I had some issues with my Saab this last Thursday. That’s another story, but I had it towed to the Saab dealership in Vegas to get fixed so it’d work again. I caught a ride this morning at 6.30am with my brother to Vegas to pick it up (he works for North LV Fire). He had to be to work at his station early, so he offered to take me further into the city, closer to where the pickup shuttle could reach me easier..
I arrived around 7.15am (vegas time) at the Flying J truck stop on Cheyenne. Called the Service department, got the number for the shuttle dude, I was told to call him at 8am (this is vegas time btw) and he’d get me on the schedule. I called at 8am, he told me he leaves the dealership at 8.15am to deliver those that brought their cars in this morning.. and that I’d be first on his list to pick up. Turns out I got picked up around 10am.. almost 3 hours after I arrived there. Sure I could have taken the bus or taxi, but I’m cheap.
I spent the time listening to the truckers talk in the “drivers lounge”. Some of these guys have the nastiest mouths I have ever heard. One black guy was pretty up-to-date on the current events, he wanted to know if Bush had spoken to the UN yet or not.. and what he said.
Specifically there was this Mexican guy (well, he was from California) that bought his own rig and drove long hauls…because it makes more money. He typically drives out east, and then once he’s out there they give him short hauls from like Baltimore to Georgia, or Georgia to Virginia, .. it takes him forever to get back to the west. He had to wait for like a day for his stuff to get loaded or unloaded.
There was this other guy, we’ll call him Trucker B. He seemed to be hard on his luck. He said he’ll be waiting in this chair for two days for his load to come in. He mentioned he was lucky to get any work. Only making $22k this year, and can’t pay his mortgage. Seemed like a nice guy, just hard on his luck.
Trucker C was this guy that came in at the end of the conversation and said that he made 40k since the end of May. He had no idea why Trucker B was having such a hard time.
Trucker A (the black guy from above), liked to dominate the conversation. He mentioned that 20 years ago the D.O.T. liked to stop him all the time and ask for his docs. Now, they stop the Mexican drivers (pointing to Trucker B).. and he thanked Trucker B for taking the heat of the DOT off of him. Kind of funny. Trucker A was quite the liberal guy.. critiquing everything that the government is doing or isnt doing… He also kept saying how Ford, Campbell soups and all these companies offloaded their factory work into Mexico for the cheap labor, and instead of shipping it into the states, because it costs too much, they just truck it over the border into the US.
It was an interesting situation being in the room with these three truckers going on and on about life as being a “rig” driver. Every once in a while another trucker stopped in.. waiting for his turn in the shower. I guess there was some computer that they scan a card to get “in line” for the shower. Didn’t really pay much attention to that.
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