Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Peggy and I are trying to hang onto our house right now. We got ourselves into this sub-prime mess, (and frankly, I'd like nothing more than to choke that loan officer who got us into this one), and we're now trying to dig ourselves out of it. I'm making more money than I ever have in my life, and it's all gone before the end of the month.
So, I was talking with another driver, Junior, out at the GeeCee's truck stop in Toledo, WA, about this. Junior is one of those guys who likes to talk, and he talks a lot about stuff that I don't even think he realizes is profound. (Or, maybe he does. There are people like that.)
As we were talking that night, he was telling me about a newb that his company hired and asked him to train. Most of the time, you hear about newbs, and how they do some of the dumbest stuff out on the road. They go to trucking school, then graduate, and think they're truckers. (Oh, they could wish!) Being a trucker is something you wind up growing into, and most people with CDLs never make it. They're too busy trying to impress people with the fact that they have a Class A. (Yipdee-shit.)
So they introduced Junior to the newb. Junior didn't sugar coat it at all: "You graduated from trucking school?"
"Yes."
"Forget everything they taught you. You tell me one time that the way I do it is wrong, I'm done."
The boss was sort of jolted by Junior's attitude. "Geez, Junior! Give him a break!"
"I am," Junior said. "I don't want to waste his time, and sure as hell don't want to waste mine. The only thing I want from him is that he wants to learn."
Turned out the kid wanted to learn pretty bad. When Junior told him to do it a particular way, that's what the kid did. He had trouble shifting the truck, since the synchros were torn to hell, but Junior had shown him how to handle that, insisting that the kid hit his shift points before moving the lever. "Just drive the truck. You know what you're doing. Just do it."
At one point, Junior was in the sleeper when he noticed that he wasn't hearing the transmission grind in the old Freightliner. He was so proud of the kid, he jumped up into the buddy seat, congratulating the kid on getting it right.
Of course, as soon as he said it, the kid had to shift. From the transmission well, they heard, "GRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKCCCCCHHHHHHHH."
"Don't worry about me!" Junior told the kid. "Just drive the truck!"
The kid rode with Junior for about six months. It was plenty of time to cover handling snow, and in their case, it meant throwing iron over Donner Summit. (Trust me. I've done it. You don't want to.) The kid had never driven in snow up to that point, and he wasn't sure what to do.
"Well, we're first going to hang the jewelry," Junior told the kid. It took a little longer than normal, as it was the kid's first time, but they got the chains on, and they started over the summit.
Running in snow, your biggest danger is lack of traction on the trailer. I've lost track of the number of times I locked the brakes and watched as the tail come around to say Hello. It doesn't take much, to say the least. Still, once you get the hang of not locking your trailer brakes, you can handle snow, even over the steep grade of the Eastern Sierra. Junior kept him in the driver's seat, and kept telling him, "Don't worry about what those idiots are saying to you over the CB. If they want to die that bad, that's their problem. Just drive the truck."
The kid drove for quite a while, until Junior finally stopped him; he was getting nervous with loudmouths cussing him out over the squawker, and his worries over getting the rig over the summit. By that time, he was well past the worst of it, and Junior took it into Reno, where they overnighted. (You don't drive in snow at night, unless you're suicidal.) The next morning, they rolled out and made it as far as Fernley, where they unchained and finished the run into Salt Lake. And the whole time, Junior kept telling the kid, "Don't worry about anything else. Just drive the truck."
I've been thinking about this a lot, as I've been dealing with creditors, with mortgage companies, with collection agents. I just tell them the truth, and try to budget as best I can. I've got a Chevy pickup which I paid a huge chunk of money to fix, and it's sitting in front of the house. That jackass mechanic screwed me over, and his boss won't make good on what I paid him. I've got a house that I might not be able to keep. And I've got trouble with my youngest, who's being booted out of the Army. I can't solve any of this right now.
Right now, I just drive the truck.
I talk to people, and work on the basis of fact. Slowly, things are starting to turn. It's not going to get solved right away, but it will get solved. I may lose a lot more before things get better, but I will get through this. Right now, I just have to drive the truck.
