Risk Reward Management

Here's the thing. I met with this guy (potentially my first trucking employer) that wants me to help him run team round trips from Billings Montana to Salt Lake City hauling 350 degree asphalt in a tanker and pup tank. Basically in the neighborhood of 40 tons loaded depending on maximum weight limits in Wyoming and Idaho.

I asked him about our route and chaining and he said, "we chain". This was yesterday. This morning I woke up with a new thought... Death by asphalt ... I had a vision of being at the bottom of a snow filled mountain pass road in a ditch under 40 tons of 350 degree asphalt.

Understand I have driven in snow and ice for the past 30 plus years. But I have not slid down a mountain pass with that much weight in a pup tanker before trying to not jackknife.

I am suddenly glad that I have two weeks to think this over. Yes I need money. But it's a funny thing... I would like to be alive to enjoy it.

I am seriously wondering this morning if what he wants to do can be done safely? I am not that familiar with the grades on the route he wants to take. I know he also wants to take the route he takes because he's wanting to avoid the scale stops on the other route which he says is to save time.

So I have to ask myself..... maximum weights, snow, ice, chains, mountain grades? things that make me go hummmmmm

Yes I can swim in the deep end but one mistake and that's a long way down. What good is my impeccable driving record and self confidence to my family if I'm dead?

Perhaps I shouldn't take the first job offer that comes along? or... what if I tell him, screw this I'm going the other way even it means a couple more scale stops and I'd rather not force my way down a canyon if I can go around it?

Is this a guy I WANT to team drive with? or will I die in my sleep on a return trip? He says he's been doing this for 8 years and it's his bread and butter. He's obviously still alive to tell about it. I just want to be sure it STAYS that way!

I'm not exactly risk avoidant. I'll try almost anything once. But I also realize that in some things there are no second chances. It only takes one failure and game over.

I think I would like more options and should keep sending in job applications to other places. I would like to learn what I can from this guy but I also want to come out of it alive.

In the interest of learning what I can. Can anyone tell me more about the route options between Salt Lake and Billings? What is the safest route? Where are the most dangerous places on them? I would like to know before I go.

 

I think I need to talk with him some more. I also need to learn more about the route options and see how committed (or perhaps stubborn) his intention is to save an hour taking a short cut?

I learned a lot in the truck about him yesterday. It's interesting how sleeping on things lets my mind recall things I didn't necessarily pick up in the moment.

Yes, he's got a cowboy streak in him. That's not unusual for my region. He pointed out to me as we passed one of his friends houses who is a world champion bull rider. He told me how another of his friends was killed in a light plane accident with two other members of the family.

This morning I find myself piecing together a personality profile of him based on the things he pays attention to... he's an avid wakeboarder and snowboarder.

I hate meeting a guy that has lived twice the life I have by the time he's half my age. (it's a mixed blessing ya know-probably good for me) He's traveled to 38 states, owns his own semi truck and his cars are paid off. He has a small mortgage is all. He's also traveled to 5 foreign countries... has or has had a boat, motorcycle and snowmobile.

I am SERIOUSLY rethinking my risk reward parameters in life. However apparently he hasn't managed to create a financial situation in his life that he's out of the rat race yet either. He still 'works because he has to' rather than because he has the option to choose to do whatever he wants if you know what I mean.


and today i get to go trudge my way back to a job I despise that doesn't pay me enough to make ends meet to think about it all. ouch!!!!!


yes I'm alive. I like that. In fact I like living a lot!


the run pays about twice what I am making now. If it can be done safely I'm all for it. I just don't know enough right now to be sure it can.


I understand that to live means risk. I don't know right now how flexible he is. I think I need to know at least that he's not a dare devil. Apparently his friends (some at least) haven't fared to well.

 

that is a question i have asked him too. I have kind of gotten double speak as the answer. apparently there is a point where the season shuts down the run.

The trouble I am having is he's so focused on the eminent birth of his son his mind really isn't in the business. It's hard to get answers from him and I don't know if it's because he doesn't know the answers or because he's just too distracted by the really important things in his life (which I'm all for btw) to lay out the details of what is down the road for a new trainee.

Right now I am playing the patience card and trying to pull as much information from him as fast as I can get his attention and he can download it out of his brain to me.

 

what I haven't seen yet on the thread ...is anyone tell me more about the routes that I asked about. Anyone know those roads?