Lazy Truck Driver
Truck drivers are a hard working bunch. Show me a lazy truck driver and I will show you one that is not successful. Admit it. You have smiled, smirked, or laughed at someone who complained about a 12 hour day. I know that I have. This week, for some reason, I noticed a lot of truck drivers calling each othe lazy. Stop it. Truck drivers are hard working by nature, and you know it.
Friends of mine like to refer to me a "part timer". These days, I only log about 55 hours per week. That is what passes for lazy, in this business. I have cut about 10 hours per week to work on my health. Both of my brothers died too young. I INTEND TO DANCE WITH ALL OF MY GRANDAUGHTERS AT THEIR WEDDINGS. I figure that I have sat in that drivers' seat for about 400,000 hours. It has taken its toll. I am working towards fixing that and finishing my 11th marathon. Yup, that can pass for lazy in this business.
One of my friends posted on face book, that he had been held up at a shippers for around 8 hours. He felt bad for the drivers who had ELDs because they could not run all night and make the delivery the 
next morning. I commented on his post that it was not an ELD problem. It was a shipper problem. The reaction was predictably mixed, but happily civil. I did post that I believed that these drives should get paid for their time at the shipper. If that shipper cost them a days pay - they should be paid a days pay. Get a good nights sleep and then deliver a day late with no loss of income. Yes, that is idealistic. I realize that. What is more realistic is that if there is not monetary or service loss to that shipper they won't fix the problem. Is it honorable to not want to get paid when you are not productive? Or is it just encouraging inefficiency?
When power steering cam around did the "old timers" say that it would make us lazy. Some did. Some drivers say that ELDS make us lazy. That they people use ELDs because they can't do math. I wonder how many of those drivers use a calculator. I am old enough to remember when we couldn't afford calculators. It didn't matter. The teachers wouldn't let us use them anyway.
My dad used a ledger book. I use an electronic spreadsheet. We evolve with technology. My dad would spend hours chasing down a math error. My computer doesn't make them. I can use that extra time to be more productive. Everyday I do my pretrip. I can't remember the last time that I added oil to a truck, or adjusted a disc brake. That is nice. Instead of pulling out my wrench and adjusting a brake, I sit in my heated seat and move freight.