Do not read the following blog. Just enjoy this fine photograph of a happy duck and then go look at some lovely naked girls. As if you would ever do otherwise.
Things aren't going all that well for me in the trucking business. I had another accident today a week into my new position at Werner, and I ran two hours over my legal hours.
To be successful as a truck driver, or in many other professions for that matter, you have to be very non-volatile emotionally. At the center of me there isn't stillness, there's a storm and pressure breaks it loose and it fucks me up in a lot of ways that aren't at all cool where jobs are concerned.
Anyway, today I was thinking about Brad Warner's last article, in which he mentions a noted buddhist teacher making the statement that there is no "way to peace", peace is the way. I get that; if peace is contingent on loss or gain there can be no peace, as it is always contingent on some changeable circumstance. Peace has to be make by peace, not by contingencies of circumstance. The buddha said someting similar, " I gained not the least thing when I attained supreme perfect enlightenment, and for that exact reason it is called supreme perfect enlightenment." If enlightenment could be were as gain, that would be a manifestation of attachment, with its concomitant of aversion to loss, which is the opposite of the freedom from attachment and averson which is what enlightenment is.
So anyway I was thinking about this sort of thing as I was heading toward my delivery location today. I was thinking on the way there "it's a good thing that this consignee is on a main thoroughfare because that means they will have an offstreet loading area out of traffic, unlike some place on a side street which often have docks you have to back into right from the street. But when I got there OH MY FUCKING GOD not only are the loading docks accessed from the fucking busy four lane thouroughfare but you have to FUCKING BLINDSIDE IN. So I parked the fucking truck on the street and went to find someone to tell me which door to back into, and after not getting any help from anyone a forklift driver finally tells me I can pull in off the street and head out back to the two loading docks out in back where they take off paper rolls. Which for you non-truckers are gigantic immensely heavy ( eight of them weighed 42,000 pounds ) rolls that are part of the unseen understructure of society that most people never see. So I went back out and got my truck over to the loading docks I'd been sent to. After waiting for nearly an hour for them to start I got out of the truck to head over to the recieving office to ask if they knew I was there, and this guy walks over to me from the front parking lot. . . and it turns out I hit his ford ranger with the tail end of my trailer as it swung around when I was trying to get the fucking truck around a fucking tight corner. I had no Idea it had happened, as the truck is very loud and heavy and clipping off a plastic tail light does not make much of an impact for you to notice when you're up in the cab. So that's my third accident.
I keep telling myself that it's only five months until I have a year of experience and can start looking for local jobs, but whenever I try to make myself feel better by telling myself that I have a really terrible high stress day that makes is look like no way in fucking hell I'm going to make it through those five months. Who's going to hire me with all these accidents I keep having? I have this five thousand dollar student loan to pay off that I haven't even been able to make any payments on yet and I totally suck as a truck driver and may not last on the profession long enough to be able to pay it off. A while ago when I as in connecticut I was at a rest stop and I saw a coca cola tractor trailer. About like what I expect my brother will be driving. It was a day cab, which has a shorter wheel base and better visibility, and the trailer was maybe 40-45 feet long with the wheels all the way at the back so no swingout. I could drive something like that pretty damn well I think, but I'm going to fucking blow my chance to ever drive a truck like that because of the accidents I'm having trying to maneuver over the road monster trucks into places that were not designed for them to fit into.
Couple of days ago I had another super fun time. I got into a really tight dock by pulling into a driveway opposite that was prominently signed NO TRUCKS but I went in anyway. So far so good.
Then I get over to the office and there's another Werner driver there and she's got mechanical trouble with her truck and she asks me if she could talk me into backing her trailer in for her. Now this is another oh-my-fucking-god nightmare loading dock to get into featuring a narrow street large rocks, a fire hydrant, telephone pole, and shiny expensive tractor trailer trucks serving as fun obstacles to get around. I so did not want to do that, but I my coward heart refused to just be an asshole and say HELL NO so I agreed to back her trailer in for her. I asked her to signal me to help me get it in, which proved to be a mistake as I generally had no fucking idea what she was telling me to do. in retrospect I might have been able to get the fucking thing in for her if I'd just done it myself and gotten out and looked maybe forty times as I inched the fucking thing in, but anyway after maybe seven or eight tries I gave up and decided to drop her trailer. I pulled the fifth wheel unlock and was going to drop it, but I realized I was blocking a driveway, so I backed it up, and managed to hit the curb with the landing gear, and when pulled forward to get the landing gear off the curb the trailer fell off the fifth wheel as the unlock lever hadn't locke back into place. So then me and her and other people where trying to crank up the landing gear on a trailer with 30,000 pounds of shit on it with a lever that wouldn't go into low gear and was old and rusty. And the throughbolt on the crank handle broke off and I thought I was completely fucked at that point. But the woman whose trailer I'd just had this assed off performance with was able to get a new throughbolt for the crank handle from the mechanics who'd come to fix her truck. Oh and by the way I'd burnt some rubber trying to force the truck back under the trailer with engine power and that didn't work. Finally it occurred to me tho reinflate my suspension, which I'd deflated to try and get my fifth wheel back under the trailer. With the suspension inflated back up the trailer was raised and we could lower the landing gear enough so that I could get under it when I deflated my suspension again and the day was saved. I just got a bruise on my butt for my trouble when I was getting physical with that damn crank arm.
So anyway, some days I wonder if I can ever do anything right. I'm a butterfly in a world of oxen, I don't belong, I don't do too many things well and it's not fucking okay.
I don't know, maybe I'll be as smiley my next blog. Today I ran two hours over my legal seventy, and I think . . and fuckit. enough for today.
Things aren't going all that well for me in the trucking business. I had another accident today a week into my new position at Werner, and I ran two hours over my legal hours.
To be successful as a truck driver, or in many other professions for that matter, you have to be very non-volatile emotionally. At the center of me there isn't stillness, there's a storm and pressure breaks it loose and it fucks me up in a lot of ways that aren't at all cool where jobs are concerned.
Anyway, today I was thinking about Brad Warner's last article, in which he mentions a noted buddhist teacher making the statement that there is no "way to peace", peace is the way. I get that; if peace is contingent on loss or gain there can be no peace, as it is always contingent on some changeable circumstance. Peace has to be make by peace, not by contingencies of circumstance. The buddha said someting similar, " I gained not the least thing when I attained supreme perfect enlightenment, and for that exact reason it is called supreme perfect enlightenment." If enlightenment could be were as gain, that would be a manifestation of attachment, with its concomitant of aversion to loss, which is the opposite of the freedom from attachment and averson which is what enlightenment is.
So anyway I was thinking about this sort of thing as I was heading toward my delivery location today. I was thinking on the way there "it's a good thing that this consignee is on a main thoroughfare because that means they will have an offstreet loading area out of traffic, unlike some place on a side street which often have docks you have to back into right from the street. But when I got there OH MY FUCKING GOD not only are the loading docks accessed from the fucking busy four lane thouroughfare but you have to FUCKING BLINDSIDE IN. So I parked the fucking truck on the street and went to find someone to tell me which door to back into, and after not getting any help from anyone a forklift driver finally tells me I can pull in off the street and head out back to the two loading docks out in back where they take off paper rolls. Which for you non-truckers are gigantic immensely heavy ( eight of them weighed 42,000 pounds ) rolls that are part of the unseen understructure of society that most people never see. So I went back out and got my truck over to the loading docks I'd been sent to. After waiting for nearly an hour for them to start I got out of the truck to head over to the recieving office to ask if they knew I was there, and this guy walks over to me from the front parking lot. . . and it turns out I hit his ford ranger with the tail end of my trailer as it swung around when I was trying to get the fucking truck around a fucking tight corner. I had no Idea it had happened, as the truck is very loud and heavy and clipping off a plastic tail light does not make much of an impact for you to notice when you're up in the cab. So that's my third accident.
I keep telling myself that it's only five months until I have a year of experience and can start looking for local jobs, but whenever I try to make myself feel better by telling myself that I have a really terrible high stress day that makes is look like no way in fucking hell I'm going to make it through those five months. Who's going to hire me with all these accidents I keep having? I have this five thousand dollar student loan to pay off that I haven't even been able to make any payments on yet and I totally suck as a truck driver and may not last on the profession long enough to be able to pay it off. A while ago when I as in connecticut I was at a rest stop and I saw a coca cola tractor trailer. About like what I expect my brother will be driving. It was a day cab, which has a shorter wheel base and better visibility, and the trailer was maybe 40-45 feet long with the wheels all the way at the back so no swingout. I could drive something like that pretty damn well I think, but I'm going to fucking blow my chance to ever drive a truck like that because of the accidents I'm having trying to maneuver over the road monster trucks into places that were not designed for them to fit into.
Couple of days ago I had another super fun time. I got into a really tight dock by pulling into a driveway opposite that was prominently signed NO TRUCKS but I went in anyway. So far so good.
Then I get over to the office and there's another Werner driver there and she's got mechanical trouble with her truck and she asks me if she could talk me into backing her trailer in for her. Now this is another oh-my-fucking-god nightmare loading dock to get into featuring a narrow street large rocks, a fire hydrant, telephone pole, and shiny expensive tractor trailer trucks serving as fun obstacles to get around. I so did not want to do that, but I my coward heart refused to just be an asshole and say HELL NO so I agreed to back her trailer in for her. I asked her to signal me to help me get it in, which proved to be a mistake as I generally had no fucking idea what she was telling me to do. in retrospect I might have been able to get the fucking thing in for her if I'd just done it myself and gotten out and looked maybe forty times as I inched the fucking thing in, but anyway after maybe seven or eight tries I gave up and decided to drop her trailer. I pulled the fifth wheel unlock and was going to drop it, but I realized I was blocking a driveway, so I backed it up, and managed to hit the curb with the landing gear, and when pulled forward to get the landing gear off the curb the trailer fell off the fifth wheel as the unlock lever hadn't locke back into place. So then me and her and other people where trying to crank up the landing gear on a trailer with 30,000 pounds of shit on it with a lever that wouldn't go into low gear and was old and rusty. And the throughbolt on the crank handle broke off and I thought I was completely fucked at that point. But the woman whose trailer I'd just had this assed off performance with was able to get a new throughbolt for the crank handle from the mechanics who'd come to fix her truck. Oh and by the way I'd burnt some rubber trying to force the truck back under the trailer with engine power and that didn't work. Finally it occurred to me tho reinflate my suspension, which I'd deflated to try and get my fifth wheel back under the trailer. With the suspension inflated back up the trailer was raised and we could lower the landing gear enough so that I could get under it when I deflated my suspension again and the day was saved. I just got a bruise on my butt for my trouble when I was getting physical with that damn crank arm.
So anyway, some days I wonder if I can ever do anything right. I'm a butterfly in a world of oxen, I don't belong, I don't do too many things well and it's not fucking okay.
I don't know, maybe I'll be as smiley my next blog. Today I ran two hours over my legal seventy, and I think . . and fuckit. enough for today.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
I have nothing to say except dont give up. If it is your dream job, go for it. You can do it.