Newbie Needs Flatbed Advice

Mike's billy Big Rigger a CB Rambo and can't help it. Just be happy you don't have to work or run with him. He knows your job better then you do.

 

####y?

Why the hell is it that almost all of the old timers (not just here, but in the industry) can dish out the disrespect, but when it comes back at them, it is disregarded as simple arrogance?

Listen, just because you are "experienced" at driving down the road, doesn't mean you are experienced at personal relationships, or experienced psycologists that can dismiss someone "wet behind the ears" just because they have a bigger number next to Trucker?. It is people like this that cause people in general to segregate themselves from groups of peers.

I thought being a truck driver, regardless of age or experience level allowed you into the brotherhood of truckers.

For what it is worth, I don't talk on the CB, except to find where I need to go at a steel mill. That's right, I do work for a living...not just hold a steering wheel and call it experience.

Good day!

 

Wow....fair enough.

 

Come on, have you read the whole thread?

It has already been stated that flatbedding is VERY hard work, and that a lot of drivers simply won't do that much work. Wait until you are sitting in a stall at a truck stop next to a man that is so out of shape, that he is #### near having a heart attack from dropping and hooking an AIR POWERED LANDING GEAR trailer.

#### shame.

 

Mike,

I suggest you hold your tongue a little until you get a few miles under your belt. You really don't have all the answers...

IF you are lucky one day you'll be one of those out of shape old timers... but with a mouth like yours I doubt you'll be around that long.

Just an observation....

 

Yep, ####y. You haven't paid any dues, yet.
We can term someone "wet behind the ears" because they haven't done squat. And, no, just being a truck driver doesn't get you the right to be in the "brotherhood", as you call it. The real trucking brotherhood has become quite small, these days. Hell, I'm not even sure I could be considered as part of it since I didn't start until the late 80s. I guarantee I'm a whole lot closer than you, however.

You want to be accepted? Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Stop being that guy that knows everything after a whole almost a year out on the road. Stop being derogatory toward those that have put in the time. Just you wait. Your time will come when you do something that will teach you some humility. Have some respect for those that have been driving trucks since long before you were even old enough to push one across the living room rug. To use one of my favorite sayings: I've got more miles in reverse than you do going forward.

And, yes, at this point, fresh out of school, you are a steering wheel holder, regardless of your opinion of yourself.

 

You think haulin your butt onto a trailer once every couple days and tossing a piece of cloth round for an hour or so is hard work? Pulling a ratchet handle as long as you are tall for better leverage is hard? Lobbing a chain over a 13.5ft load five times is physicaly difficult?

Try doing it from a wheelchair and hobbling around on one foot because the other was amputated. Because I saw an old feller doing just that.

Or you can try doing what I did for ten years: wearing 75 pounds of gear, dragging around another 150 pounds of charged fire hose, then pulling both the hose and someone twice your size out of a burning building, going back in and doing this for up to 4 hours and the only break you get is when you have to change out your air tank. Wear all that stuff, drag that line and try to swing an axe effectively at the same time.

Go up in the woods with fire licking at your boots and cut trail by hand for however long daylight lasts in 108 degree temperatures....for three weeks, but you have to carry all your own water because nobody is going to do it for you.

Perform CPR on a twelve-year-old for 45 minutes because there is a chance but you're that far from the ER. Lift a 400-pound person plus a 75-pound gurney into an ambulance (chest high) with the assistance of only two other people. Hold manual traction on a femur fracture on a full-grown man for an hour. Keep arterial pressure on a brachial artery by hand for a half hour knowing if you let go, your patient will die...and you hold it until your hands are numb while in the most awkward position you can imagine. Hold a ten-year-old girl's face together while trying to maintain spinal allignment for an hour until the helicopter shows up on your arthritic knees on hot pavement with no padding except your now bloody jeans.

You're darn right I'm a door-slammer. I have every right to be. I have every right to choose whether I will lump my own load or hire someone else to do it. I might not have put my time in on a skateboard, but I did put my time in. You probably couldn't keep up with me even now, 4 years after I was medically retired from emergency services. So don't you dare presume to look down your nose at what you can't even begin to understand.

You don't know where the "old timers" here have been. But I'll wager they have a lot more to teach me than you do. Whether they have doors on their wagons or not.




Yes, I do give arrogant veterans a hard time on these boards. I do not like the use of the word "rookie" in a disparaging note any more than you do. But I despise even more a know-it-all newbie who refuses to listen to the voice of experience simply because he thinks hauling a van or reefer is somehow beneath him. You aren't owed membership to any "brotherhood" of truckers. That's something you have to earn. It takes a lot more time than 0-1 year to do it. I have 4 years in and might, just maybe, possibly have my little toenail on my left foot caught under the door. Maaayyyyybe. But I doubt it. I'm thinking I don't even qualify as "water-girl" yet.

 

...and there it is.