There was,.......and you know it, Bro. Mud,........at one time an almost competitive idea about work,.....about who was the most efficient with the least effort.......I can remember a guy,....Tommy Dolby,.......who worked for Gateway in the '70's, and came to work every day in knit pants and a clean, fancy button-down shirt..........all that was missing was a necktie,..........and he was an absolute fury peddling the Northside of Pgh.....
In an old GMC Astro "china closet" style cab...( which he found the time to keep spotless....),.......he would toss off stops and hoover up pickups like he was leisurely strolling through the park....
And,.......at the end of the day,.......when everyone else was clustered around the dispatch window sweaty, dirty, flustered and furious,........here would come Tommy strolling in with a smile and nary a smudge on his shirt,...........and a larger stack of BOLs than anyone else.......
How did he do it?..........The perennial question every day.........
All I know is that he impressed the heck out of this young 20-something..........especially as I was coming in more flustered and dirty than anyone else,.....and I was more impressed with the grudging respect all the older (than me..) guys gave Tommy about his freight handling skills and his ability to make a seemingly rough job appear as a minor inconvenience in his daily life.......
Most impressive was how his smooth, suave attitude got under the dispatcher's skin far, far more than any sweaty bluff'n'bluster by the other guys in the barn.......
I wanted to be like Tommy Dolby!.........Don't know if I made it but I like to think after 41 years I came pretty close.........