Prelude
"Is your journey really necessary?" Anonymous--British wartime slogan
I have been in the trucking business for thirty-three years and, fortunately, I do not know a helluva lot about a truck. I have what might be called an a priori knowledge of the mechanics of a truck, culled from overhearing conversations between drivers: "We need a lower rear-end ratio to give us more top end if we're going to run Florida," drivers and mechanics: "Don't you know how to adjust a fucking clutch? I want at least three inches of free play before it catches!" mechanics: "I don't think the boss knows the difference between a clutch and a fucking pressure plate," and salesmen trying to beef up the price of a new truck: "A bigger engine will give you better fuel mileage because it doesn't have to work as hard as a smaller engine. What you want is a cruising speed at a low RPM, not a cruising speed up against the governor. And you'll get the extra cost of a bigger engine back in the resale." My disingenuously astute retort to said salesmen's logic: "This is what I do. This is where I go. Spec the truck accordingly!" But I said it like I did not want to be bothered with details; like I was too busy. Actually, the attitude was a ruse, purposely designed to mask the fact that I knew nothing about specing a new truck for what I did and where I went. And my mechanic is right. I do not know the difference between a clutch and a fucking pressure plate. First time I saw the two come out of a box I thought the clutch was the pressure plate and the pressure plate the clutch.
When I changed the emphasis of my business from trucking to truck brokering I down-played the significance of new truck orders like this: "I am a truck broker first and a truck owner second. The only reason I own trucks is because owning trucks gives me the power to take more loads. I am not afraid to take orders because I can put them on my equipment if I cannot hire an outside truck. Owning trucks insures the orders I take will be covered, and that is key. Covering the orders. All I have to sell is service. And bad service means no customers...You know what I do. You know where I go. Spec the goddamn truck accordingly!" It was spoken with an insouciance that suggested I knew what I was talking about and did not care as long as my salesman got it right, althoough I did not know what right was. Then I would beat on my salesman to lower the price of the truck. I worked the price angle real hard, as if beating my salesman up somehow conveyed to him, and everyone else involved in the deal, that I knew what I was talking about. I once held up a new truck order for ninety days over a one hundred fifty dollar difference in purchase price. That was after I threw my salesman out of my office because he would not give me what I wanted for the truck I was trading in...you know, the truck with the bigger engine.
I have often wondered how mechanics and truck drivers (people in general) learn about a truck: it's components, how each component functions, and how each component compliments the next; like a series of steps that suddenly becomes a dance when you finally understand the rhythm. At what moment did they "get it?" When the radiator is cooling the fluid that cools the engine, the engine hitting on all six or eight cylinders, the transmission in conjunction with the engine, the rear-ends in harmony with the rest of the drivetrain, tires singing, air conditioning blowing refreshing cool air onto a fatigued body, radio tuned in to the best country music station in the area. When does it all become a "truck" to them? I am fifty-four years old and I still don't get it? Can't make a dance out of all the steps. How an engine works. Or how the horsepower an engine generates is transferred to the ground. It's all a priori knowledge to me. The horses go from the engine through the transmission into the rear-ends by means of a driveshaft and then, via axles, to the rubber. I know this because I listen to my drivers, mechanics, and salesman. But the engineering of it all is a mystery to me.
And here are my answers to other fundamental questions about a truck that, after thirty-three years in the business, still baffle me:
Q. How does a truck start?
A. Turn the key.
Q. How does a truck move foward?
A. Put the truck in gear. More specifically, put the truck in first gear and proceed, smoothly if possible, through the gears to the last one. And you need a clutch (The old-timers don't.) to shift. Why you need a clutch, I don't know.
Q. How does a truck accelerate?
A. Step on the accelerator.
Q. What is the function of a turbocharger?
A. I have no idea. All I know is they are goddamn expensive to replace.
Q. How does an engine retarder work?
A. With oil.
Q. What is a cam shaft?
A. No clue.
Q. Why does a loaded truck generate momentum when going down a hill?
A. I have absolutely no fucking idea. But I do know you better control that momentum or you are in trouble!
Q. And finally, how does a truck stop?
A. Step on the brakes, stupid!
Trucking 101 and I can't pass the course! I AM EMBARASSED! I am embarassed to admit my ignorance, and never did UNTIL NOW. (Noticed I said earlier my mechanic didn't "think" I know the difference between a clutch and pressure plate. He isn't sure if I know the difference because I always feign that I know the difference.) BUT...I have a good reason for my lack of knowledge, interest, and desire to learn anything about a truck. I HATE TRUCKING! Always have. Always will. Right from the first day when, fresh out of college and without a job, my old man made me change ten tires sans power equipment. I had to use hand tools: a twenty-ton hydraulic jack, a tire wrench, ball peen hammer, and a pipe.
So trust me on this one. Hating the business has bred my ignorance. But, that's a good thing for you, the reader. Because when I get to a technical part in my story (if I even go there) like my mechanic having to change a water pump, I will simply write, "My mechanic had to change a water pump," and then explain its relevance to the rest of the chapter. That will suffice because: 1) it is not enough to be boring and 2) that is all I care to know about changing a water pump. If I did write more I might bore you into thinking you are reading the September issue of Heavy Duty Trucking or Fleet magazine. For the same reasons I will not write about load optimization, routing density, smoke opacity, tire inflation, trailer suspensions, or Caterpillar vs. Detroit vs. Cummins.
I do not want to go there as much as I think you do not want to read about it.
Which probably makes you wonder why I got into the trucking business in the first place?
The answer is simple...I WAS IN LOVE, GETTING MARRIED, AND NEEDED A JOB!
So with the reason for being in the trucking business out in the open, let me further confuse you with a synopsis of why, after thirty-three years, I am still in the business I hate: I bought my father's trucking company. And that's all the history for now. When I need to tell you more, I will. I promise the forthcoming episodes will be honest, metaphorically so, if necessary; will protest the names of the guilty; will be chronologically accurate, unless changing the chronology leads to a better understanding of this story...memoir...etc. without distorting the same; succinct; as interesting as possible; and I hope you get through it with some of the information necessary to make this saga of my hatred/ignorance comprehensible. But remember, if I drift into the stupid, it is not only because of my hatred/ignorance of the trucking business. It is also because a lot of stupid stuff goes on in this business.
The Highway Hero
I have been in the trucking business for thirty-three years and, fortunately, I do not know a helluva lot about a truck. I have what might be called an a priori knowledge of the mechanics of a truck, culled from overhearing conversations between drivers: "We need a lower rear-end ratio to give us more top end if we're going to run Florida," drivers and mechanics: "Don't you know how to adjust a fucking clutch? I want at least three inches of free play before it catches!" mechanics: "I don't think the boss knows the difference between a clutch and a fucking pressure plate," and salesmen trying to beef up the price of a new truck: "A bigger engine will give you better fuel mileage because it doesn't have to work as hard as a smaller engine. What you want is a cruising speed at a low RPM, not a cruising speed up against the governor. And you'll get the extra cost of a bigger engine back in the resale." My disingenuously astute retort to said salesmen's logic: "This is what I do. This is where I go. Spec the truck accordingly!" But I said it like I did not want to be bothered with details; like I was too busy. Actually, the attitude was a ruse, purposely designed to mask the fact that I knew nothing about specing a new truck for what I did and where I went. And my mechanic is right. I do not know the difference between a clutch and a fucking pressure plate. First time I saw the two come out of a box I thought the clutch was the pressure plate and the pressure plate the clutch.
When I changed the emphasis of my business from trucking to truck brokering I down-played the significance of new truck orders like this: "I am a truck broker first and a truck owner second. The only reason I own trucks is because owning trucks gives me the power to take more loads. I am not afraid to take orders because I can put them on my equipment if I cannot hire an outside truck. Owning trucks insures the orders I take will be covered, and that is key. Covering the orders. All I have to sell is service. And bad service means no customers...You know what I do. You know where I go. Spec the goddamn truck accordingly!" It was spoken with an insouciance that suggested I knew what I was talking about and did not care as long as my salesman got it right, althoough I did not know what right was. Then I would beat on my salesman to lower the price of the truck. I worked the price angle real hard, as if beating my salesman up somehow conveyed to him, and everyone else involved in the deal, that I knew what I was talking about. I once held up a new truck order for ninety days over a one hundred fifty dollar difference in purchase price. That was after I threw my salesman out of my office because he would not give me what I wanted for the truck I was trading in...you know, the truck with the bigger engine.
I have often wondered how mechanics and truck drivers (people in general) learn about a truck: it's components, how each component functions, and how each component compliments the next; like a series of steps that suddenly becomes a dance when you finally understand the rhythm. At what moment did they "get it?" When the radiator is cooling the fluid that cools the engine, the engine hitting on all six or eight cylinders, the transmission in conjunction with the engine, the rear-ends in harmony with the rest of the drivetrain, tires singing, air conditioning blowing refreshing cool air onto a fatigued body, radio tuned in to the best country music station in the area. When does it all become a "truck" to them? I am fifty-four years old and I still don't get it? Can't make a dance out of all the steps. How an engine works. Or how the horsepower an engine generates is transferred to the ground. It's all a priori knowledge to me. The horses go from the engine through the transmission into the rear-ends by means of a driveshaft and then, via axles, to the rubber. I know this because I listen to my drivers, mechanics, and salesman. But the engineering of it all is a mystery to me.
And here are my answers to other fundamental questions about a truck that, after thirty-three years in the business, still baffle me:
Q. How does a truck start?
A. Turn the key.
Q. How does a truck move foward?
A. Put the truck in gear. More specifically, put the truck in first gear and proceed, smoothly if possible, through the gears to the last one. And you need a clutch (The old-timers don't.) to shift. Why you need a clutch, I don't know.
Q. How does a truck accelerate?
A. Step on the accelerator.
Q. What is the function of a turbocharger?
A. I have no idea. All I know is they are goddamn expensive to replace.
Q. How does an engine retarder work?
A. With oil.
Q. What is a cam shaft?
A. No clue.
Q. Why does a loaded truck generate momentum when going down a hill?
A. I have absolutely no fucking idea. But I do know you better control that momentum or you are in trouble!
Q. And finally, how does a truck stop?
A. Step on the brakes, stupid!
Trucking 101 and I can't pass the course! I AM EMBARASSED! I am embarassed to admit my ignorance, and never did UNTIL NOW. (Noticed I said earlier my mechanic didn't "think" I know the difference between a clutch and pressure plate. He isn't sure if I know the difference because I always feign that I know the difference.) BUT...I have a good reason for my lack of knowledge, interest, and desire to learn anything about a truck. I HATE TRUCKING! Always have. Always will. Right from the first day when, fresh out of college and without a job, my old man made me change ten tires sans power equipment. I had to use hand tools: a twenty-ton hydraulic jack, a tire wrench, ball peen hammer, and a pipe.
So trust me on this one. Hating the business has bred my ignorance. But, that's a good thing for you, the reader. Because when I get to a technical part in my story (if I even go there) like my mechanic having to change a water pump, I will simply write, "My mechanic had to change a water pump," and then explain its relevance to the rest of the chapter. That will suffice because: 1) it is not enough to be boring and 2) that is all I care to know about changing a water pump. If I did write more I might bore you into thinking you are reading the September issue of Heavy Duty Trucking or Fleet magazine. For the same reasons I will not write about load optimization, routing density, smoke opacity, tire inflation, trailer suspensions, or Caterpillar vs. Detroit vs. Cummins.
I do not want to go there as much as I think you do not want to read about it.
Which probably makes you wonder why I got into the trucking business in the first place?
The answer is simple...I WAS IN LOVE, GETTING MARRIED, AND NEEDED A JOB!
So with the reason for being in the trucking business out in the open, let me further confuse you with a synopsis of why, after thirty-three years, I am still in the business I hate: I bought my father's trucking company. And that's all the history for now. When I need to tell you more, I will. I promise the forthcoming episodes will be honest, metaphorically so, if necessary; will protest the names of the guilty; will be chronologically accurate, unless changing the chronology leads to a better understanding of this story...memoir...etc. without distorting the same; succinct; as interesting as possible; and I hope you get through it with some of the information necessary to make this saga of my hatred/ignorance comprehensible. But remember, if I drift into the stupid, it is not only because of my hatred/ignorance of the trucking business. It is also because a lot of stupid stuff goes on in this business.
The Highway Hero
posted by The Highway Reporter at 9:07 AM
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