How much better was it back in the day

i have a General Lee sitting on the shelf, about 15 years ago, fired it up, freakin clowns out there, put it back on the shelf, still sitting there.

 

The only times I've had someone attempt to force me to run unsafe was while on elogs. There were several times I was just flat tuckered out and several where I wasn't maxing out drive time because I didn't want to deal with weather issues or traffic issues, I was at a good spot and would prefer to go to bed and let salt shakers do their thing or traffic to clear out. Dispatch didn't like being told "no". Their response was invariably "you've got time left to run on your clock". Never had that in paper logs. Small company and boss man didn't care how I did it as long as his truck wasn't in a ditch somewhere. Even if I was late, as long as I let him know, he didn't care what the receiver thought. He'd tell them the same thing, you want the freight at your dock to unload with s forklift or would you prefer it shows up in a dump truck loaded by a bobcat ?

 

No is a powerful word. When used correctly.

FFE Chicago Highlands office sat messaged us while we had made our escape from Ontario that was presently enduring a big major ice storm. Via Buffalo and working on Erie for Phoenix with a 2500 mile run into 100 degree summer in the dead of winter. Looking forward to it.

What did Chicago want? They had a sad sack in the Detroiter, a solo, late and later and no good for Ontario and Canada customs etc. Can we mind taking that thing in to Toronto pretty please right quick?

No.

Why the *&^% not?

Simple. We have no interest in grinding another 200 miles back across Ontario at 12 mph on interlock all over again. We just escaped from there. Got a paying load to Phonix for once. We are keeping. No way we hand over that 2500 mile jackpot to a lazy late.

silence...

Team or not, its still late due to ice storm, what part of no do they not understand?

Evidently from their actions after that night, they wanted no part of us. Thats a shame. Phoenix put us to work out of Nogales into the east coast until I fit to get ragged and pass out. Whoo what a lot of miles.

I'll be ###### if I see Nogales again. They can have it.

 

The "Lady's of the Night" were much better looking and didn't have 15 different diseases.
Downright sociable.

 

I could remember back when owners were big on respect. If a gate guard, forklift driver or anyone at a customer talked down to a driver and it got back to the owner. He would tell the customer I dont need your business. And cut ties with the place.

Now its completely different. Trucking companies bend over backwards for there customer base. And every small place gets bought out by large companies. Or two large companies merge together. This has become common in the industry though. I lost my position at roadway because of the Yellow buyout.

 

You really got an idea the size of the country going across it at 55mph.
Just Texas took all day.

 

There was a time where the boss and dispatch knew that if they pushed to hard someone would give them a little attitude adjustment.

Now they can push all they want because if you do anything other than quit they can ruin your life.

 

My uncle (life long trucker) spoke of the “back row of truck stops” and the funny, wild, crazy stories found there. Gambling etc. lol but he said there was a certain brotherhood among truckers that was lost over the years. He preferred the early years by far. I remember him saying how when the new logs came out, it was insane to think a policy could tell a truck driver when he was tired. He used to say, “###### I know when I’m tired and when I’m not.”Lol

 

A man had to know his limitations. Those than ran so tired that they wrecked were the foolish ones. I would run hard keeping that left door closed. When I got tired I would shutdown and at a place of MY CHOICE, not where the stupid Elog tells me.
One nice thing about the days before cellphones and Qualcomm was that no one bothered you.