Getting Healthy

 This post appears in the June 2011 edition of Truck News

Alright enough about burning out and everything that's wrong with the world. At the beginning of May I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and get rid of those extra winter pounds. No easy task for all of us that spend so much time in the wheelhouse. I think the biggest challenge is overcoming your own mental inertia. Finding the motivation can be difficult when you are experiencing mental fatigue at the end of a long day or facing the demands of your delivery schedule if you are just starting your day. With so many pressures on our available time it's easy to make excuses not to take the time to look after ourselves. 'I don't have time' is a common excuse we give ourselves for not caring for own health and well being. Of course we know in the long run that everything we do, everything we set our sights on, is dependent on our good health in order to reach our goals & objectives – personal and professional.

I always feel like a bit of a hypocrite when I start writing about this topic. Yes, I have had some great success at losing weight and improving my overall health over the past decade and I have been able to meet my professional obligations at the same time, but there is always a tension between the two. That often becomes an area of added stress in my day. Consequently I often fall off the healthy living bandwagon and that's where the feelings of hypocrisy come in. I'm a big believer in walking the walk if you're going to talk the talk. Eating properly, getting the right amount of exercise, and maintaining appropriate sleep habits can seem to be an impossible challenge in this line of work and I struggle with it everyday. I try to take a three pronged approach to living healthy on the road.

First, I believe you have to commit some time to exercise, getting your heart rate up, at least 3 or 4 times per week and making it a priority in your life no matter what else is going on. Three to four hours a week is all that you need. That's only a half hour per day or one hour 3 to 4 times per week. This is not about intense exercise workouts. This is as simple as going for a brisk walk on a regular basis. It's not about gain from pain. It's more of a tortoise versus hare approach and it works.

Second, I believe you have to educate yourself in regards to what you are putting into your body on a daily basis. This includes quality and quantity. You don't have to become a foodie or find a new religion in the guise of healthy eating. But you do have to understand clearly how what you eat effects you. You can only do this by counting calories – at least for a period of a few months – and reading food labels. The bottom line is if you need to lose weight you will never do it until you burn off more energy than what you take in. Forget fad diets and supplements that promise results without having to change what you eat and in what quantity. You know the old saying; If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Third, I believe you have to make this lifestyle change a priority in your life that takes precedent over everything else. That includes taking precedence over other things that are important to you personally. This is a difficult thing to do. I think it's important to recall at this point that truck drivers suffer a much shorter average lifespan than the general population. Accepted estimates are 10 to 15 years shorter. Along with that shorter lifespan comes the onset of disease and suffering at a much earlier age than what would be considered normal. I have no fear of death or dying but I certainly want to reap the benefits of a life of hard work in my golden years. That, to me, is what a good dose of healthy lifestyle habits is all about.

So I thought for my next few columns I would share some of the things that have worked for me and some of the things that have not. I don't believe there is a cookie cutter method of living a healthy lifestyle out here on the road. But I do believe that exercise, a healthy diet, rest, and a personal commitment to ensure that you receive the right dosage of each will put you on the path to a happier, longer, and more productive life.

Winter Burnout Compounded By Improving Freight Environment

 This post appears in the May 2011 edition of Truck News

Hello Spring! I wasn't sure if you were going to put in an appearance at all this year. As I looked back over the past four or five months I realized how burned out I was. A lot of that may come from the short days, the long nights, and the added workload that winter seems to bring along with it in the form of snow, ice, and cold. We certainly had our fair share this past winter. But over the last couple of months I think many of us have also been feeling the effects of an increase in business and a shortage of seasoned drivers. It's been great for the pocketbook but hard on the body and mind, especially with all the changes within the trucking industry we continue to face at the same time.

I've always believed I had a positive outlook, you know, seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. The great thing about writing these columns and keeping a personal journal is that I always have a snapshot of my state of mind at any given time. As I read over some of my articles and personal entries for this past winter I was surprised at the negative theme in many of them. After writing my column about pay per mile versus pay per hour I received a comment from a reader outside of the trucking industry stating that my post sounded grim and asked if the industry is still a good place for young people seeking a career. The last thing I wanted to do was paint a poor picture of our industry to anyone. But there is no denying the fact that we have an aging pool of drivers - I'm one of them - and attracting people to work in an industry where a 60 to 80 hour work week is the norm isn't easy under the best of circumstances.

So is our industry still a good place for young people seeking a career? As a seasoned driver how would you answer that question? Freedom and independence goes hand in hand with truck driving and that's what attracted me to the industry and got into my blood, bringing me a great deal of happiness and joy. That freedom and independence along with an above average salary offset the adversity and hardship that goes hand in hand with the long work hours and time away from friends and family. But of late many seasoned drivers are of the opinion that the freedom and independence they so highly value is threatened in the Brave New World of the present day. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep a positive outlook.

Drivers need to see the technological changes that are taking place as an opportunity to gain independence rather than as a source of control over their lives. Think of the young drivers in their early twenty's arriving on the scene. They have grown up in a world of computers and smart phones linked to one another by the world wide web. Is it realistic to tell them to fill out a paper log so they can game the system in order to drive as many hours as possible to prosper financially?

I'm not without hope and honestly believe the choice of a career in the trucking industry is a good one. New technologies and new rules require more training and more sharing of information. Perhaps as social media infects and spreads throughout the trucking industry we will start to see trucking Wiki's develop. This open source of information sharing could be a boon to the industry providing drivers with a source to share their experience and skills. Using this technology is second nature to young drivers, they have a lot to offer to industries such as ours that are in the process of moving from one age into the next. We could use a lot more young people right now, that's for sure.

In the meantime I guess I just have to keep plugging away. Now that the snow is gone I'm using the time off the hours of service rules give me each day to get a little exercise and beat that feeling of burnout. I'm dealing with the rules by doing the best I can within the framework of those rules. If I run out of time, well, then I run out of time. To be honest with you I look forward to the bunk time. As I move into my fifties the long weeks take their toll on me, no doubt about it.

I find myself looking for freedom and independence by working smarter and not harder these days. And if the path to those values is lined with new ways of doing things? I'm willing try them out.

HoS Rules – Let's Not Fix What Isn't Broken

This post appears in the April 2011 edition of Truck News

Every so often a load comes along that simply has to be looked after. The HoS (hours-of-service) rules must allow the flexibility for us to do that. Tinkering with the present HoS rules that exist south of the border seems to me like 'fixing something that ain't broke'. Take a look at one of my recent trips as an example.

I arrived at my home terminal at six o'clock in the morning on a Friday. I took a 34 hour reset which allowed me to leave between four and five on Saturday afternoon. I could now head back to Grand Rapids to deliver and reload for Winnipeg, arriving on Monday morning. I was able to reload in Minnesota on Tuesday morning and be home again by ten o'clock on Wednesday night.

Now I've got to be honest here. That was a 4500 kilometer trip in a period of just over 4 days so I had to squeeze every productive minute out of my days to make it work. I was challenged at the start due to snow and black ice on the way to the US border that added an hour to my trip. I split my sleeper 2-8-2 driving through the States arriving at the Canadian border with just minutes left in my US hours-of-service window. I would not want to do this trip every week with such a tight delivery window, it would drain me. But at the same time I don't want the flexibility of being able to run that hard taken away from me.

So what would the scenario be under the new rule changes? First of all the trip would never have taken place. With the new requirement of incorporating two periods between midnight and six in the morning into the 34 hour reset I would not have been able to leave until Sunday morning so I would never have made the Monday morning delivery in Winnipeg. Second, if the shift driving time was reduced to 10 hours from 11 hours I would have required an additional 8 hours in the bunk to give me the necessary hours to complete the run. The proposed minimum 30 minute rest break before exceeding 7 hours driving would not have applied since I was splitting my sleeper berth taking 2 hours off duty in the midst of each duty shift.

So what does this mean? Would the receiver have had to go without the freight for an extra 24 to 36 hours? No. Other arrangements would have been made to ensure the freight was picked up in a timely manner to meet the delivery deadline. Would I lose money over this? Probably not. I'd still be working, just on a different load without such tight time constraints. I'm making assumptions that there would be a large enough driver pool available, shippers would have the freight ready in a timely manner, the roads would always be bare & dry with low volumes of traffic, and the weather would always co-operate. Of course, this is not the reality of our world. In fact the driver pool is expected to contract, logistical problems arise for shippers just as they do for us, traffic volumes continue to grow with each passing year, and the weather is anyone’s guess. Precisely why we need some flexibility within the rules and I think most folks are pretty happy with the way the present rules have been working.

Having said that we have to recognize the rules set limits and not a quota of hours that drivers have to work every week. Every driver needs to find their comfort zone within the rules. Fatigue results when your running like a dog week in and week out maxing out your hours every day then just taking enough time to reset before starting all over again. Experienced drivers don't usually run this way, they would have burned out long ago. Unfortunately it's newer drivers that are being exploited by some of the bottom feeders out there and fall victim to this type of treatment. There is no such thing as forced dispatch. If you have to work 70 hours every week to make ends meet or have the threat of dismissal held over your head at every turn then it's time to move on.

No amount of legislation is ever going to fix the issue of driver fatigue. Removing the ability for a driver to go the extra mile for the customer when needed places a huge burden on the whole system. This has been well documented by the trucking media over the previous few months. It's also a slap in the face to professional drivers that know when to push it and when to park it. None of us are interested in bringing harm to ourselves or the traveling public. The rules work. Let's improve safety & a driver's quality of life through more training, education, and mentoring of new drivers.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Sometimes I think the practice of due diligence as it is practiced within the trucking industry is really taken to the extreme. The practice of exceptional customer service on the part of a driver may be recognized as performance that requires corrective action.

I am talking about the log audit report. A report that recognizes only the black and white hours of service rules. It is a report that never recognizes the effort any driver puts into his or her job on a daily basis. This report is the greatest driver demotivator in the industry.

On my most recent audit I was in violation for 7 minutes out of a total of 225.5 hours on duty. That is just under .05 percent of the total on duty time. But because I was in violation in 3 different areas of the hours of service regulations I received an overall rating of 85 percent so part 395 of the federal motor carrier safety regulations require that I see my safety manager and that a copy of my audit be placed in my driver file along with any corrective action needed.

I understand my employer is required to follow this procedure whether they like it or not and I don't hold this against them in any way. This is a perfect example of how the majority is punished for the actions of a few.

Even though I understand this is simply a computer generated report that enforces every individual rule I still find it difficult not to feel that my efforts are being taken for granted despite knowing that this is definitely not the case.

In an industry that is constantly complaining about its ability to attract and hold onto quality drivers I am flabbergasted by its ability to throw up roadblocks at every turn.

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Burned Out?

For the last couple of weeks I have been searching for something positive to write about. I don't seem to be having any luck finding a topic within the confines of the trucking industry that makes me feel all sunny inside. So I went back and took a look at some of my older posts. I was not surprised to find that the majority of them were about the difficult aspects of this work. The posts were not too bitchy but they weren't rosy either.
I can't help but feel that I'm always struggling along trying to catch up. So what's going on? After much reflection I think it's a case of just too many work hours in 1 week. Is that just something we have to accept in the trucking industry? Maybe it is. And coping with those work hours is the biggest challenge of the job.
I was listening to a podcast from the insight meditation center that really highlighted the importance our culture places on the work ethic. It is generally accepted that we are all equal and have the same opportunities. A better life is available to all and the only limiting factor is the effort we put into it. With that effort comes your ability to fulfill your wants. Fulfilling your wants is the path to happiness, at least that seems to be the general consensus in our culture.
So all you have to do is work hard to achieve happiness? If that's the case I should be in a state of rapture 24/7.

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