One of the reasons I retired,....was because I knew it was just a matter of time before I got hurt.
Even though I was the steward,....I would try as hard as I could,...within the safety parameters and contractual guidelines..( and common sense..) to deliver some of the ugliest freight in the most abhorrent conditions. The company could never accuse us Teamsters as a group, of being "lazy slackers" if the steward was making many of the private home deliveries,.....instead of defending the occasional "I can't do it".
I like to work, and am proud of my work ethic,....and with 41 years of various kinds of experience under my belt when I retired,.....I figured I could move just about anything....SAFELY,......and still have enough common sense to be able to call an impossible situation.......( and then come up with a SAFE alternative...)
But,.......the "freight".....that we seemed to be attracting,.....was what used to be called "garbage". Over the years,...as steward,...I had to set up parameters for ugly deliveries....and retain the individual drivers the right to refuse an unsafe delivery.
Here in Western Pa. we have some special conditions.....old coal-patch towns on mountainous back roads with hellacious winters, and cash-strapped local municipalities who have a hard time maintaining roads in summer,...let alone winter. People with several sets of steps just to get to the front door. Houses built 100 years ago with no garages.....( deliver a 100 lb. reclining chair from Amazon in the rain...)........Roads that the tallest truck that has been down it, was the municipal pickup for garbage service,.....so you whack the top of the trailer into a ..."chargeable" accident, because there is no safe place to turn around once you are on the street...
When our terminal was delivering Relo-Cubes on the small Harris trailer,...requiring a dock towmotor,.....I can recall trying to get across an angled driveway threshold on a fairly steep street,....and once the drive tire lost traction, the towmotor turned itself backward, and I slid downhill,...at a slow speed,...standing on the brakes,....for three blocks. Had to get another driver to chain the towmotor back to the top of the hill.
I don't think our current management,.....and CERTAINLY not our sales staff,.....have any clue of how things get delivered,..and how many decisions get made by the driver to avoid ABF's exposure to liability,....on an HOURLY basis......Their "philosophy" is the Sargeant Schultz approach...."I Know Nothing, Nothing!".......but their next question is : "Did you deliver it?"
I knew that as I aged, my mind would tell me I was "capable",......but my body was kind of.....questionable. And,...I consider myself in pretty good shape at 6' and 200 lbs. I KNEW I was going to get myself hurt trying to do the things I was capable of...5 years ago. Hence,....retirement......with no back problems,...no replaced hips,....no bad kidneys,.....only a few hernias.......and no warning letters for....."unsafe practices"
....(.....for those of you who will comment on my "good shape",....as I know you will,..........all I can say is that general consensus agreed that I was unusually handsome as a child......Many people wonder what happened. I am still considered Handsome,....but not all over,..just in spots...)........
