Tools of the Trade

These are the things in my tool bag that I take to work everyday.. Nearly everything I need to get the job done without asking for a mechanics help.

Today for 90 minutes the safety director taught me how to back up via company policy instead of how I was doing it for the last 29 years.. He had been driving for 39 years - and a safety director for many more. Kevin is one of those people that will spend time with anyone that is willing to learn the safest way to back up - as the ultimate goal is to prevent damage and get the job done.. He laughed at my approach the first time - When you drive a sleeper truck as long as I have, you are 5 to 9 feet longer than a day cab - so you tend to want to use more room than needed. The problem of that is the more room you leave - the more room pedestrians / cars / bicyclist and.. can get into your blind spots and cause wrecks / injuries or worse. He told me considering I have only driven a day cab for 3 months now, I am doing well - I just need to refine my technique..

Work is starting to get much better now that I have a dispatcher that likes to laugh, understands how I like to operate and... Having a safety director that wants to train drivers instead of writing them up is a big blessing too. Now if only I didn't spend so much time in traffic and... The stress level of this job is the highest I ever had. I was pretty set in my ways when I stared this job... grateful after many rough spots - the office and I are trying to work things out for the best of all of us..

One more day to the weekend for me..