Thelma and Louise

                One of my favorite things about not working in a cubicle is the fun stuff I get to do out on the road.  A couple of years ago, after a trip to Maine I asked my sister-in-law what she would do if I sent her a live lobster.  She said she would give it to my brother (her husband.)  I asked him what he would do with it and he told me he would hypnotize it.  I wasn’t even sure what that meant.  

                For months I’ve been saying I needed to get a load to Maine so I could send a lobster to them.  This past weekend it finally happened.  As soon as we got empty, I directed my trainee to drive to the Turnpike Service Area where they sell live lobsters you can buy and have shipped all over the country.

                Thelma and Louise will arrive in Indiana on the 28th.  No, I’m not so cheap that I would expect my brother and sister-in-law to split a lobster tail; I sent two.  I had to call my brother to find out when would be a good time for him to receive them because you have to cook them the day you get them.  I learned that they take the lobsters out of water and overnight ship them in dry ice, so when they arrive, they’re barely still alive.  Poor lobsters.  I felt kind of bad, but I’d already paid so they were going whether I liked the methods or not.

                I did ask my brother “how do you plan to hypnotize these lobsters?”  His answer?  “I’m going to stand them on their heads… in a pot of boiling water.”  He’s a great cook, I’m almost sad I’m going to miss this meal.

Rule #1

     By the time you read this, I will have a new trainee in the truck.  I thought in the spirit of such, I would share with you a few of my truck rules that I share with my new trainees.  Just for clarification, these are MY truck rules, not Freymiller training policy.  Freymiller has a great training program (shameless plug for my company here) that is top quality.  These rules were born out of necessity to make life easier for two strangers trying to co-exist in an 8x8 space.

          1.  Please don’t talk to me the minute my feet hit the floor. If you try to talk to me before I’ve gone to the restroom, smoked a cigarette and gotten at least a bit of caffeine in me, you’re wasting your time because almost nothing will sink in.  The exception to this is if something is shooting blood, shooting flames, or if our hood is leaving the parking lot hanging off of someone’s ICC bumper.

          1.  If I say the word “stop” with a sense of urgency, hit the brakes.  Don’t think, don’t ask, just stop.  I’m doing this because I see something about to happen that I don’t think you see.  I don’t care if you stall the truck, just get stopped.

          1.  Part of the training program in this truck is “Embrace Your Inner Dork – 101.”  If you aren’t able to laugh at yourself when you get in this truck, you will be able to by the time you get out.  We have fun around here.  If we can’t make it fun, why bother?  I take my responsibilities in this truck very seriously, but there are no perfect truck drivers and when I pull a no-brainer, it’s okay to laugh (as long as I haven’t caused any damage in the process.)

          1.  You will be in this truck until one of two things happen.  Either until you prove to me that you can run this truck without me, or you prove to me that you’ll never be able to.  I don’t expect anyone to know everything; my job is to teach you how to handle every situation we come upon.  When your training is done, you will be able to handle just about anything that happens and when you don’t…. you’ll know where to get the answer.

          You may have noticed that all of these rules are numbered 1.  There is a reason for that.  They’re equally important.  These aren’t all of the rules, but these are the most important.

The Law of Attraction

                The law of attraction is the name given to the maxim "like attracts like" which in New Thought philosophy is used to sum up the idea that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts a person brings positive or negative experiences into their life.  – Wikipedia

                I discovered the Law of Attraction while watching “The Secret,” about ten years ago.  At first it sounded kind of hokey to me.  After some internal debate, I decided to test the theory.  It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that the Law of Attraction is as real as the Law of Gravity.  The biggest difference I see is that no one can deny the existence of gravity, but attraction philosophy takes FAITH to prove.  Just like I can’t SHOW you God - but I can show you the evidence of why I believe He exists; I can’t SHOW you tangible evidence of the law of attraction, but I can share example upon example of my belief in it.

                I have a friend here at Freymiller who was regularly complaining about lack of miles.  I mean for months, not just the sporadic “bad week.”  After about three months of listening to this, I asked him if he’d ever heard of the law of attraction.  He hadn’t, so I explained it to him and then challenged him to not say one negative thing about his miles for the next two weeks.  I also explained to him the necessity of gratitude.  He agreed to the challenge.  The results blew my mind, even though I earnestly believed I wouldn’t be proven wrong.

Week one: 3,000 miles plus a load that took him through where his daughter lives and he got to spend a day with her and her two children (the youngest he’d never seen before).

        Week two: 3,000 miles again.

       Week three: 2,700 miles.

        I stopped asking about his miles after that; but he wasn’t complaining about them anymore, either.  I did tease him a bit about how “that crazy idea just might have worked!”  Also, he hadn’t been making Driver Scorecard Bonus, because of both miles and MPG’s.  He made Gold for both March and April, ranking within the top 50 drivers in the company.  Watching it play out and watching his attitude towards his job improve has been fun.

I can’t help but wonder what would happen if just 10% of our drivers would throw caution to the wind and test this theory.  If you decide to do it, let me know how it works out for you. 

FYI: you can watch clips or even the full version of The Secret on YouTube if you want a more detailed explanation.