Orientation concluded on Thursday, and I met my trainer on Friday. His name was Jon. We spoke on the phone on Thursday, and he said to meet him at the truck at the terminal at 8 am. Jon showed me around the truck, and indicated to me where I could put my things. One small cabinet is not much space at all. The rest of my stuff I kept in my luggage bag on the upper bunk with me.
Jon said he had three rules: 1. Don't hit anything. 2. Don't be late to a shipper 3. If late, it shouldn't be our fault.
I was relieved to see that his truck was an automatic transmission. With my bad shoulder and lack of confidence in my shifting skills, I was glad to see that I wouldn't have to worry about the stress of also trying to master the skill of shifting in addition to learning all the other things I'd need to be comfortable with.
Finally, at about two in the afternoon, our dispatch came through. On board each of the trucks is a keyboard terminal communication system known as Qualcomm. An incoming message is announced by a little chirping sound. At around 2 pm the chirping sound let us know we had a message, and so we read it. It said we were to pick up a load of beer at a major brewery in town, and deliver it to...to...(scrolling down the screen) to Virginia. My first trip would be from Colorado to Virginia. The dispatch comes with all kinds of information including the shipper, the consignee (the entity who is receiving the shipment) when it is to be picked up, and when it is to be delivered. Our job was to review the dispatch, and see if we could answer the very first question in reply. Can you make this trip according to the schedule, and if so, do you accept this load?
I got the Truckers Rand McNally Atlas out, and began leafing through the pages trying to add up the miles and see if we could make it per the assigned schedule. Jon said the easiest way is to just put it in the map program on his smart phone to get a rough idea of the mileage, then work out the details from there. We did the math, and it looked like we could make the trip as scheduled. So, we accepted the load, and off to the brewery we went. We unhooked and dropped our empty container and picked up our pre-loaded container and headed east bound on I-70 out of Denver. After about an hour, Jon pulled into a rest stop and said it was my turn to drive.
Fear promptly took over and was nearly disabling. I was about to be at the controls of a large, commercial vehicle owned by someone else, and I was going to drive this large piece of industrial equipment on the open highway next to complete strangers. Could I do this?
I slipped into the driver's seat, and looked into mirror at the end of the trailer way back there. Through the windshield ahead, lay I-70 with cars whizzing by. Little did those drivers know, that very soon, a large semi truck would slowly make its way up the on ramp, its semi automated transmission shifting up through the gears. The lumbering truck would then edge carefully onto the highway to merge with the traffic. The people driving along, listening to the radio, the passengers playing games on their smart phones would have absolutely no idea that sitting behind the wheel of this big rig was a guy, his white knuckles hanging onto the steering wheel like the captain of a ship in a storm, eyes wide open, taking in the view of the unfolding interstate highway before him and picturing how the pending accident would look on the news tomorrow.
Years of anticipating, planning, making difficult and incredibly risky choices were all finished, and it all came down to this humble, fearful beginning. I put the truck into gear, let off the brakes and we began to move.
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