10-4 Magazine / October 2026 43 place, not to mention it could have be questionable “if” I could have even off-loaded into their facility. Yes, there is always the option of borrowing the needed item from another driver (your competitor’s truck) if there is one in line behind you, but that’s never a good look to the customer – not to mention it could come back to bite your carrier when they compete for more freight. Secondly, the fittings I collected from the other trailers had not been inspected or satisfactorily cleaned from previous loads. It’s 5:30 AM, the wash bay is closed, and will not open until 8:00 AM – what are my options? Roll with it and hope the receiver doesn’t notice or do the hard work? That really isn’t much of an option if you are a dependable and reliable worker. Of course, I cleaned them the best I could before I left to get loaded. While I was at the load rack I also found a discharge hose that had been temporarily repaired but not fixed correctly. Fortunately, I had enough time to travel back to the yard for repairs. The first thing I did was send a message to dispatch for confirmation of the repair needed and then waited for their reply. It’s best not to overstep your authority (someone is getting paid to make these decisions). Then, I contacted the shop myself to report the repair that I needed and to get a realistic time frame or ETA. I explained the trouble and gave a description of which hose and sent pictures from my phone. In my case, by the time I arrived, TJ (our shop repair guy) had everything ready and waiting for me. I slipped into the wash bay, got the hoses cleaned and repaired, and was back on the road quickly. The trouble was averted because the driver (me) was thinking ahead and took the initiative to follow through. I mentioned earlier the telephone game – that case where everyone is talking, but no one is listening. Each of them hears what they think is the important information and then relays what they think they heard to the next in line of command. In my case, I reported the first infraction – the dirty fitting – to the company owner (he is a truck guy and a driver), who then told the office manager (not a truck guy) what needed to be done. He in turn called or sent an email to the shop foreman (not a driver) explaining the need to clean the hoses (not the fittings). Since I had already been in to have the hose repaired, he didn’t question the request. He verbally told the wash bay supervisor to re-clean the hoses, not the fittings. Thinking there was product inside the hoses, he informed the wash bay attendant to pull the hose and run it through the cleaning process again, which he did, then reloaded the tubes back on the trailer. By the time I returned to the trailer, there wasn’t time to finish the original request to clean the fittings. I made my delivery on time and without drawing the customer’s attention, but when I got back to the yard, I mixed up a pail of cleaner and put all my fittings in to soak. I then found the wash guy and told him what I was doing. After that, I hand walked the shop supervisor, the wash bay supervisor, and the wash bay attendants through the process, explaining why the fittings need to be cleaned every time. There is no benefit to washing out the hose if we leave product in the connections and on our gear. Cross contamination can occur from the smallest amount of residual material. In the case of the dirty fittings, our wash bay guy didn’t know he was supposed to be cleaning the connectors or the external side of the hose. Once I made it personal and walked him through the process, he left with a feeling of connection to the process. Everyone was blaming the one person who had no idea what we were expecting him to do. In this case, the missed communication could have cost him his job – and the carrier a good contract (not to mention the chance of a rejected load). Since we are on the subject of missed communications, have you been listening to the political contestants or possible office holders promising the moon in their political stump speeches? Have you spent five minutes listening to their ideas for YOUR future? Are they planning to tax and spend their way to a better America? Yes, I understand you are busy, but just how busy do you think you will be if someone regulates you out
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