Learning Curve

Hi guys,
I've been away for a day or so. I'm beat I have bags under my eyes and previous to yesterday hadn't shaved in a week or so and was all scruffy looking this week has been a long one although not bad. However it's had some very very long days. Actually they got shorter as the week went on, but they were long enough.

Lots of hard city driving I hate Euclid Ave. It's nothing but red lights every 10 feet. Drive forward, change gears keep going shift into high range and then boom red light clutch in foot on the break spliter down shift into neutral as the truck slows to a stop you hear the shifter go geeeer geeeer geeeer and then click into fourth gear.

Then wait wait wait foot on the clutch ease up on it truck starts to buck a little bit push the clutch down a little bit and then the light turns green and ease up on the break ease up on the clutch the truck starts to pull give the motor some gas and vrooom shift vrooom shift spliter up vrooom shift 6th vrooom ft 7th and red light foot on the clutch and foot on the break and into 4th gear. Do that every 10 feet (sad to say that's not much of an exaggeration and next thing you know it takes 1/2 an hour to drive 10 miles.

Had some heavy days have been struggling with the backing my shifting is getting better but I was struggling a little at backing. Today was okay just really heavy city driving in a part of time I don't much like.

The thing about backing is I don't like getting close to things and I'm not that guy, I'm not going to if I really don't have to be an inch away from something isn't going to happen. I don't care what management has to say about it because at the end of the day I'm saving them hassle too. I would rather drop the ramp and have to huff it an extra 10 feet (not like the excersize will kill me I could always use it.) then get company points and things put on my company record of you did this that and the other. Don't care for it. Am I making extra work for my self?

Maybe yes and maybe no. One of the bosses said to me "Sometimes you look and see what the people are getting and if it's a small drop you figure well we can spend 10 minutes trying to back in and set up or we can say forget it and drop the ramp close enough and wheel it in and by the time the 10 minutes is up that you would have spent backing up you would have had one wheeler load out of the two already moved in. So you have to decide sometimes if the juice is worth the squeeze."

I had to back up today at a high school that was like an S it took me 20 minutes to get it into the dock. I got it, but god it's so embarrassing.

Wednesday wasn't all things considered a bad day. I was in the truck all day on my own, I was training with a training manager, but he was running in the van ahead of me which was cool and I just was in the truck on my own and then at the last stop he took off somewhere else and I took off back to the yard actually had a nice ride on the highway back to the yard I was about 20-30 miles out from the yard on this route so it was fun I like driving on the highway much better then this gridlock city crap.

Anyhow I must go get my 4 hours of sleep I have to report to the yard at 0200 Friday morning.

Today the biggest stop of the day was a dock stop, but the freezer is only accessible through the side door so I got to lump 70 cases of freezer up a nice flight of concrete steps.

Come on Mike, Live a little, LOL. The passenger side of the trailer is less then six inches from the wall. Yes, I backed in, lol. There is also a set of electric meters on the passenger side less then 3 inches from the trailer. No, I do not miss delivering to that bakery, lol.

Yeah I wouldn't miss a stop like that either no way. Someone else can have that mess.

I hated driving around Cleveland. From Warrensville Heights to South Euclid, kfc to kfc, is about 6.5 miles. On a perfect day, it took 20 minutes, but usually 25-30.

I shouldn't say never, but never again.

truck guy said:

I hated driving around Cleveland. From Warrensville Heights to South Euclid, kfc to kfc, is about 6.5 miles. On a perfect day, it took 20 minutes, but usually 25-30.

I shouldn't say never, but never again.

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Welcome to my life ha-ha! Shaker Square, University Circle (I abhor that neighborhood) Cleveland Heights, Euclid Ave and Mayfield Road in South Euclid and Lyndhurst and that's no way considered my neighborhood I live on the west side far away from that whole mess and there's a reason for that.

Yesterday I was over on Lee and Harvard Roads doing some greasy Gyro restaurants that have 5" thick bullet proof glass on the counter.

I did the taco bell right there at Lee and Harvard.

My day started in North Royalton, made a big circle thru Euclid, and ended in Strongsville. I remember it all like a bad dream.

I was thinking it woulda been nice to drive the automatic I have now, but I still think I would rather have Had a ten speed. There are a lot of things that I can do better than a computer controlled manual transmission. A real automatic like your beer truck would have been perfect, though.

It is annoying doing all that shifting just to stop every 50 yards ha-ha! The beer trucks were real automatics and those things worked great they were like a car smooth shifts up and smooth shifts down especially our newer ones they were as smooth as it got.

What I get more worried about now is backing up and getting close, but not to close to buildings and things and also knowing what places can you pull into and what places do you back into. That's now my next biggest worry and probably gives me way more anxiety then shifting gears. Shifting gears is oh well I missed one I can figure it out and get it into gear.

You will get past the backing and getting close to stuff. The stuff that sucks the most it the keybox stops that change keys or alarm codes that gets changed and some rookie cop shows up and pulls his pistol cause he is to dumb to see the big truck sitting there. Just my 2 cents.

2wheeldriver said:

You will get past the backing and getting close to stuff. The stuff that sucks the most it the keybox stops that change keys or alarm codes that gets changed and some rookie cop shows up and pulls his pistol cause he is to dumb to see the big truck sitting there. Just my 2 cents.

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Then there's the other side of the coin, the cop who shows up after you set off an alarm and asks what you are doing. You tell him your making a delivery and he's says ok and leaves. Always made me think if I had a truck painted like a food delivery truck I could rob any restaurant I want.

Lately we've had some trouble with alarms going off. It's rubbed some people the wrong way ha-ha.

I was working one morning about 4, and I hear a dog bark, pretty close. I came out of the trailer and started down the ramp, and there's a dude and a dog standing there. It was a sheriff's deputy and his k9 partner.

I said "If it wasn't for that dog, you'd be laying on the ground juggling 40lb boxes of taco meat."

"What do you mean?"

"It's four in the morning, I work alone, and I'm always a little on edge. You can see what I'm doing here. Announce yourself."

Apparently when I shut the alarm off, it registered a silent holdup alarm. It happened the next 3-4 deliveries, until the keypad was replaced. After that, he parked his car where I could see it and got out when he knew that I saw him. Turned out to be a pretty cool guy with a pretty cool dog.