Job trial ... should i get a refresher lesson first?

rofl, rhino. i won't be far enough north to be wrestling crocs, but i'll definitely be dodging roos and dingoes. during the day, all i'll need to watch out for is livestock that might have gotten out onto the road, but once dusk comes on, the roos come out to play chicken. wombats can do a fair bit of damage to the undercarriage, so i'll have to watch out for them, too. their built like little furry tanks. luckily, where i'll be driving with this job, i won't have to worry about things like wild camels, goats, horses or buffalo.

there's an aussie series called outback truckers, which i guess is our version of ice road truckers. it shows a bit of what outback trucking is about, tho of course with all the "extra" drama to make it a good tv show.

once i become an irreplaceable member of the team at my new job, i'll ask the boss about having you over for a ride along. it'd be way interesting

 

the call came this afternoon. i've got my first shift tomorrow. i'm excited and scared at the same time. i hope i don't stuff up too badly. being a rookie is one thing. being stupid is another thing altogether. so long as i don't do anything too stupid, i should be ok (i hope)

 

first day at work went fine. i went out with a lovely fellow who showed me as much as he could within the time restraints we had (it was all a bit of a rush cos someone else's truck had broken down and they needed ours back at the depot asap). the truck is an automatic (all that worry about crunching gears totally wasted energy .... lol) scania b-double with a drop deck b trailer. both trailers are curtain siders and there's a gazillion straps to undo along the sides. we took 30 tonnes of potatoes up to the city and brought back 40 empty crates.

the company does mostly "local" work, from here to the city and back, which took 11 hours yesterday. they also do some trips up north which is a 2 day trip and some east-west work, which is about a week away. i'll definitely be sticking to the local stuff to start with, but it would be a great adventure to do an east-west job. i've done a couple of trips up north with smaller trucks and wouldn't mind doing that again.

all in all, things are looking very positive. there are 2 things i think i'll struggle with. one is backing a truck with 2 trailers on. some spots are really tight to get in and out of. where we went yesterday, you have to back out on a right angle onto the road to leave. the other is tossing the big straps over the crates but under the roof of the trailers. my throwing arm is a bit stiff and sore today from repeated failed attempts yesterday. i could never be a basket ball player ... lol. i'm pretty sure that just comes down to technique and with practice, i'll get it over first time every time (well, near enough to, anyway).