Team Driving? How did you find your team member?

Doubt you're going to care for teaming; you're the quiet type.

 

I married my hairstylist and told her it paid a lot more

 

You won't know if you get along with the person you team with until you start teaming.I would suggest ask Schneider.

 

We got married and long story short wife thought ya know I'll learn to drive, you train me and we will be a team. What a team. Until health issues kicked in for both of us in about a year.

When you put two people in a place that is about the size of a shoe closet for months at a time in all weather, day and night and so forth... you are going to discover things about yourself and the other teammate. For example wife found a limitation in wide open spaces of nw nevada not to her liking. She pulled up in Hawthrone Munitions depot gate, woke me up and asked me to take her into Reno where it's green forests and pretty mountains for a day or two. And that was exactly what we did. Never mind the logs. You help out where possible.

I had teamed before with trainers and have had a couple of trainees but did not really care for it. Except one trainer in particular. I called him a trucker daddy and he was a hellion but a good daddy for trucking. Taught me 7 mountains hill in dead of winter when he found that I was afraid. Broke that over and over and turned me the other way to where this cookie monster now craves ice on vertical mountain driving in raging storms. Sometimes people find good things this way.

Regarding your last nerve... you cannot allow that on the road. You must have a sense of peace mentally because trucking, the physical need to be in control so that if she (The tractor trailer) gets away and slides, you will have the clarity of mind and perfect flow of your nerves to do what you need to do to get it back in line before it kills someone. Witness a thread where a simple turn onto a exit or entrance to a interstate took two lives in San Diego recently. I questioned how is it possible for someone to kill people with a empty semi making a turn? Do you understand?

A good teammate is a opposite of you. For example my spouse is a morning person. I can do morning but Im pretty mean and nasty until coffee is in system. I do night time all the time while it's natural for her to sleep. She is very diplomatic with customers, managers and bosses so I leave her alone to that side while I wrestle with the freight in the trailer. Or do things that require a bit of skill with docking etc. So wife does not have to deal with that too much. I did train her in mountain work for example Black Mountain on 40 is 6 miles down at 30 mph or slower all the way down, that was her graduation course in training. I sit in the right seat quiet monitored everything because she is being TESTED. She ran that mountain PERFECT as I would if not even better.

There is that.

As far as domestics and problems.. yea we have had days where it's difficult for one reason or another. That was when we pull into a truckstop and GET OUT go to the resturant of a GOOD truckstop meal and quietly eat a good meal, drinks etc. (Coffee, sprite, root beer etc) quietly without talking for a minimum of two hours. Then we go watch a feature film on the TV VCR in the sleeper. Only when that is done do we quietly discuss the business or trucking conflict that cause the problem earlier in the day. And see what solution will be reached.

It';s hard. But when you have clear rules ground rules about conduct in battle, things work out pretty durn good. Just have to give it some time.

That's all I have for you.

One last thing.

First commandment God failed to write for teams. WHO SO EVER is in that drivers seat is in the office at 70 mph. He or she is the CAPTIAN right now. If that person starts telling you to do something, you jump and do it now. Aye Aye. Without question.

Talk it over later at dinner when everything is in safe haven and get it out of your system then. But in battle. Who is in that drivers seat says what goes. For better or worse. Twice I overrode that with my wife but, it's for extremely good reasons.

 

Is it possible for you to go solo after you have been with a trainer?

More than likely, you will be better off being solo.
There is going to be a lot of pressure and stress trying to be the safest driver possible, while meeting deadlines.
This would pale in comparison should you get a bad team driver inside the truck with you.

Good luck to you! God bless you and your family!

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

A bad team driver is a nightmare. I cannot imagine the total... mule type behavior mentally digging in heels and heehawing refusing to run totally at all with a BAAD teammate. You think that you would know in about 50 miles the first hour if some sumbum is really baaad. Savvy?

I have had bosses tell me I am running with so and so to Kentucky right now. A winter storm is raging over the mountains of west virginia (Remember prior to Big Sandy, there is the old 40 48. No I-68 then...) and so and so is eyeballing my 21 year old frame top to bottom with a little bit of I guess, omg do I have to work this this... baby? And Im thinking omg this man is a bear he would eat me.

Turns out his wife snapped her leg in several places. No clutching for her. He's stuck.

I did get to run a 425 CAT Emodel intergrated sleeper volvo with full bags on the back 1989 model going into a winter storm with a 9 speed road ranger.

GAWD I WUV THAT TRUCK. WUV WUV WUV it. **Cartwheels down street in joyful .... Brand new it was. 3 feet of powder on the east face then ice coming off the west downgrade into valley rain. Repeat more powder coming up next mountain gap (Passes.) and do it again. and again and again until Jane Lew... then hurricane then Kentucky. Blue grass state. I loved it all.

He did take me to log book school two weeks that month, and for all the teachers and Daddies I had, he was a very good man. It's too bad we cannot keep him once the wife got her spot back. I was a good boy.