More On My First Few Weeks.

Guys and gals here at TT. When you said your first few months were the rough ones. You couldn't have said anything more truthful. But it is still fun. LOL

I know I haven't run into a ton of people yet. But all the stories about getting the bad mood dock worker. Or the dock supervisor that had the worst attitude. I have been very lucky. I have not run into that yet.

I have run into the ones that when they looked at you, they wanted to bite your head off. But what I have found out. Smile at them. Be as pleasant as an angel. And be as sweet as honey. And what I have found out. That usually turns that sour attitude around.

They have been dealing will truck drivers all day. And from some of the ones I have met out here, the Pope would loose his patience with them.

Don't get me wrong. I am not Mr. Perfect. While I have not lost my temper yet. Well except with my own company. I have been a little impatient at times. When you are on a tight time schedule and there is only one clerk with 10 people in line. That is frustrating, I admit it. But it isn't their fault. The company is cutting back and won't put more people on the schedule.

I am running into that more and more at these truck stops. I am sure some of you have seen it too. But anyway. On with the story of patience.

I was in a truck stop this morning. A guy filled up 5 LARGE coffee thermoses with coffee. Now don't get me wrong. I don't hold anything against anyone for wanting their coffee. But he emptied, completely emptied the three coffee makers that had coffee in them. Could he have not filled a couple of them and got more later? Left some coffee for the next guy??

What happened next. He walked away and here come another trucker wanting to fill his thermos up. With no coffee. The gut didn't have a chance to make any more before the second trucker came in. Well guys and gals, if you haven't learned by now, you will soon.

NEVER, I mean NEVER, get between a trucker and his coffee. That guy went out cussing and yelling. Wouldn't wait for more coffee to be made. He acted like a total a....

And those are the kind that the gate guards and dispatchers have to deal with all day everyday.

And people question why the trucking industry has such a bad name. Today was a perfect example.

Be nice. It comes back to haunt you.

Be safe out here. The life you save might be your own. Joe S.

I have seen alot out here but the most memorable one was a driver was yell at the top of his voice,scream would be more accurate, that he wanted refer fuel and the Pilot would not give it to him.

Turns out the guy forget to choose the refer fuel option at the pump and his card could not be reran for two hours but somehow that became everyone else's fault but his. Felt sorry for the young girl behind the counter. While he was causing this problem and verbally abuse the Pilot staff the manager called the cops and the guy almost went to jail for purposely intimidating a minor as the clerk was 17. That calmed the guy down.

I have run into the ones that when they looked at you, they wanted to bite your head off. But what I have found out. Smile at them. Be as pleasant as an angel. And be as sweet as honey. And what I have found out. That usually turns that sour attitude around.

AMEN!!!

Ya know, telling people to be nice usually just gets ignored. They think, "whatever". Well what if being nice meant making more money!!! Well in trucking it does.

Soooooo many drivers have horrible attitudes and a short fuse. Dock workers and shipping supervisors at bigger warehouses often come to resent (or purely hate) truckers after a while. They get sick of their big mouths and terrible attitudes.

When you show up with a smile and maybe a funny joke stashed away somewhere it definitely gets noticed by the workers. It makes a world of difference. I've told people for a long time that nothing is more powerful than human will (desire you could say). If you can get someone to want to be nice to you and want to help you out - nothing is more powerful. You can try yelling, cussin', threating - anything you like. But nothing gets better results than being the type of person that people want to do things for.

My line when I would go into a customer and wanted to get loaded or unloaded early always went something like this:

I was really hoping you guys could find a way to get to me a little bit early. I have another load waiting on me after this one if I can get this one finished up on time. If I could be out of here by maybe 2:00 (or whatever time makes sense) I would have just enough time to get over and grab that other load. If not I'm going to lose about $200 off this week's paycheck and that's a lot! I know you guys are super busy so I know you can't make any promises. But man, if there's any way you can get me out of here just a little sooner I would really appreciate that a ton. It would be a really big deal. But if not, I totally understand. It's cool. I'll appreciate any effort you can make.

And generally their response is along the lines of "We'll see what we can do." And my response was always a big smile and I'd say, "Thanks a ton! I appreciate it." And back to my truck I would go.

Seriously, about 75% of the time they'd get to me early and I made a lot of extra money over the years because of that. And I can't tell you how many times they had me leapfrog in line ahead of some loud-mouth jerk of a driver they wanted to aggravate as much as possible because he was nasty and combative.

Never in my days have a found a place where being nice paid off more than it does in trucking. It makes a world of difference!

I've found that if you smile happily at people who are mad, cranky, or just plain don't like the air around them....they always walk off shaking their head, wondering what you are up to...

I recently had an experience with a nasty driver who wanted me out of the fuel aisle faster-I politely told him I would move and he took out my trash-had me roll down my window-it blew my mind.