Team Best Practices...

My boss teamed up with me a couple of times and it takes more than just splitting driving hours. One major point he told me why he road with me was because he could sleep while I drove. If you've been driving awhile you'll know what I'm taking about. A smooth relaxed attentive driver causes less worriers than others.

 

about 10 hours and you wont have to reset. so figure 9 hrs drive 1 hr for rest/pre and post then next dirver takes over and you sleep.

 

Beans & chili are forbidden foods.

 

Figuring out a schedule that works for you and your team driver is the best practice.

It's much easier to fall asleep, day or night, while the truck is parked. So plan to make your switches and pretrips at a truck stop or rest area where one driver can spend a little time outside of the truck while the other snuggles in to sleep.

Limit your phone calls and turn the CB off. I can sleep through the odd rumble strip blip or jake brakes and car horns blaring, i CANNOT sleep while someone is 3 feet from me hollering racist crap on the CB or on the phone.

Keep in mind that sleep is a 4 hour pattern (life hack). Most people sleep two cycles a day, so 8 hours. But from the time you doze off, fall deep asleep, dream, get restless, flip over a few times and wake up and look at the clock is usually 4 hours. When it's not time to get up, you doze off again and repeat that sequence. Try to respect that sequence as much as possible in terms of stopping for coffees, fuel, etc. Waking in the middle of a sleep sequence leaves you disoriented, confused and startled instead of just waking up for a minute and going back to sleep.

Obviously respect the other person and hope they respect you. For tidy people, a messy truck is like living in a special hell, whereas messy people don't feel insane in tidy places, they just don't care.

Some people are very particular about music or radio programmes, some are easy going and don't mind listening to whatever. Some people hate the smell of onions on food and people, some people couldn't imagine supper without onions. Some people go bezerk if you move their things, some people are an open book.

I don't know anyone who ever teamed for a long period of time (more than a few weeks) and hated it, I thought I would and I actually prefer it. Been teaming for 3 years now, and no deaths on board yet.

 

That's often not true. For people who are less than tidy, it can be stressful living with someone who has to have everything exactly in the right place.

 

I didn't say living with the tidy person, I said living in the tidy space. I have a few friends who are slobs, they still come to my place (which is clean). They don't feel compelled to trash my house, even if I have to pick up after them while they visit.

2 tidy people could want to kill each other just the same as 2 messy people or one of each.