The Long Haul Life
No profession does more traveling on the job than the long-haul truck driver. It's common for a long-hauler to travel in excess of 4000 miles a week - week after week after week. Other than extreme amounts of travel, there is little in common among these truckers and other groups of "road warriors". Most road warriors are going somewhere and will stop when they get to their destination. The truck driver knows that the road itself IS the destination - with short stops in between.
The average road warrior, be it salesperson or customer service tech usually knows a few days in advance his destination. He can pack his travel bag, knowing what the weather is likely to be, where he will sleep, who he will see. If his destination is more than a day's drive away, he'll likely fly. He will know he has reservations for a clean bed and attached private bath. Room service will likely be more than willing to bring up whatever his expense account can handle, including a drink if he so desires. His TV will be well-populated with the latest movies and all of the local news channels. Someone from hotel staff will attend to his laundry if he wishes and after a good night's sleep his morning wake-up call can be made bearable by coffee and a Danish delivered to his door. His contact will be glad to see him and may even come to pick him up. Lunch will be well-appointed, even if on the expense account. Meeting done, he can get a decent dinner and a good night's rest back at the hotel before he heads for home-well-fed, laundry done, family and boss at the other end of the cell phone.
The long-hauler, on the other hand, lives completely differently: no reservations for this warrior-he usually has not the foggiest idea where he will be tonight. A trucker is dispatched from point to point: his first stop may be today or possibly tomorrow morning or three days from now. He has only a rough idea of when he will get there as his schedule depends on so many variables, such as "how fast will they load me" and "will I make it thru Atlanta before rush hour" or "will I have enough hours left on my logbook". Most of his daily grind is a race against the clock; shippers want him there at a specific time but don't feel obligated to take care of the load at that time. The delivery appointment will often be missed because the pick-up took their sweet, un-penalized time. No one will be glad to see him at his arrival; dock hands realize he means physical labor for them, parking and maneuvering takes up far more room than the industrial complex architect planned for. They want their product off from his truck but they don't want HIM. Truckers make demands, like wanting to use the bathroom, or asking how long it will take. They want to know if there is somewhere within walking distance to eat and where the nearest truck stop is with a scale.
He is either late-or early-or shouldn't be there at all because nobody told him they don't take deliveries on Tuesday. And, through it all, he is fielding satellite messages from dispatch wanting updated delivery guess-timates, phone calls from his wife complaining that the dog got into it with a skunk, or the laundry room sink developed a leak or a million other little problems and trying to figure out the best route to his next destination. He dreads the call he has to make to tell the kids he wont be home for Thanksgiving-again: the company promise for holidays at home never work out to a guarantee and it's simple just to keep him hundreds of miles from home when he should be there sitting down to dinner. Just driving home is no option; it's not his truck, costs hundreds in fuel and is considered theft.
He spends his day saving the lives of drivers with no apparent sense of self-preservations-and is rewarded with the one-finger salute for his quick-thinking. After an eleven to fourteen hour day of fighting traffic jams, inclement weather and rude shippers, dispatchers and the motoring public, he looks for a place to shower, eat and sleep. He hopes for a truck stop with a decent restaurant and clean showers. He can expect to only find this three or four nights out of seven; the rest are parked, shower-less and without a hot meal, in some rest area or empty store parking lot, trying to sleep in the bunk. He wipes down with wet wipes as best he can, or washes up with cold water from a gallon jug. Dinner is a cold sandwich made from supplies in the cooler. He fixes the bunk area up to make it more like home-maybe pictures of the kids on the wall, an alarm clock with no time on it, just hours and minutes left to sleep before it goes off with a siren shriek. And in the morning-or whenever his ten hour break is over-he faces cold coffee from the thermos under the seat, then dresses and, after shaving in the rest area restroom, heads back onto the road.
On a GOOD day, he gets done a bit early or has some extra time-a mixed blessing because he's only being paid for the miles he drives and if he's stopped, he's not making the rent. He finds a truck stop close to his destination early enough in the day that he can still find a place to park. He packs his shower bag and includes Lysol or disinfectant just in case the shower is less than pristine. He signs up on the shower list-and waits. . . .sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes closer to an hour. He hurries because he knows others just like him are waiting for the showers and he really does feel their pain. After his shower, he eats what's available: most truck stop restaurants have been replaced by fast food and it will either be Subway or McDonalds or Wendy's-again. If there IS a restaurant, he can expect to drop at least $10 for a meal-and usually closer to $15. No expense account. . .this is HIS money he' s paying-money that should go home to pay the never-ending bills.
Then it's back to the truck, where he can take his boots off and watch his small tv-If he can receive any signal- while he calls family, plots tomorrow's route on his laptop and possibly reads his email if he can get a wireless connection. Tomorrow will be an early day as he will have to run inside and get a couple of heat-lamped breakfast sandwiches and fight rush hour traffic to make his morning appointment. About the time he turns into the driveway, his satellite will beep with the particulars of his next pick-up and destination. He will spend the time he's not annoying the shipper during the unload plotting his next route and attempting to plan his time.
The trucker loses track of the days-he always knows the date because it has to go into his logbook. All he watches is how many hours he has left: today out of fourteen hours working, or out of eleven driving, or on a seventy-hour work week when he is forced to sit unpaid until the "Book" gives him back enough hours to drive. He packs both summer and winter clothes as he may wake up on top of a cold and snowy mountain somewhere and park the next night in the desert heat. He pays for service on a couple of cell phones because no one service covers everywhere he goes-and it he goes into Canada, he'll be paying upwards of seventy-cents a minute regardless of plan. Shippers must be called, dispatch problems must be dealt with. If he wakes to a dead battery in the morning, he needs to make sure he has a method of contacting somebody to send the repair truck. He just hopes he never has to call a wrecker-for any reason. He has enough stuff packed into his truck that he would need a moving van to move out-he tries to plan for every eventuality, both to save money and to have the piece of mind that comes with knowing he's prepared for whatever comes his way.
A trucker's destination is nearly always home. All of the time in between, the dividing point is today's appointment or tomorrow's delivery. By the time three or four weeks are up, a trucker can think of nothing except getting home-for two or possibly three days. In between, he only prays for a long run, preferably cross-country, and a light load. He fervently hopes shippers will be prompt, traffic will be light and the weather gods and the DOT cooperate. Even a good cross-country run can be fraught with blowing snow on Elk Mountain or ice on Wolf Creek Pass. He knows every mountain by name-and reputation-and how to drive it. He dreads the northeast destinations, New York City, Chicago and Ohio's slow truck speeds. He calls it "Slo-hio" with good reason: it loses him money. He marvels at scenery and takes pictures of exquisite sunsets. He meets "real characters" and true friends-friends he never sees again. He talks with his buddies on the cell phone, headset planted firmly atop his hat-shoptalk, and family talk and trucker troubles. He listens to his satellite radio-calling his favorite call-in talk show hosts who greet truckers like their best listeners. In most cases, they are. But mostly, he is alone-so alone that he starts to avoid the company of others after years of enforced solitude. He struggles and often loses the fight to maintain some sense of self-esteem after years of abuse and poor treatment by nearly everyone he meets except for other truckers. After a few years, he finds that on vacations he begins to miss the road and is anxious to get back: the road has become part of him. He can talk to anybody he meets but makes little true connection with any of them. His survival depends on his ability to work a solitary job with little outside help.
Occasionally, a salesman or other tie-infested road warrior will try to tell the trucker they are just alike. The trucker usually just gives him a distant stare - they are nothing alike at all. He just collects his scale ticket and heads back to his truck, then noses it out onto the interstate. He'll be two states away by sunset - wondering when he'll get to go home.
