done in Louisville, like it was supposed to have been done (see below) then I would have had a stinger kit on my truck. But we all know how that turned out.
The years have been hard on those poor batteries and this winter harder still. I would have to take my socks off to count the times that I've had lift gate deliveries where the lift gate wouldn't work. The other drivers on the account tell me that even with the stinger kit the batteries are sluggish. But does the company want to replace them? Hell no, not after the “expense” of installing the stinger kits.
So anyway, I'm still low man on the totem pole at this account. I'm the one with the sleeper cab even though some of the places we service are too tight for anything but a day cab with the 53' trailers we pull. The reasoning is that with a sleeper cab I can do the long distance runs, rather than pay for a hotel room for the driver like most regional delivery companies do.
They gave me advance warning on Friday, bless their hearts, that I would have an over the road load the following week going to Iola Kansas, about sixty miles southwest of Kansas City. I didn't know why I was to deliver a load so far away but I kind of figured it was because the customer had asked for a lift gate. I was right. You can guess what happened. I'm the only one without a stinger kit, but the only one with a sleeper cab. Foobar. Fortunately the lift gate worked long enough to get the two huge side by side refrigerators off the back of the truck because the ramp that we had to use to unload the rest of the trailer was narrow and slippery with the early morning dew. Someone could have been hurt. There was more heavy stuff to come but the ramp had dried off by then.
After I got back to Plainfield the hours of service regulations wouldn't let me drive until well after all of the Electrolux loads were scheduled to leave the yard. My fleet manager said he'd find something for me to do, move some trailers around or maybe a “bottle run” or two for the Pepsi account, something so that I could make a little money. I dropped my trailer and waited. He called me and said there wasn't anything except a multi-stop load going to St. Louis for the Aurora Trailer Parts account that he also manages. He said they really needed help covering the load and asked if I was willing to do it.
St. Louis? I could make it there and back in a day, but not in time to go home that night. I'd have to spend another night on the truck. Part of me wanted to take the day off but I really need the money so I said I'd do it. I had actually packed an extra day's clothing just in case something like this happened. My cat has towers of dry food and water but I called my neighbor and asked if they'd give her some wet food and clean out her litter box.
So it was all good, but when the dispatch information came through I saw that although the first three stops were in the St. Louis area, the fourth stop was in Springfield, Missouri, and the final stop all the way down in Joplin, on the Oklahoma line. “Sorry, I had to give you a little bit longer load,” my fleet manager said. Like hell, he knew all along what the load was. “I'll give you something extra for doing this, we really need the help,” he said, “and I'll dead head you back so you don't have to worry about a back haul.” I suppose I could have refused it, but I didn't. Instead I called my neighbor back to ask if they could take care of Nikity on Friday as well.
Oh lord, I had some adventures on that run. The first two stops were inner city St. Louis. One on the south side, one on the north. The inner city is always fun with a big truck, I assure you, but I did get to drive right beneath the Arch, my favorite piece of public art.
The last two stops were scheduled on the following day, Thursday. I got to the first one outside of Springfield a half an hour before the place officially opened. My fleet manager sent me a message saying, “Since you're getting such an early start we should be able to get you a back haul.” Now how did I know that he was going to renig on his promise to dead head me home?
Truthfully I didn't mind. It seemed just a little too wasteful to drive all that way, consume all that fuel and release all that carbon for no other purpose than to get me home.
Now, I'm not a proponent of Murphy's law, but I couldn't have used my subsequent experiences as an argument against it. First of all, getting to a receiver early is no guarantee that they will unload you early. I had to wait both there and at the final stop in Joplin. Then, the back haul picked up in Coffeeville, Kansas, another ninety miles west. On the way out I crossed several bridges with weight limits and calculated how heavy my load could be and still let me take that direct route back. You guessed it, the load was twice as heavy. I had to go way down into Oklahoma and jump on the Turnpike to get pointed back in the right direction.
Then again I actually can disprove Murphy's law, here and now. The law states that “If something can go wrong, then it will.” Simple logic. If that were the case then there would also have been weight limits on the highways that I chose to take, or I would have knocked mirrors with a passing truck on those narrow roads, or my “Pike Pass,” a transponder ez pass for the Oklahoma Turnpike, wouldn't have worked (I'd often wondered why they put a Pike Pass on an Indiana based regional truck. “I'm never going to drive this truck in Oklahoma,” I said to myself. Never say never.) and I didn't have the cash to cover the toll. Hell, I would have run over a bus full of school children and survived the resultant fiery crash so that I could live the rest of my life in remorse. That's the reason that no matter how bad things get on the road truck drivers never say, “What else could go wrong.”
Or I wouldn't have made it back to Plainfield in time for my weekend and the neighbors would have had to take care of the cat for another day. No, it was Indianapolis Friday rush hour by the time that I got back, but I did make it. There was actually a point to all of this besides bitching. This was supposed to be a lead in to a reflection on life over the road, both how I miss it, and how I'm glad as hell I don't have to do it anymore, except for these small exceptions. More importantly, I was going to reflect on how so much of my identity is still involved with being a driver. I laid The Reluctant Trucker to rest, but yet I continue. The only trouble is I'm pooped after all this writing, and you're probably pooped too, if you've read this far. Perhaps the question will inform future posts? We can only wait and see.
