This was back when I was running intermodal, at a previous company.
It was late and I was at the end of a long shift. This vendor hands you your paperwork, you sign for it, and from there it is on you to grab the right one. Nobody at a gate checking. You just have to do your job right.
I came back out to a very dark lot. I dropped my empty and hooked to the trailer that was supposed to be mine. My flashlight went across the container numbers and they looked close enough.
That was the whole check. I never verified the number against my paperwork. I never walked back and looked at the seal. Close enough, and I left with it.
Every one of those is a step I do every single time. That night I skipped all of them, because I was tired and I wanted to get parked.
The scale
The nearest Cat scale was about two and a half to three hours out, mostly back country roads.
I pulled onto it and the weight came up.
My first thought was, why does that number look like what I weigh empty?
Then the second thought, which was just: what did I do.
I got off the scale, walked to the back, and there was no seal. I opened the doors and looked at an empty container. I had said some things by then that I am not going to repeat here.
That was when it all lined up. I had gone inside and signed for a load, hooked to the wrong trailer, and never looked at it again until I rolled onto that scale.
The phone call
I called my fleet manager myself. It was my mistake, and it needed to come from me.
Turned out she was hearing about it anyway. While I had her on the phone she told me the vendor had just reached out too. Their load was still sitting in their yard, in the container it belonged in, the one on the bill of lading I had signed for and apparently did not take. They must have caught it on a yard check.
She routed me back.
Three hours
Three hours back to the vendor, and then eventually back to a scale to actually weigh out. Plus whatever disciplinary action came from my company, and I took that too.
I owned it. I messed up. I did not make excuses.
Because there was nobody else to hand it to. No dispatcher who sent me a bad load. No vendor who messed up the paperwork. Just me, doing a job I know how to do, cutting a corner I know better than to cut.
Five minutes would have caught it. Instead it cost me more than five hours.
You have got to have a routine, driver
They told us that in onboarding at Walmart, about pre-trip inspections. You have got to have a routine, driver.
The reason is simple. When you get rushed, you get knocked out of your routine, and that is when you make mistakes. Mine takes about the same amount of time every time and goes in the same order every time. Exterior walk-around, interior checks, then paperwork against the trailer to make sure everything matches.
The routine works whether I feel like doing it or not. That is the entire point of it.
I never served, but the sentiment carries over to my career and plenty of others. Fall back on your training. Training does not ask whether you are motivated. It insists on routine and discipline, and it does not care how you feel about it tonight.
Motivation will fail you every time. Anybody who has been out here a while already knows that. But motivation was not the problem that night. Nobody needs to be inspired to walk fifty-two feet and read a number off a seal. That takes discipline, and I did not have any left.
My training did not fail me. I failed to fall back on it because I was tired.
The routine is not there for the nights I am rested and ahead of schedule. It is there for the night the lot is dark and I want to be done. That is the night it is holding me up, and that is the night I set it down.
“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.”
Luke 16:10
Same with the walk
You do not read because you feel like reading. You do not pray because you feel like praying. Some days you feel like doing nothing at all and you do it anyway. That is the routine holding you up until the feeling comes back.
By the way, that feeling is also known as motivation.
I skipped my routine because I was tired. I skipped it because it was getting late. I was not rebelling against anything. I just wanted to park the truck for the night.
That was one seal on one trailer. I found out three hours later, and it cost me more than five.
Whether it is giving up on a marriage, quitting a job, or walking away from God, it generally does not come down to one decision. It is a slow drift, and temporary circumstances end up costing you something permanent.
Develop the habit, the routine, and the discipline now. Then in the times when you just do not feel like it, you have something to fall back on, before you lose not just five minutes or five hours, but five years. A marriage. Your health. Your faith.
If you are out on the road and could use a conversation with another believer, hit reply when you are parked. No pressure and nothing to join.