Stupid Mistakes You'll Make

I think a lot of mistakes are going to be about mental acuity. One of the things I'm going to be focused on developing is figuring out when I can be at 50% mentally, like look at my mirrors, no one there, good to relax the brain for a minute or two as I CC. Whereas when I'm backing I should be 110%.

So many bone headed mistakes I've made in regular life and 4 wheelers has been because I wasn't as mentally engaged and sharp as I needed to be. "Knowing" better doesn't help time sensitive issues like I know I'm lactose intolerant. But I'm not really engaged and all the sudden I'm halfway through the ice cream pint I was just gonna have a little of... And hours later I've gassed every living creature out of house

 

Man I know how that is! Lol its a pain when ya really like milk too! Chocolate milk will tear me up somethin fearce, but do I learn?

 

I got married.....once.

 

WAL...

I like trainees. Here is a little joyful number I do to them.

Set the truck down on it's service brakes maybe 5 pounds application with the ground gently sloping towards the trailer doors.

Stress the trainee out with a bunch of paperwork make work requests. Have him fill this, interrupt halfway and tell him to do something else and then so on etc. When I have him trying to do 5 things and sweat beads on his forehead, I do the following.

Sir, you mind kindly to check this seal? (IF I timed this right, trainee glares at me because that is the TINY CAMEL that will break his back mentally which I want him to be at... for this to work...)

Trainee hops out starts marching (Not walking but taking VERY big 5 foot lost the temper angry at stupid trainer no good scumbum type striding towards the *&^% trailer doors.

I release the brakes really slow without that hiss and she starts drifting back a while.

It might be a minute as that poor trainee marches and marches and marches.. trick is to have the whole thing going back a mite slower than he is walking so this will work.

When trainee halts dead stop spins and starts cussing... I have to laugh and laugh.

Sometimes they beat me for it, but I smile. Eventually they laugh too.

 

If you were a gunfighter, the ‘fastest gun’, would you tell anyone? If you were the winner of 5 Bad Man contests, would you issue an open challenge to anyone anywhere, $100k to the person that put you on the floor?

You new people, if your goal is to be the King of the Mountain, don’t tell anyone. Why? Because there’s someone behind you that wants to be the king, and there’s the current King in front of you. If you shut up and look around, you will notice that they’re easy to spot. The quiet guy keeping pace with you, and that guy that’s standing quietly in the spot you want to be in. Whatever your goals are, strive for them. But do not confront the guy keeping pace with you and the guy that’s standing where you want to be AT THE SAME TIME.

Lots of you new guys want a shoe deal and you haven’t even played your first professional game yet. Bring that A Game every time you play, but keep your ambitions to yourself.

Luck in battle.

 

Nothing personal but you already made a mistake. 8-9 months experience in a lot of older drivers mind still makes you a newbie. Drivers with 20+ YEARS experience still make mistakes almost every day. The problem is most of the time said mistakes are small ones that they just don't discuss. However there is one mistake that most of these old drivers rarely make. Becoming a trainer!!

 

Dumbest thing I ever did as a driver?
PTI and didn't catch the lip of my flatbed Dottie bumper hanging over the berm of dirt. Pulled up, dirt won.
I felt like a skinned skunk after that. Live and learn. We all make mistakes, just strive to learn from them.

 

Me versus a buried railroad switch in baltimore. In the company container yard no less by the docks.

Truck gets stuck, because she is got a wheel and tire down into the fork where the two inner rails come together to switch trains. She wont move forward.

I was not in a good frame of mind having traded profanity with dispatcher....

Fat foot comes on hammers that pedal to the steel cab floor CLANK! low granny gear and inter lock in.

CRUNCH!

People started looking at me funny while I am having to input extremely fantasy amounts of steering to hold her straight. (This is bobtail, offset cab mack...)

I had torn the right steer, wheel and tire completely off the entire front end, the link came with it as did all of the tie rods etc on that side. And the left wheel flopped over free to do whatever it can to lay over.

If I thought the profane yelling was bad a hour prior, the screaming really started. The kind with that ring of bloody murder intent...

I think they are still yelling to this day. I never saw that tractor again. Believe it or not they did not fire me.