Funny thing, this driving business. I mean, I do a job that when done properly, gains my family a paycheck and a minimal amount of satisfaction. Yet, if I make a mistake, there can be deadly consequences for me or the unlucky person that tangles with my truck at the wrong time. That is not to say that car drivers are incapable of making driving errors too. It is just that I am on a regular basis, making adjustments in my driving to compensate for non-attentive drivers. It is just a normal thing. You look and observe drivers every day and it is easy to see when a 4 wheeler is not being driven with 100 percent attention. That is clearly a different subject for another day however.
What I would like to address today is the most basic line of support that the driver gets from his loved ones at home. The daily call to home. This is one area in the truck drivers life that is routinely a source of agitation. Some people use the daily phone call home as a controlling mechanism. Constantly asking where the receiving party has been and agonizing about any lack of control. Others use the phone call as a game to play...what mood may I be in today. Will, I chat you up and make you feel like a million bucks or will I be cold and distant for some unmentioned sin. Others clearly use the phone call as a weapon, yelling and hanging up...I have heard them all. There are times where I call home and realize that I have absolutely nothing to say and yet, I want to remain on the line as that is my portal to the normal side of my life. It is my view of the place I am the most happy.
And yet, I really want the people reading this to understand that first of all, there are quite a few mental things going on in trucking. I am not sure if anyone would want to study the mental stresses that drivers go through on a regular basis and their effects on mental health. Drivers are constantly moving, get poor sleep, eat poor diets, have high stress and who knows what else goes into their jobs. Certainly, trucking must be a petrie dish of stable mental health if you believe all the crap that the trucking companies would have you believe. Just approach a few drivers in the truck stop and strike up a conversation with them on a random basis and you will find that a few of them are "odd". Better yet, after you determine that they are "odd", ask them what company they work for and I am sure you will find the big companies well represented. I think that much like society, mental illness exists in the trucking industry, but, to a larger degree. It is not addressed by trucking companies until something happens. There is really no mental evaluation in the hiring process. Trust me, I have spent some quality time in orientation with complete nut cases. And while I could bore the daylights out of you with theory on this, I won't. I am here to tell you that I have observed this behaviour for some time now.
There are some people, usually non-drivers, that look at the trucking industry as some sort of all fun party time where life on the road resembles something out of Smokey and the Bandit or Convoy (to name a lousy movie). The truth is that for the most part, trucking is a solitary business. Even if the truck driver is part of a team operation, the job is a matter of each driver handling their respective shifts while the other driver sleeps. There have been times that I have not had a meaningful conversation with another person for two to three days. I would have to speak naturally, during fuel stops. For the most part, it was just the radio and coffee for company.
I find that there is quite a bit that is frustrating about trucking as most all drivers do. But nothing is more aggravating than lack of communication with home...At least I dialed the phone today. There just was no point in doing so I guess. Dedication:(
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