I got hired on to a trucking company after CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) school. They had five days of orientation, and it took place at their headquarters, which was several states away. You could either have them fly you there, or you could drive yourself, and they would cover your expenses. Also, the company would put you up at a hotel, pay your food costs, and provide transportation to the headquarters. 

This one guy drove himself there who lived about eight-hundred miles away. On the first day of orientation, he tells anyone who’ll listen that he forgot to keep his receipts and he “better get reimbursed”. I think I’d rather eat the costs than announce to everyone how stupid I am.

On the second day, he slept in and missed the shuttle and ended up driving himself.

On the third day, he missed the shuttle, yet again, and was over an hour late. Worse than that, he fell asleep during orientation. I knew he was done for when the instructor angrily woke him up and asked for his full name. 

On day four, he showed up on time, but his fate was sealed. When I was at the hotel later that night, having a cigarette, I saw him loading his stuff into his car.

Me: “What happened?”

Guy: “They f****** canned me!”

I didn’t even think it was possible to get fired at orientation. All you have to do is show up and pretend to pay attention.

On the last day of orientation, a few of us are discussing that guy, when one of the company managers chimes in:

Manager: “We don’t have a huge list of red flags when it comes to our truckers, but failing at being on time, paying attention, and getting adequate rest are pretty much all of them. Trust me, we made the right call with him.”

I felt bad for the guy, though. He essentially drove eight-hundred miles to get fired and then drove eight-hundred miles back.

I’m a rural tow Truck Driver. You might remember me from this story.

I managed to tear a van I was trying to tow almost in half the other day. It wasn’t some rattling rust bucket where breaking apart was going to happen sooner or later. It was just a fairly normal 2012 Ford Econoline cargo van in reasonable condition for its age. The owner was a plumber doing work on the irrigation system of a farm. He’d left the parking brake off, and the van had wandered down a fairly steep ravine.

I was out there with one of the light tows. We probably should have brought the heavy tow; it’s got a crane attachment so it can lift things vertically, but the plumber and I were both impatient, and the heavy tow was tied up in something else.

Well, I was winching it up from the ravine, and it got stuck on a hunk of concrete with rebar sticking out from it, hidden in the brush. Probably part of an old foundation, but I’ve no idea what sort of structure it was a foundation for.

I had my ride-along (an apprentice) standing by the winch with instructions to ‘pull when I yell’… instructions I absolutely should *not* have given, please do not blame my apprentice for what happened. I should have provided much more clarification on when to pull properly, like ‘wait until I am out from under the van’ and ‘make sure that there’s a clear view between us, and that I’m not in the van’s path before you pull’. At the very least, I should have specified that I would be yelling the word ‘pull’ and not just… screaming.

Anyway, I went under the van with some tools to untangle the van from the rebar. I crawled under and started prying and sawing and clipping at the bars. I reached back to grab a tool.

It wiggled and moved in my gloved hand. I’d grabbed a variety of snake. I don’t know snakes very well, so I couldn’t tell you what type of snake it was, beyond ‘incredibly pissed off’.

It struck at me, but didn’t actually bite me. I guess snakes don’t generally bite the first time if they’re confronted with something too big to eat, but too annoying to ignore. I’ve heard they do it to intimidate. It worked.

I acted like any red-blooded American would do in that situation. I screamed loudly and attempted to get away. My boot got caught in the rebar-concrete mess.

And my apprentice turned on the winch. With me trapped between the van and the concrete alongside an angry snake.

I screamed louder. My apprentice interpreted that to mean ‘up the torque on the winch’. The van started shivering and shuddering. It started creeping along, collecting more rebar jabbed into the underside.

The next few minutes of my life were a bit hectic, and I’d once had a bunch of raccoons fall on my head, one big one and a couple of slightly smaller ones, from a drop ceiling tile in a diner onto my head, so I know hectic when I experience it.

Long story short, by the time I was able to convey to my apprentice to ‘stop’ over the sound of the winch and the van suffering damage above me, my ankle was severely sprained. The snake had already decided discretion was the better part of valor and left without engaging in further threatening behavior towards me, but I didn’t *see* it leave, so I was still convinced that the damn thing was under there with me looking for an opportunity to strike.

It’s a good thing that I carry workman’s insurance, because the damage to the van was substantial. It LOOKED fine from the outside, but underneath the frame had separated in several places, and rebar had penetrated some of the softer parts on the underside.

Honestly, this is probably the most damage I’ve accidentally caused a client’s vehicle. And yes, I blame myself.

I drove a truck for a for-hire construction company. We had very few customers of our own but were hired by larger companies for their jobs. We did mostly dump truck work, but also pulled some mix on-site trailers for one company.

I started out by just pulling their trailers, and they would send one of their employees to run the trailer at the job sites. As they got more business, they added more trailers, but not more employees.

Soon, they had six trailers, with two employees running around the city trying to keep up with us. They finally asked if we could run the trailers for an extra fee. It was worth our while, so we agreed.

Flash forward three years, and I was running our company crew at night, driving and dispatching our drivers to three different companies, and anywhere from one to six crews working for these companies. While I got along with most of these crews, a couple of their foreman couldn’t grasp the concept that I could only send drivers according to the schedule I was given and had very little flexibility for changing it if they had problems.

I had a few yell at me when I wasn’t able to keep machines on a job to wait for them, with the usual threats of getting me fired. I would just shrug, point to the ABC company name on the machine, and XYZ Inc. name on our trucks.

At one point, one of these foremen had the regional superintendent come out to yell at me. I did the usual pointing, the superintendent understood I was just doing my job as instructed, and reamed out the foreman for wasting his time.

After a while, the global corporation that owned the division that we were working for decided that a million-dollar profit wasn’t enough to keep that division open and announced it would finish existing projects and then shut the doors. This led to both the foremen who disliked me coming up to me for the following conversation:

Foreman #1: “Ha ha, a**hole, you’re finally losing your job.”

Foreman #2: “Don’t bother applying here, we’ll make sure you don’t get hired.”

Me: *Faking puzzlement:* “What do you mean, I’m losing my job?”

Foreman #1: “[ABC] is shutting its doors. You’re done.”

Me: *Laughing.* “l’ve been telling you two idiots for over two years, I don’t work for them. For the last time—” *Pointing at my truck door.* “—I work for them. And they already have a customer who wants my truck full-time.”

It was fun watching the two of them walk away, dejected that I was still gainfully employed.

I’m a rural tow truck driver. We’ve got a very small fleet: only three trucks total. Two are meant for cars, and one is meant to pick up semi trucks and their trailers.

My coworker was called out to pick up a minivan that had broken down on the highway. He went out to take a look at it, and it turned out that the driver of the minivan had accidentally driven it into the ditch when trying to get on the shoulder as the brakes had failed.

[Coworker] started winching the minivan back onto the shoulder so he could tow it, but he messed up the chain, it got caught on a stump, and he managed to break the winch assembly. Worse, he broke the winch assembly badly enough that it twisted the bed of his truck.

So, they called me. [Coworker]’s truck was still drivable, so he took the customer back to the mechanic. I got my truck out there to pick up the minivan, but while I was attaching the winch to the minivan, a pick-up with a trailer full of poorly secured junk came by the bend. A riding lawn mower fell off of the pick-up’s trailer and slammed into the side of my truck, breaking the driver’s side door shut and misaligning the steering wheel badly enough that I didn’t feel that it was safe to drive it.

I practically s*** my pants; if I had been in the driver’s seat, that could have killed me.

The pick-up drove on without stopping.

I called for the truck that could tow a semi (or a tow truck) to get both me and the minivan (which I winched out of the ditch while I was waiting).

While the heavy tow was slowing down to pull over and pick me up, a driver — later revealed by the police to be drunk — slammed into the back of it hard enough to break the rear axle.

That’s how all three of our trucks were taken out of commission by one tow. It was very embarrassing calling one of our rivals for a rescue.