Good friend of this Substack, Billy Stockton, who is a meme genius and regular shit disturber on FreightX, has just launched a new print magazine which aims to discuss the worlds of supply chain nerdery, freight bro culture, and the truckers who make it all happen, in as satirical and delightfully meme-ified way as possible.
Billy asked me to contribute a piece for this new mag, and I answered the call. An experiment in satire, it might be a little too on the nose for insiders and anyone with a long history in steering and gearing, or for my regular readers. It has also turned into something of a monster that will require two to three parts to get it all out. That said, I think its alright, and so did Billy; with Billy’s permission, down below you will find part one of this short series I’m contributing to Freight Bandit.
You can check out Billy’s Freight Bandit website https://www.thefreightbandit.com/ and find pieces in the articles section with such titles as
”New Hybrid Electric Barge, Capable of Carrying Your Mom, Sets Sail on The Mississippi”
”Truckers back Palestine: Why?”
”Truck Driving Shortage : Is Communism The Answer?”
You can help support Billy’s project by placing an order for a beautiful physical copy here.
Freight Bandit can be found on these socials - Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok
Speaking of ‘Freight-Bro’ culture, I have also just recorded an episode of the Voice of GO(r)D podcast with fellow WordCel and former freight broker
Alright, here it is -
So You Want To Be a Trucker?
Perhaps you were one of those rare four wheelers, happy to drive the speed limit with the cruise control on, and became mesmerized by the signage on the back of a trailer you were following.
“Join our team! Company Driver Opportunities available, .60 cpm! Best Benefits package in the Industry! Call …”
“We can put YOU in the drivers seat.”
“Украинские гангстеры нанимают в Чикаго”
“ਇਸ ਟਰੱਕ ਦਾ ਡਰਾਈਵਰ ਇੰਡੈਂਟਰਡ ਨੌਕਰ ਹੈ।”
“Cartel Express Lines está buscando camioneros traficantes, ¡pagando mucho dinero!”
Though you couldn’t understand why there are so many languages adorning the rear ends of these pantechnicons, your curiosity was piqued. Recently laid off from your job as a first year lawyer, the drudgery of scanning and correcting legal documentation having been pawned off to the latest version of ChatGPT, you feel the need for a break from screens, and your equally precariously employed roommates. Options seem limited for all of you, and it is time to move. They haven’t automated the truckers yet, and you have substantial student debt to pay off; perhaps trucking will be more reliable in helping pay that loan down than voting for Joe Biden?
Vague memories of watching The Dukes of Hazzard as a child light up the warm and fuzzies, illuminating the corners of your mind where primal desire and visual imprints meet; maybe you can find a Daisy Duke via C.B. radio? Sure beats swiping past all of the dysgenic biomass on Tinder. Another memory flicks through …. Jerry Reed sure had a nice view of Sally Fields rear end from that KW he was driving … She was the real star of that movie, not Bandit’s Trans-Am.
———
After several days of scanning online, and combing through the websites of various companies featuring desperate attempts to visually equate modern plasticated rigs with the Based Aesthetics of Convoy or Big Trouble in Little China, you settle on a program offered by your local community college. You don’t know anyone in the trucking business, and the thought to introduce yourself to a local company and ask to ride around with local operators never crosses your mind. The college website shows that you can take the CDL training course at a steep discount thanks to a Pell Grant, so why not? You didn’t have to vote for the free shit this time, it was already baked into the cake.
But first, you must pass a DOT Drug Screen.
You can’t remember the last time you hit that huge bong your friends pass around, the glass number that features quite prominently at those parties where you sit around and watch Phish shows streamed onto the flat screen. Drinking ungodly amounts of water will have to do, an internal baptism undertaken as a requirement to reach the next level of the one true faith, commerce.
Having passed the Drug Screen, the next stage is several days in a classroom, learning the real skill most companies want out of their drivers, compliance. Even though logbooks have become digital, with no escape from the state and its dirty little dickbeaters, the course instructors seem to be prioritizing HOS and reams of other regulations over anything to do with the business, or actually operating the truck. Your background in law is helpful here, but maybe not with the Air Brakes course; there is no latin etymology or terms applied to air pressure or slack adjusters. Looking around the classroom, it appears a certain percentage of the other students are only one step away from a tent city, or perhaps a Judge’s Chambers rather than a brake chamber. It takes all kinds to make the world go around, you think to yourself, diplomatically, especially in a business that burns through people so quickly that you are even here in the first place. No one in this class is dressed like any trucking movie from the 70s, not even the instructors. When did it become ok to wear track pants in public, wtf?
———
A short couple of weeks later, you pass your road test. It doesn’t feel like you should have; the truck you trained and did your road test on has an automatic transmission; the state begrudgingly admits that this is a form of cheating by applying a restriction to your CDL, legally preventing you from driving a truck with a stick. Not that they would ever tighten up training and testing requirements, rather than making everyone use permanent training wheels - won’t you think of the supply chains? Maybe you can learn to drive a real truck on the job, you tell yourself, a rationalization meant to quieten down the Masculine and Based part of your mind, which is correctly identifying you as a faker. The imposter syndrome is earned, but so is the paycheck; sort of.
The Community College does their best to place you, but options are limited with no experience and an automatic transmission restriction. Local jobs are hard to come by, and the good old boys networks that control entry to certain industries aren’t going to help someone with a degree in Law but no idea how to roll through the gears of an 18 speed.
Mega-carriers with thousands of trucks all over the country, the kind of places that take new guys and send them out over the road, immediately, appear to be the only option. It feels extremely counterintuitive; the partners you just worked for would never have you working a case, much less making arguments in court, until you had completed years of articling and processing paperwork. Why does this business think it can throw kids into the deep end of the swimming pool without water wings?
———
A recruiter for one of these Mega-Carriers calls you, and offers you a position on a ‘training team’, where you and a slightly more experienced driver, perhaps with 6 months under Xer belt … errrrm drawstring, will run OTR together - one of you pretending to sleep, and one of you pretending to drive.
Given the lack of options, and a voice calling from deep in the recesses of your spirit that the public school system and college didn’t totally bury, you accept the challenge, and agree to the ‘Training Team’ regimen.
————
Part two, “Getting out on the road”, to be featured in the next edition of Freight Bandit.
Comments, questions, suggestions, and Hate Mail, are always welcomed and encouraged -
gordilocks@protonmail.com
Where can I sign up? Sounds like a promising opportunity...
Love it 😅