What do truckers like to do best? The obvious answer: they like to drive. After all, that’s how they make their money.
And what do they dislike most? I’m sure you will get different answers from different drivers. A likely answer would be: unnecessary waiting. Sure, they are used to spend time waiting, waiting for a load, waiting at the dock, waiting in traffic. There are many scenarios where a trucker can do nothing else but wait. As far as I’m concerned, I can deal with waiting, over the years I have learned to be patient.

It’s a whole different story when I have to wait for no apparent good reason and it gets even worse when it happens at a facility owned by the company I work for. I always get somewhat scared when I have to take my truck or trailer to shop, especially in the middle of a run. While I had some excellent experiences with mechanics that worked fast and had me rolling again in a short while I also had to deal with situations where I was met with disinterest and ndifference. Let me give you a few examples.

When I pulled into the terminal in Salt Lake City, I was told that I had mismatched tires on the trailer. It was red tagged and I had to get two tires replaced. I went to the tire shop where three mechanics were on duty. “We’ll get to it as soon as possible”, said the guy at the desk. It seems to be the standard answer at every shop. “I’m under a load and don’t have much time” I said. hat statement made no impression what so ever.

I didn’t expect it to take long; the place was very quiet. Only one truck was sitting in one of the two bays. The driver, an owner-operator, was pacing back and forth and he looked at his watch every couple of minutes. Those are the gestures of a person who is impatient and in a hurry to go.

The mechanics were not in a hurry to say the least. They walked back and forth, with and without tools. They talked to each other, disappeared for while and then came back with the same attitude. What they didn’t do was getting some work done. Finally two of them started pulling the wheels off the truck in a slow motion kind of way. After an hour or so they finally got that job done, the driver jumped behind a wheel and for a second I feared that he was going to pull out before the door had been opened.