I’ve been asked, where are you going with your blog? Are you using it as a resume? Are you going to begin to write at a “higher” level like a Maureen Dowd of The New York Times? Is is a personal journal? Are you ever going to “allow” comments? What exactly is it?
The answer is that there is no answer. I don’t know. Right now the “Flush” is what it is. As much as I try to move forward and away from trucking, the more I seem to get sucked back into it.
No wonder since I spend 4-6 weeks 24/7 living in a damn truck working as a truck driver. It’s real hard to do that and at the same time write about stuff while ignoring the world I’m surrounded by. Plus there’s just too much stuff (still) in trucking that truly pisses me off and I just have to write about it. A perfect example of that is the truly lousy day today was.
It all started yesterday afternoon. I needed to drive the 250 miles from Douglas WY to Sturgis SD. The roads were tight and icy. I would have added additional miles and gone out of route on the interstate, but I didn’t.
The address to the shipper – it’s a two stop load – was wrong. Turn left on so and so road and on the right hand side they’ll be a sawmill. Make a left on just about any road in South Dakota and you find 5 sawmills. This particular sawmill for whatever reason did not have a sign out front. The mailbox had a faded number and no company name on it. In this day and age, I really think we’re past all this nonsense.
So after driving in circles, I found the place. No paved anything. Mud, dirt, wood shaving and ice. I found a “safe” place in the back to park for the night. I hate sleeping at a shipper. Nothing positive ever comes of it.
I was told to be there by 8am. I was 14 hours early.
I’m having coffee at sun up. Everyone looks freezing and is bundled up. These guys all look like they’ve come down from a mountain in Tennessee. They’re all smoking. Nobody looks happy. I get dirty looks. I figured I’ll let them settle in to their day and they’ll get to me eventually.
About a hour later, a guy walks up to the truck and says he was expecting me until this afternoon. The wood is not ready – it is still in the kiln. OK – whatever. I don’t really care. The company tells me to be somewhere at 8am, I’m there.
Almost three hour later, a lift driver – one the mountain men – puts a bundle on the trailer. I’m on my laptop reading stuff. About 20 minutes later, he puts on another bundle. He seems to be doing fine so I leave him alone. 15 minutes and here comes another bundle. He asks me where I want the second layer centered at. I said it doesn’t matter, but to please know that I have a second pick-up.
I take my tarps out and leave them so he can conveniently scoop them up and place them on the top of the load.
Well something in the cosmos must have at this time shifted. I didn’t hear or see anything unusual. But the forklift drivers attitude went from “normal not caring” to “he can’t stand my guts.” Trust me, I said nothing and did nothing to affect this planetary shift in this chain smoking mountain man’s dinosaur brain.
At first he disappeared.Then he came back in a pick up truck with a little sales slip that I assumed was a make-shift bill of lading. Then he drove off. I had to assume he was finished loading me. He chose to ignore the 150 lbs. tarps. Perhaps he thought I would attach some balloons filled with helium and I would float them up.
I got the straps out. I walked around the back of the trailer. I stopped. I walked back. I look at the load. There was a 6 or more inch space between the center of the bundles going down the length of the trailer. He did not push the bundles together. When you tighten down the straps, the bundles would start to shift inward with the bottom moving outward. The more you tighten the material, well, know it would have eventually collapse and fall off.
As I said he disappeared. So did all the other mountain men. I think it was 10am or something. I don’t even know what time zone I was in.
30 minutes goes by. The men are back. I wave to my guy and motion for him to come over. He ignores me. Now I’m getting angry. Another 30 minutes goes by.
At this point I choose to secure the load and beg the next stop to adjust for me. I look up. Mountain man has returned. He waves his arms at me as if to say what the f do I want. Now I’m beginning to slide into tiger mode.
I yell to him to “please” push the bundles together. He says no. He says if that’s the way I wanted it, I should have “gotten” off the computer and got out of the truck to help me. I “ask” what about the tarps? He tells me it’s not his job.
I got the camera to photograph the load. That does not make him any happier. I’m just waiting a few more seconds. He says something which I don’t understand. I put the camera back in the cab.
I walk over and stand in front of his giant CAT lift – just like the Chinaman in Tiananmen Square standing in front of the tank. And that’s when I gave him a very large piece of my mind. Mountain man get down from his mechanical perch and I walk right up to him and light my after burners.
And about a second later, in the back of my mind, I said to myself that this idiot is an idiot. I’m wasting my time. He is as useful as snot. I tell him to get back in his lift or I’ll adjust the load myself. He drives away. I tighten the straps and got the hell out of there.
Next stop not much better. When done hours later, I scaled the load and my gross is 81100. The shipper said my weight was OK. The SD scale off exit 61 I-90 weighed each axle and gave me the green light through. I won’t bore you with what else happened.
I’m sitting here at one of the best Flying J’s in the system – Rapid City, SD. I asked for and the waitress brought me an awesome hot chocolate. I just sat there, held the hot cup in my cold hands and became numb. I felt nothing and couldn’t care less about the events of his lousy day.
And there you have it.
