I come from a trucker family, so I understand many of the difficulties of being on the road for the long haul. What I don’t understand is someone who spends over a hundred hours a week on the road having no idea where they are.
At work one day, our warehouse received a call from a delivery driver who was having issues finding our location. We were located in a small complex of fewer than fifteen warehouses off of I-70 in Colorado. We were located between the city of Aurora and the town of Watkins, which isn’t exactly known for having much in the way of buildings. Between GPS and basic directions that all truck drivers receive with their loads, the driver on the phone should not have had an issue finding our general location.
I was asked to jump on the phone call after two people unsuccessfully tried to direct this driver.
Me: “Hey there. Can you give me your current location?”
Driver: “Uh, yeah. I’m on I-70 West. Can’t seem to find you guys.”
Me: “Can I have the nearest mile marker?”
Driver: “No idea.”
Me: “Exit?”
Driver: “Nope. Got nothing.”
Me: “Well, what do you see around you?”
Driver: “I passed by a dinky town a few minutes ago. There’s a bunch of trailers on my left that I’m passing now.”
Me: “Oh! I know exactly where you are. Okay, you’re going to drive past those mobile homes and go under an underpass. You’ll go about four miles, I think, before you come to [Exit] for [Street #1]. At the end of the ramp, take a right and follow that to the next light. You’ll take a right at that light onto [Street #1]. Follow that past the [Company #1] sign. You’ll cross a set of railroad tracks and then turn left at [Street #2]. You’ll see [Company #2] there on your left. Go down to the next warehouse, and that’s us. You’ll want to go to the stop sign and make a left. The truck entrance is near the other end of the building. You’ll pull into the parking lot and go around the building for unloading.”
Driver: “Right. Should be there in a few minutes, then. Thanks.”
Me: “No problem.”
Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again, and I was called to the desk to deal with a very irate truck driver.
Driver: “I followed your directions, and now I’m on my way to the airport! You gave me bad directions! You wasted my time, and now I’m behind schedule!”
Me: “You got off too soon and went onto E-470, which is a toll road. You need to turn around and follow my directions.”
From there, I gave him step-by-step directions like you would your senile grandmother who should have given up driving a decade ago. He argued with me almost every step of the way, especially getting back onto the toll road to go east again and when he realized he was passing the warehouse. I explained to him that he had to pass the warehouse to get to the frontage road on which we were located. He became very angry when he saw signs for companies I hadn’t mentioned before, which I was no longer having him pass because I had him coming in from a different road instead of the highway.
All told, I spent over an hour giving this trucker directions to a group of warehouses that were basically in the middle of nowhere, with clear directions on how to exit the highway. I gave him exit numbers, street names, which turns to take, and landmarks to look for. It really wasn’t a difficult place to get to. It certainly wasn’t like trying to navigate in Denver or another large city. You had only so many options to get to us.
I got a stern talking-to because I was now behind on my own work and because the truck driver was unsatisfied with my assistance. I told my boss that he could waste an hour of his time giving directions to someone who shouldn’t be driving an 80,000-pound-plus vehicle.