A Smartass Learns Lessons From Women's Work! (*)
Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge the fact that most people get my good sense of humor while others, most likely born without a funny bone in their body, miss it completely. Most of my writings contain some humor, and other times the seriousness of what I am writing about demands it’s absence. Humor is fun and reflects my attitude towards life, both personally and professionally when out on the road, except on matters of being safe. Safety to me is a serious business. In the past I have noticed, whether it is a snipet I write on a social networking site or something longer like the writings on this site, people have sometimes completely missed my humor.
I’m sensitive to my readers who don’t understand funny, and realize they might need a little help detecting when I’m not being completely serious. So for this particular writing only, I’ve devised a little aid to help them along. After some sentences within this writing, you may occasionally notice an asterisk immediately after it. The asterisk should be considered like the “Applause” sign that lights up at a live taping of a late night talk show, only my sign would say “laugh” or otherwise point out that the preceding sentence, maybe even sentences, are not to be taken too seriously.
Let’s try a few examples before we continue. First, I’m going to make a humor laden statement then I’ll make a serious one.
The funny one first:
The other day my Wife was preparing to make dinner. I asked my five year old Son, Josh, what the boys do while the girls are cooking. His reply? “The boys relax while the girls make them food!” I sure was proud of my little guy but unfortunately he spends more time with his Mom since I’m away on the road. She’s since changed his thinking to “boys cook too”which I completely disagree with!(*)
See! The asterisk should have alerted you that’s not how I really feel and I’m just kidding around a bit. I would help my Wife cook, but she can whip up a horrible tasting meal all by herself!(*)
On to the serious exercise:
I was driving on 95 North through Maine the other morning, en route to my first stop. I was deeply immersed in the BBC Radio program I was listening to on my XM radio. I would listen, then try to repeat what was said, word for word, with the intention of improving upon my British accent. So far, I’m really good at the phrase “Hello Luv!” Anyway, when I snapped out of it, I noticed I had overshot my exit by 150 miles and was darn near in danger of entering Canada!
See! There is certainly nothing funny about that. Everyone thinks those Brit’s sound really cool and I personally become enamored with any girl who has a real live British accent! Not only was the whole paragraph above not funny, but my dispatch office found nothing funny about why I was two and a half hours late to my first stop and put an extra 300 miles on their equipment!
I know most everyone can tell when I am kidding or when I am not. Most times the Men get it, and for this particular work of art, I want to make sure the Women do to. It’s for my own safety that I’ll have to use my asterisk aid. Lets get on with it straight away....
On Sunday I headed over to work early because I knew it would take some time to switch all my needed belongings from my ailing truck into whatever spare truck they would have parked behind mine. I got a 2005 Volvo that looks pretty much like mine. If a truck is like a home on wheels, the saying there’s “no place like home” certainly applies when you’re in a spare truck. I missed mine the entire eight days I was without it.
The biggest difference was the engine; the 05' had no power compared to my 08'. Small grades slowed me down and even occasionally made me downshift which is almost unheard of in my D-13 equipped truck. I have no idea what D-13 means other then it has more power then those Volvo trucks without the badge on it’s side, or the engine under it’s hood.
The engine brake is another thing I missed. An engine brake is what helps a truck slow down without the brakes and if you’ve ever heard a truck making a buh-buh-buhhhh sound, that means it’s engaged. On the spare truck and any other truck I have driven before my 08', there is a switch on the dash to make it work. Two choices are available, high and low. They are mostly horribly ineffective and don’t do much to slow you when going down a hill, especially with the cruise control set.
On mine, there is a little stalk on the steering column. There are four options available on this beauty. There is A, one, two and three. One through three can be used manually and it does such a good job that it would come in very handy to stop the truck in the event of total brake failure. The best thing about it is the “A” setting, which I think stands for ‘armed’. With the cruise control engaged and the engine brake set to the “A” position I can also set the speed that the truck should not exceed while descending a hill. For example, if cruising at sixty five, I might select sixty seven as the ‘do not exceed’ speed and rarely, if ever, have to hit the brakes while descending the steepest of hills.
It’s pretty much like telling my truck, “Look, I don’t want you going over 67.” I enjoy that because I think of my truck in the feminine sense and as a man, I love telling a woman what to do! It makes me even happier when they listen.(*)
The other big thing I missed was the front windshield curtains. These are heavy vinyl and fabric curtains, one side extends from the passenger seat and the other from the drivers seat. You pull them along a track right behind the windshield and they meet in the middle. The result is instant privacy. My truck becomes a studio apartment of sorts. Nobody can see what’s going on inside my truck at all, which comes in real handy when I’m practicing my futuristic dance moves, especially when naked. In my opinion, there’s no better way to spend a good portion of a mandatory 10 hour break, then dancing around the inside of my truck completely naked!(*) For whatever reason, this truck didn’t have those curtains, just the big one between the seats (which I also have in my truck if I’m too lazy to close the front curtains). Here’s mine with the curtains closed:
The worst thing about the spare truck was it cleanliness, or lack thereof. When I first hopped in it Sunday, I knew I had no choice but to clean it up since it was obvious nobody ever did any kind of housekeeping inside since the day it rolled off the assembly line. The dash was covered completely in dust, dirt and grime. The floor was a debris filled mess and the carpet was full of black stains. In a word: gross. I would be sleeping inside the truck that first night so I sprung into action.
First, I vacuumed the darn thing out, then finished off my bottle of scented Windex I had in my truck as well as half my armor-all cleaning wipes. I ran out of cleaners and paper towels so I hopped in the car and drove to the local supermarket for more supplies. I spent almost ten bucks on supplies including magic erasers, Mr Clean with Febreeze spray cleaner (wonderful by the way), some scrubbing pads and more paper towels. I spent an hour and a half just getting it halfway decent before I left. Take a look see at the picture below. In it, you can see the difference on the floor from where I cleaned and where I did not (towards the top.)
In my humble opinion, I really should not have been expected to do all this cleaning work, but if you’re a trucker, I have learned you often have to do things that aren’t included in your job description. Actually, that statement probably applies to a lot of vocations. I’m just not that good at cleaning though, that’s why I have a Wife!(*) I certainly shouldn’t be expected to spend my own money on the cleaning supplies, so I decided to put the receipt in my trip packet when I got back to the yard on Monday afternoon, just in the off chance I might get my money back. On the receipt I wrote my name, my employee number and a little note:
“For cleaning gross spare truck interior. Labor is free.”
I thought that it was mighty nice of me to throw the labor in for free, but one thing I have learned is that as a trucker, you occasionally have to do things for free. Actually, that statement probably applies to a lot of vocations! It’s a good deal for my company, my hourly rate can range from low 20's to high 20's and at this point I had almost two hours of my time cleaning this dirt ball of a truck.
That Friday, I picked up my pay envelope and inside it, I found my original receipt with a yellow sticky note attached to it. All it said on the note:
“Who in the shop is authorized payment for this?”
You read it right, they said “is” when they probably should have said “has authorized payment.” It’s a little weird that the ‘truck driver’ is pointing out bad grammar to someone in the office. (Hold on, wait..... looking....nope, no “half an asterisk” key available on my keyboard.) And when I say “someone,” it’s because they failed to put a name on their little note. I set the note in the truck and decided to think on it over the weekend.
I never really expected to get my money back, but it was worth a try. I’m not in danger of declaring bankruptcy since it was just ten bucks. I probably accidently spend five times that amount on stuff I don’t really need in any given week. I was a little disappointed that “someone” could not have just picked up the phone so we could have just talked about it. Instead, I took the note as an invitation to start a dialogue through writing! What fun! Even though I really despise having to write.(*)
Monday came and went, then Tuesday arrived along with a 5:15am unloading appointment. I’m done there by 6am and my next stop was only a mile away at best, and they opened at 10am. I had a good four hours to get some breakfast, wipe over the entire truck again and even buy a brush so I could clean the carpet (which gave me another receipt and more labor charges, should I choose to submit a bill.) I did all that and still had 45 minutes to try and entertain myself. It was time to write back to “someone.”
Before I tell you what I wrote, I have to make a completely asterisk free statement about the people I work with. Anyone I have ever encountered face-to-face or talked with on the phone has been nothing but a pleasure to deal with. (Well, maybe except for that guy in shipping I had fist fight with(*) but we were both having a bad day, and even he and I are friends now.) I’d like to think they would say the same about me, and I intend to find out who sent me the note so I can talk with them about it. I don’t want them thinking of me as a ‘Smart Ass’ like my Wife already does.
I’m not really a ‘Smart Ass’, well not all the time anyway. Sometimes though, keeping myself entertained could easily be misconstrued as being one. Case in point, here’s how I began my reply to “someone”:
In addition, I of course had to offer up some more writing:
“I did not talk to anyone, but anyone with common sense would have approved it had they seen the inside of this truck. I have before and after pictures I can email if you would like. Also, I have one more receipt for a carpet brush (which I attached to the original) and by the way, my hourly rate ranges in the mid 20's per hour, should I work up a labor bill to send in also?”
Never did hear back from “Someone” but I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever read it might have turned red with anger, or disbelief, or both. I did hear back from our mechanic a few days later though, he left a voice mail on my phone saying he now had the receipt and would turn it in with his expense report and would be reimbursing me directly. I panicked and called him back to make sure I didn’t get HIM in trouble and I don’t think I did. He said he just didn’t know anything about the whole thing until he started getting nasty-grams about it, which I think is mechanic speak for ‘angry emails’ from “someone.” Once again, good times for me end up going horribly wrong. I hope everyone who reads this can learn from it, if you want the people you work with to hold you in high regard, and not think of you as a garden variety smartass!
The mechanic also informed me that the next time I need reimbursed for cleaning supplies I should give him the receipt, but I sure hope there isn’t a ‘next time’ as I’m tired from all this cleaning. I have learned I need to turn my receipts in to our mechanic, saving “someone” a lot of grief with having to deal with me!
The teacher in this lesson might have been “someone” or it might have been myself- perhaps we both could learn some lessons from our exchange. Another thing I learned is it’s okay to have fun learning lessons, but it’s rarely good when you irritate the teacher. I sure wish I would have had that wisdom back in my school days- I could have saved myself from all those trips to the principals office followed by weeks of sitting in detention!
On my way home Tuesday, I was overjoyed to learn my truck was finished and waiting for me in the yard. I was even happier to learn my next adventure had us leaving for Maine Wednesday late morning. I couldn’t wait to get back and switch my stuff back into my own truck.
Once I opened the door and climbed inside though, my happiness went away as I looked over the interior of my truck. The cushions of my work station seating were strewn about, on the table and on the floor along with my top bunk window covers. Worst of all, my upper bunk was in the up and locked position and it was obvious that whoever put it like that had black yucky mechanic hands that left black yucky mechanic hand prints ALL OVER the underside of my bunk! Check out the picture of the mess:
I appreciate that the dealer fixed whatever was leaking, but I find it completely unacceptable to treat a 2008 high dollar truck like that. If you had a fancy ninety thousand dollar BMW that had a problem requiring the dealer to remove the rear seat to fix it, would you be upset if they put the seat in crooked and left black marks all over the interior? It’s not my truck as far as ownership goes, but I don’t think my company would be particularly happy about the dealer staining up the interiors of our equipment and I’m sure not happy about having to clean it up! It’s good this particular dealer has a reputation of doing excellent service work, but it’s appalling they feel a need to trash the interior of a truck that I take pride in, while they go about their work.
The dealer in question will be getting a bill for my labor and supplies to clean the mess up (again, an asterisk free statement.) I won’t mention their name before they have the chance to do the right thing and pay it in full. No need to stain their reputation (pun intended) so that other Volvo truck drivers and other trucking companies can avoid that kind of service but I’ll be sure to tell you how it ends up.
I’d like to go on writing about more fun things in the trucking world, but there’s no time. Once again I have to get back cleaning the interior of a truck. On second thought, maybe I’ll take it home on the weekend and have my Wife do it, after all cleaning is a Woman’s work, and I’ve had enough of it!(*)
I’m sensitive to my readers who don’t understand funny, and realize they might need a little help detecting when I’m not being completely serious. So for this particular writing only, I’ve devised a little aid to help them along. After some sentences within this writing, you may occasionally notice an asterisk immediately after it. The asterisk should be considered like the “Applause” sign that lights up at a live taping of a late night talk show, only my sign would say “laugh” or otherwise point out that the preceding sentence, maybe even sentences, are not to be taken too seriously.
Let’s try a few examples before we continue. First, I’m going to make a humor laden statement then I’ll make a serious one.
The funny one first:
The other day my Wife was preparing to make dinner. I asked my five year old Son, Josh, what the boys do while the girls are cooking. His reply? “The boys relax while the girls make them food!” I sure was proud of my little guy but unfortunately he spends more time with his Mom since I’m away on the road. She’s since changed his thinking to “boys cook too”which I completely disagree with!(*)
See! The asterisk should have alerted you that’s not how I really feel and I’m just kidding around a bit. I would help my Wife cook, but she can whip up a horrible tasting meal all by herself!(*)
On to the serious exercise:
I was driving on 95 North through Maine the other morning, en route to my first stop. I was deeply immersed in the BBC Radio program I was listening to on my XM radio. I would listen, then try to repeat what was said, word for word, with the intention of improving upon my British accent. So far, I’m really good at the phrase “Hello Luv!” Anyway, when I snapped out of it, I noticed I had overshot my exit by 150 miles and was darn near in danger of entering Canada!
See! There is certainly nothing funny about that. Everyone thinks those Brit’s sound really cool and I personally become enamored with any girl who has a real live British accent! Not only was the whole paragraph above not funny, but my dispatch office found nothing funny about why I was two and a half hours late to my first stop and put an extra 300 miles on their equipment!
I know most everyone can tell when I am kidding or when I am not. Most times the Men get it, and for this particular work of art, I want to make sure the Women do to. It’s for my own safety that I’ll have to use my asterisk aid. Lets get on with it straight away....
On Sunday I headed over to work early because I knew it would take some time to switch all my needed belongings from my ailing truck into whatever spare truck they would have parked behind mine. I got a 2005 Volvo that looks pretty much like mine. If a truck is like a home on wheels, the saying there’s “no place like home” certainly applies when you’re in a spare truck. I missed mine the entire eight days I was without it.
The biggest difference was the engine; the 05' had no power compared to my 08'. Small grades slowed me down and even occasionally made me downshift which is almost unheard of in my D-13 equipped truck. I have no idea what D-13 means other then it has more power then those Volvo trucks without the badge on it’s side, or the engine under it’s hood.
The engine brake is another thing I missed. An engine brake is what helps a truck slow down without the brakes and if you’ve ever heard a truck making a buh-buh-buhhhh sound, that means it’s engaged. On the spare truck and any other truck I have driven before my 08', there is a switch on the dash to make it work. Two choices are available, high and low. They are mostly horribly ineffective and don’t do much to slow you when going down a hill, especially with the cruise control set.
On mine, there is a little stalk on the steering column. There are four options available on this beauty. There is A, one, two and three. One through three can be used manually and it does such a good job that it would come in very handy to stop the truck in the event of total brake failure. The best thing about it is the “A” setting, which I think stands for ‘armed’. With the cruise control engaged and the engine brake set to the “A” position I can also set the speed that the truck should not exceed while descending a hill. For example, if cruising at sixty five, I might select sixty seven as the ‘do not exceed’ speed and rarely, if ever, have to hit the brakes while descending the steepest of hills.
It’s pretty much like telling my truck, “Look, I don’t want you going over 67.” I enjoy that because I think of my truck in the feminine sense and as a man, I love telling a woman what to do! It makes me even happier when they listen.(*)
The other big thing I missed was the front windshield curtains. These are heavy vinyl and fabric curtains, one side extends from the passenger seat and the other from the drivers seat. You pull them along a track right behind the windshield and they meet in the middle. The result is instant privacy. My truck becomes a studio apartment of sorts. Nobody can see what’s going on inside my truck at all, which comes in real handy when I’m practicing my futuristic dance moves, especially when naked. In my opinion, there’s no better way to spend a good portion of a mandatory 10 hour break, then dancing around the inside of my truck completely naked!(*) For whatever reason, this truck didn’t have those curtains, just the big one between the seats (which I also have in my truck if I’m too lazy to close the front curtains). Here’s mine with the curtains closed:
The worst thing about the spare truck was it cleanliness, or lack thereof. When I first hopped in it Sunday, I knew I had no choice but to clean it up since it was obvious nobody ever did any kind of housekeeping inside since the day it rolled off the assembly line. The dash was covered completely in dust, dirt and grime. The floor was a debris filled mess and the carpet was full of black stains. In a word: gross. I would be sleeping inside the truck that first night so I sprung into action.
First, I vacuumed the darn thing out, then finished off my bottle of scented Windex I had in my truck as well as half my armor-all cleaning wipes. I ran out of cleaners and paper towels so I hopped in the car and drove to the local supermarket for more supplies. I spent almost ten bucks on supplies including magic erasers, Mr Clean with Febreeze spray cleaner (wonderful by the way), some scrubbing pads and more paper towels. I spent an hour and a half just getting it halfway decent before I left. Take a look see at the picture below. In it, you can see the difference on the floor from where I cleaned and where I did not (towards the top.)
In my humble opinion, I really should not have been expected to do all this cleaning work, but if you’re a trucker, I have learned you often have to do things that aren’t included in your job description. Actually, that statement probably applies to a lot of vocations. I’m just not that good at cleaning though, that’s why I have a Wife!(*) I certainly shouldn’t be expected to spend my own money on the cleaning supplies, so I decided to put the receipt in my trip packet when I got back to the yard on Monday afternoon, just in the off chance I might get my money back. On the receipt I wrote my name, my employee number and a little note:
“For cleaning gross spare truck interior. Labor is free.”
I thought that it was mighty nice of me to throw the labor in for free, but one thing I have learned is that as a trucker, you occasionally have to do things for free. Actually, that statement probably applies to a lot of vocations! It’s a good deal for my company, my hourly rate can range from low 20's to high 20's and at this point I had almost two hours of my time cleaning this dirt ball of a truck.
That Friday, I picked up my pay envelope and inside it, I found my original receipt with a yellow sticky note attached to it. All it said on the note:
“Who in the shop is authorized payment for this?”
You read it right, they said “is” when they probably should have said “has authorized payment.” It’s a little weird that the ‘truck driver’ is pointing out bad grammar to someone in the office. (Hold on, wait..... looking....nope, no “half an asterisk” key available on my keyboard.) And when I say “someone,” it’s because they failed to put a name on their little note. I set the note in the truck and decided to think on it over the weekend.
I never really expected to get my money back, but it was worth a try. I’m not in danger of declaring bankruptcy since it was just ten bucks. I probably accidently spend five times that amount on stuff I don’t really need in any given week. I was a little disappointed that “someone” could not have just picked up the phone so we could have just talked about it. Instead, I took the note as an invitation to start a dialogue through writing! What fun! Even though I really despise having to write.(*)
Monday came and went, then Tuesday arrived along with a 5:15am unloading appointment. I’m done there by 6am and my next stop was only a mile away at best, and they opened at 10am. I had a good four hours to get some breakfast, wipe over the entire truck again and even buy a brush so I could clean the carpet (which gave me another receipt and more labor charges, should I choose to submit a bill.) I did all that and still had 45 minutes to try and entertain myself. It was time to write back to “someone.”
Before I tell you what I wrote, I have to make a completely asterisk free statement about the people I work with. Anyone I have ever encountered face-to-face or talked with on the phone has been nothing but a pleasure to deal with. (Well, maybe except for that guy in shipping I had fist fight with(*) but we were both having a bad day, and even he and I are friends now.) I’d like to think they would say the same about me, and I intend to find out who sent me the note so I can talk with them about it. I don’t want them thinking of me as a ‘Smart Ass’ like my Wife already does.
I’m not really a ‘Smart Ass’, well not all the time anyway. Sometimes though, keeping myself entertained could easily be misconstrued as being one. Case in point, here’s how I began my reply to “someone”:
In addition, I of course had to offer up some more writing:
“I did not talk to anyone, but anyone with common sense would have approved it had they seen the inside of this truck. I have before and after pictures I can email if you would like. Also, I have one more receipt for a carpet brush (which I attached to the original) and by the way, my hourly rate ranges in the mid 20's per hour, should I work up a labor bill to send in also?”
Never did hear back from “Someone” but I have a sneaking suspicion that whoever read it might have turned red with anger, or disbelief, or both. I did hear back from our mechanic a few days later though, he left a voice mail on my phone saying he now had the receipt and would turn it in with his expense report and would be reimbursing me directly. I panicked and called him back to make sure I didn’t get HIM in trouble and I don’t think I did. He said he just didn’t know anything about the whole thing until he started getting nasty-grams about it, which I think is mechanic speak for ‘angry emails’ from “someone.” Once again, good times for me end up going horribly wrong. I hope everyone who reads this can learn from it, if you want the people you work with to hold you in high regard, and not think of you as a garden variety smartass!
The mechanic also informed me that the next time I need reimbursed for cleaning supplies I should give him the receipt, but I sure hope there isn’t a ‘next time’ as I’m tired from all this cleaning. I have learned I need to turn my receipts in to our mechanic, saving “someone” a lot of grief with having to deal with me!
The teacher in this lesson might have been “someone” or it might have been myself- perhaps we both could learn some lessons from our exchange. Another thing I learned is it’s okay to have fun learning lessons, but it’s rarely good when you irritate the teacher. I sure wish I would have had that wisdom back in my school days- I could have saved myself from all those trips to the principals office followed by weeks of sitting in detention!
On my way home Tuesday, I was overjoyed to learn my truck was finished and waiting for me in the yard. I was even happier to learn my next adventure had us leaving for Maine Wednesday late morning. I couldn’t wait to get back and switch my stuff back into my own truck.
Once I opened the door and climbed inside though, my happiness went away as I looked over the interior of my truck. The cushions of my work station seating were strewn about, on the table and on the floor along with my top bunk window covers. Worst of all, my upper bunk was in the up and locked position and it was obvious that whoever put it like that had black yucky mechanic hands that left black yucky mechanic hand prints ALL OVER the underside of my bunk! Check out the picture of the mess:
I appreciate that the dealer fixed whatever was leaking, but I find it completely unacceptable to treat a 2008 high dollar truck like that. If you had a fancy ninety thousand dollar BMW that had a problem requiring the dealer to remove the rear seat to fix it, would you be upset if they put the seat in crooked and left black marks all over the interior? It’s not my truck as far as ownership goes, but I don’t think my company would be particularly happy about the dealer staining up the interiors of our equipment and I’m sure not happy about having to clean it up! It’s good this particular dealer has a reputation of doing excellent service work, but it’s appalling they feel a need to trash the interior of a truck that I take pride in, while they go about their work.
The dealer in question will be getting a bill for my labor and supplies to clean the mess up (again, an asterisk free statement.) I won’t mention their name before they have the chance to do the right thing and pay it in full. No need to stain their reputation (pun intended) so that other Volvo truck drivers and other trucking companies can avoid that kind of service but I’ll be sure to tell you how it ends up.
I’d like to go on writing about more fun things in the trucking world, but there’s no time. Once again I have to get back cleaning the interior of a truck. On second thought, maybe I’ll take it home on the weekend and have my Wife do it, after all cleaning is a Woman’s work, and I’ve had enough of it!(*)
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