The mysteries of the orientation

Once you get hired at a new trucking company, they don't just hand you some truck keys and pat you on the butt before sending you off, you have to go through company orientation first.

Market Transport flew me up to Portland on a Sunday afternoon and put me up at a hotel at a truck stop. Monday through Thursday was spent going through orientation.

Orientation for a trucking company involves, among other things, a D.O.T. physical, a driving test and a drug test. They had already looked at my driving history (good), my accidents (none that involved school buses) and my speeding tickets (none). My urine didn't have any sticks or stems in it, and on Thursday afternoon I was issued keys to a new truck.

The new truck is a shiny new Volvo with an automatic transmission. Brand new with only 25 miles on the odometer. Number 4475.

I climbed inside for the first time. I was in unfamiliar territory. The seats still had plastic on them. I now was tasked with figuring out what all the strange knobs and switches did. Most things (such as the yellow and red brake knobs) were the same, but some stuff was now placed in odd locations.

My stinky old Peterbilt was nothing compared to this new truck. The Volvo is a lot more modern and is chock full of computer-assisted everything. The fuel mileage is supposed to be a lot better. (I am still breaking in the engine, but right now it is at 6.5 mpg) Happily, it turns on a dime (the old Peterbilt needed 40 acres to turn that rig around).  

Instead of the endearing Eaton-Fuller 13-speed manual transmission that was in my Peterbilt, there is an automatic transmission controlled by push buttons (just like a Desoto). Apparently, the microprocessors controlling the automatic's shift points react faster than this old coot can shift gears. I'm OK with that. In addition, my left knee greatly appreciates not having to wrestle a clutch repeatedly in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

All of the newbies were released from Orientation and we were all were issued an initial load to get us out of there. Most of us were given paper loads; giant rolls of brown kraft paper, loaded on end (and prone to shifting enroute). These were to be loaded down in Springfield, Oregon. We were leaving from Portland.

Up until then, I hadn't actually driven my new truck out on the road.  I had only moved it around in the yard at five miles per hour. It was all new to me: what the power and acceleration was, how noisy it would be, and I was fretting about it. Fretting about the unknown. (Fretting about known things simply doesn't take up enough of my time, I need to fret about the unknown as well to get my fretting money's worth)

I shouldn't have worried: the truck drives fine, it has plenty of passing ability, it is sufficiently comfortable and the radio gets all the NPR stations.