Y'all, Pray For Me

You need to check out The Middlesex Diner. Great food!

I agree - that's the best diner here. I've been going over there for years.

I stayed at the hotel next door for both Crete and Knight orientation. There's truck parking at the hotel for about 10 trucks around the back.

Note to others---The Middlesex Diner is open 24/7, and I have parked bobtail in their parking lot. It's one of my Top 10 Favorites I've been to while driving.

What was the best story you heard? Is it true most rats will only watch old westerns like Gunsmoke in the lounge?

Is it true most rats will only watch old westerns like Gunsmoke in the lounge?

Actually, WE watch them in our sleeper berth while waiting.

What was the best story you heard?

Okay, here's the best one I heard. It comes from a lady driver.

First let me set the context. These drivers are all irritated that they are not making their bonus money. According to them the company is purposely keeping them from getting what they deserve. They go so far as to call the bonus incentives a scam. I never bothered to let them know I got about 8,000 dollars of bonus money last year.

It seems this group of drivers are constantly triggering their drive-cams. We get a score based on what that camera reports about our driving. There are several measurements for our bonus, but too high a camera score and you're not going to be "in the money." Remember how we teach about trucker's pay being performance based? Gathered here in the lounge is a bunch of low performers trying to convince each other how they are really great, but the company keeps cheating them.

Okay the lady driver raises her voice loud enough to convince everyone else to be quiet while she regales them with how she convinced her terminal manager that one of her accidents was "non-preventable."

She crashed with a car that was entering an interstate on an on-ramp. Her front left bumper struck them in the side as they were encroaching her lane. Clearly a preventable accident. She refused to slow down, and maintained her lane. She said they refused to yield, so it was a non preventable accident. When her terminal manager disagreed she told him, "I'll show you what a preventable accident is. If you don't change this to a non-preventable I'll just ram this truck right into your office building and park it on top of your desk."

She went on to tell them, "He knows I'll do it too! That's why he agreed to change it."

I had to put my rubber boots on just to get out of the building. Man, it was getting deep in there. It's more entertaining than a room full of drunk monkeys, and only slightly less intelligent. Truckers sure can spin a tale!

I'd have a hard time not laughing in their face

She definitely needs some of those special egg rolls!

This is really good stuff. Do you have any more?

I love that area! Great food. Prayers for your swift healing from that painful experience. 🙏😆

I started in trucking in 1993. Once in a while I'll hear people talk about how much trucking has changed. The truth is it has hardly changed at all. We now have a few more electronic gadgets and a few tweaks to the logbook rules, that's about it.

One way it has changed though is how you avoid talking to terminal rats. Back in the day I spent most my time in public hiding my face behind a newspaper. It's much more difficult to get someone's attention or interrupt them when they can't see your face. Nowadays your phone is much smaller than your face, so it's hard to hide behind. I don't envy this new generation of drivers without a newspaper to hide their faces. I know that's one way trucking has become more difficult. Terminal rats can see your face!