Too Dumb to Retire

It’s been requested that I tell more on the road experiences. First, a hard fast rule. I will not preface any story with, “have you heard about..”. Any story I tell will be something that involved me.
About 25 years ago I was called into the operation managers office and informed that with my experience, safety record and time with the company I was being promoted to Driver Trainer. WOW! My ego was massaged. Then I was told that I would get all of the mileage pay whether I was driving or not, plus the full unload pay at each stop. DOUBLE WOW! Next I was informed I’d get the top run, the number one account, 5600 miles per week. I did the arithmetic in my head and at that time I would be top dog in earnings for sure. The truck driver gods were smiling on me. What I wasn’t told though was my trainee would be someone fresh out of school with no real time experience, but that was OK, I was somewhere above cloud 10, surely nothing could go wrong. Saturday Morning I met my first co-driver. He even called me ‘sir’. I spent some time with the entire route, directions, where our switch points would be, what hours who would be in the bunk and so on. I took the first leg out of the yard to I-95, South Carolina, exit 8, (the old Joker Joe’s before it blew up). We both went inside, grabbed some eats and waited for new driver to show up. I waited for a few minutes and then figured newbie had gone to the truck. When I went outside, there was the truck heading down the ramp onto I-95 North. I immediately went to the first truck asked to use the CB and hollered at co-driver to stop. The CB wasn’t on in my truck. Our next scheduled stop was in Charlotte, NC. I called dispatch and was told to head for Savannah airport and catch a plane for Charlotte. Evidently somewhere around Columbia my trainee discovered he was solo, called dispatch and was told to continue to the drop and wait for me. The next day was pretty quiet, we each did our turn driving and made our drops. Once at our final stop, it was dead head to our Northern Terminal, drop and hook for the straight shot back to Florida.
On the way home we stopped at the old 76 Truck Stop in Columbia SC and time for newbie to take the wheel. As I-77 wasn’t opened through Ft. Jackson yet, it was West on I-20, East on I-26 and then I-95 South. I made sure my driver understood it was a 270 degree turn onto I-26 to go East. I climbed in the bunk and started to doze when I felt a rather shallow turn to the right. OOPS, wrong way, I came out, got driver turned around and pointed East, then ahead of us was a split where 126 went into town. Sure enough he started to the left rather than to I-26. I got him stopped again, straightened out and reminded him to take I-95 South and I went asleep. Surely he wouldn’t screw up again.
Wrong. About 3 hours later I’m awakened and asked for directions. We had gone through Charleston SC and he was on Highway 17 North, almost to the North Carolina line.
I wasn’t too polite and told him to get in the bunk and I would take it home from there.

When we got to the Florida terminal, he was still asleep in the bunk. I tried to wake him but he was snoring as loud as a jake brake on a straight pipe. I dropped the trailer, wrote out the report for the shop, stuck it in the window and got my things and left. Sleeping beauty was still doing his thing.

I guess I got the last laugh when the mechanic tilted the cab forward, we had a cab-over, and heard a loud noise inside the cab. Yep it was trainee rolling out of the bunk.
Forget the pay, forget the prestige, forget ego, that was my first and last experience as a driver trainer.

Category: General