Halifax

So last night I was in Halifax.  A full load of office furniture delivered to a job site in the downtown core.  It's hard to believe that I have been driving professionally for 11 years and this is the first time I have been into the Atlantic provinces.

I felt like a new driver yesterday.  It was a good feeling.  I didn't know what surprises were waiting for me around the next corner.

The first challenge was getting across a bridge into the downtown.  My GPS gave me the shortest, but it turns out not the best, route.  "No trucks over 3200 Kg's" reads the sign.  Wonderful.  Five o'clock in the evening in a city you've never been in before and it's time to start winging it.  That's why we get paid the big bucks right?

The folks in that grocery store parking lot didn't think too much of me as I wheeled in to make a u-turn.  C'est la vie! So I found a bridge that accepts commercial traffic - there was only one other bridge - and continued into downtown.  Turns out the narrow street that doesn't appear to be a truck route is the only way of reaching a large container port on the other side of town.  I'm safe.  I'm also patting myself on the back for having the wisdom to stop outside of town and slide my trailer tandems up.  There were a few tight corners down there.  I was only 10 minutes behind schedule when I arrived and the crew was just getting ready to work on the unload.  All was good and all went smoothly.

When I finished my drop I drove up to Aulac, NB and parked at the Irving truck stop for the night.  My pick up is in a couple of hours just up the road in Dieppe.  Then it's home for a couple of days.

This was a great little trip.  It got the blood pumping and brought back some of those feelings of adventure I experienced in abundance my first few years out on the road.  It's amazing how doing a job that presents different situations everyday can still become routine in a way.  Funny that.

Oh The Prairies

Light fog heading into Saskatoon

So I've been home for most of the week and it has taken that long to get into a relaxed state of mind.  Just in time to go back out on the road tomorrow.  The good news is that it will be a short trip out to Halifax and back.  Interesting for me too because I have never had the opportunity to run out to the east coast of Canada.  There is always something new to see.

Westbound #1 near Portage La Prairie, MB.

I spent an awful lot of time running back and forth across the prairies over the past couple of months.  I was glad to get back into Ontario on the way home just for the change of scenery.  The last couple of weeks have been kind of weird as far as the weather is concerned.  Seems all I was running through was ice fog.  You know that heavy fog that just hangs in the air at around -10C and transforms your truck into a big white snow cone as the day wears on.  The CB antennae become encrusted with ice and start wagging back and forth slamming against the side of the truck's cab.  Then all of a sudden you burst into brilliant sunshine.  Every living thing coated in white frost against a background of deep blue sky.  Stunning.  Then its back into the fog.  Occasionally those breakouts into the sun will be accompanied by the prairie wind blowing the snow across the road in thick streamers adding a surreal feel to the day.

Heading back toward Winnipeg

There is no doubt running the prairies develops your mental muscle.  Setting yourself up on cruise control for hour after hour and for days on end can really put a hurt on your brain.  Staying mindful of the present moment is very challenging on those long uneventful days.

Those long days have really sucked the life out of me this winter.  I have not been getting any regular exercise in and my sleep patterns have been totally out of whack.  It's amazing how that effects your daily outlook on life.  Usually not for the better.

Winter Olympics

The opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics were certainly a celebration of everything we think of as Canadian.  We gave ourselves a collective pat on the back.  I can't help but wonder if that same energy will be turned towards the social, political & environmental challenges we face when the world packs up and goes home.  It's easy to sit back for a couple of hours and take in a slick production that touches all of our patriotic buttons and leaves us feeling good about ourselves and the country we live in. It's quite another thing to participate in the dirty work of making that same democracy work for the benefit of all.
Our athletes have shown time and time again that their hard work and commitment to excellence and teamwork extends out to the community after they leave the playing field.  We need to follow their lead and do the same.

EOBR's & Mentoring

This past Tuesday I woke up in Whitewood, Sk feeling worn out, tired and grumpy.  That's unusual for a truck driver! *sarcasm*  I was trying to figure out how to get from there to do a drop and a pick in Winnipeg then get back to Edmonton by Thursday morning without showing a violation on my EOBR.  It wasn't going to happen.

Now we all know that the sun is always shining, the roads are always clean and dry, there is no construction, traffic on Canadian highways always travels at 100 kph and there is a bypass around every town in northern Ontario.*more sarcasm*  So it makes sense that when I leave Ayr, On. and my total trip is 6,400 km that it will only take 64 hours plus the required time for pretrips, pick & drops and fuel stops.  Well under the 70 hours I'm allowed.

You can imagine my surprise when my EOBR (hooked into the trucks ECM & wired to a sensor on my drive axle) tells me it takes 72 hours and 29 minutes just to drive it! *even more sarcasm*  That's before I log any on duty time.

Hmmmmmmmm.

I'm not opposed to running actual time/miles.  Just citing that example to make it known that we all have work to do on this issue.  The changes lay in communication and training.  At least in this truck drivers opinion.  More on this down the road.

Mentoring and training keep coming up on my radar lately.  Maybe it's because I've been testing the EOBR for a while and I'm a target for information, and that's okay.  I was surprised to hear from a newer driver that the first company he worked for paid him a whopping $150 a week for spending time with a driver/trainer.  Ummmm, $150 per week?  I thought he was pulling my leg.  He wasn't.  As companies grow in size and smaller companies are eaten up by them I can see an increasing problem.  We can have tremendous training been done at the entry level that stresses safety and following the rules.  But once you have your ticket and are sent out on the road the picture changes.  There's too many driver's out here still white knuckling it through the mountains and wondering why they are on the log audit s**t list every month.  It's not from wrong intent or lack of effort.  It's lack of knowledge and experience.  A little quality mentoring goes so far in this business.  It puts the new person at ease and builds their confidence.  Throw them out there on a hope and a prayer and you shatter their confidence and stress them out.

Seasoned driver's talk about the good old days.  I think what they really miss is the network.  The mentoring of new drivers and sharing in the good times and the tough times.  We manage much more by the bottom line these days.  Big corporations, big money, lots of employees.  Glad I work for a privately owned small to mid size company that focuses on values.  I heard a saying many years ago: "Profit is the result of good management, not the reason for it".  I have always liked that.