Summer season is almost here and, as I'm sure all the truckers are dreading, with it the increased traffic of daytrippers and holidaymakers on their way to the cottage or campgrounds.

Whatever route they might take, it's bound to be clogged and the irritation factor is sure to go up as grannies and A-type personalities on overdue vacation make their way onto the nation's highways.

Here in Ontario, the route we take to go "up north" is Highway 400 and then Hwy. 11, all the way past Huntsville and then just a little further along.

The most psycho of drivers tend to leave us just after Barrie en route to Wasaga and its dead fish beach, but it's never quite smooth sailing even after that.

The Ontario Provincial Police has been quite helpful the last few years with their on-the-road blitzes to weed out delinquent drivers, blitzes which evoke the most dangerous and risky of military campaigns.

"Operation: Get your smelly feet off the dashboard" and "Operation: Your dog's hanging out the window again" result in hilarious fodder for radio and TV morning shows on Mondays after a long weekend, when the most ridiculous of attempted road feats are relayed to the giggling public (the public that wasn't, of course, actually on the road WITH these yahoos.)

It isn't uncommon to hear about road trippers who had a trailer hitched to the car with a coat hanger, or who were setting up their hibachi barbecues in the back seat, etc.

Then there are the serial speeders who "were just trying to pass" or "who were just trying to avoid a bee that was trying to get in the window."

I fear that my husband, while not a speeder per se, could do with a little talking-to from a Uniform.

He tends to drive in the passing lane from Toronto at least until Gravenhurst, when the passing lane kind of comes and goes.

I have been conditioned out of this by a father who used to haul a trailer up north and who made me follow him, in the slow lane, all the way up at 80 km/h.

Any attempts to pass him resulted in a stony glare until I slowed back down again.

I'm glad of the OPP presence, even though they do tend to slow things down, because my biggest fear is the drivers heading THE WRONG WAY on the highway, something I fear we hear about a little too often.

Despite the driving woes, a long road trip does offer a chance to "stop and smell the roses" so to speak.

Everyone has their favourite pit stops along the way, if a route is familiar enough.

If we're having breakfast on the road, we like the Husky truck stop at Bradford, for example.

We used to purposely bypass Weber's burgers near Orillia but now that the mom and pop restaurants have all been replaced by huge oil refineries attached to McDonald's, Weber's is at least fast and kid-friendly, with a huge picnic area in the back, people walking their dogs, and old VIA rail cars to eat in. And, of course, ice cream that isn't made with petroleum products.

There's also a nearby old-fashioned candy store and Timmy Ho's in case you need a pick-me-up.

There is a spot near Gravenhurst where Hwy 11 curves to the right. If you glance right as you go around the bend, wow, the view of a narrow path of sparkling water against the rocky walls of the Canadian Shield is breathtaking.

So, in my opinion, are rolls of hay in the morning mist and the yellow rapeseed fields in mid-summer.

For in-car entertainment, we see who can spot the first cattle and then that person has to moo. Needless to say, the moos become tiresome after awhile but the sight of these lumbering beasts somehow never does. Aha, so that's the source of our non-fat dairy!

With regard to entertainment, by the way, it used to be that listening to radio programs in the car while heading up north, you got indie French pop on CBC Radio's northern stations or the elevator music of CHAY FM, once you got past the Orillia frontier.

Then there were the small local rock stations where you could hear young DJs making on-air errors and sneaking on their personal playlists.

Now of course everything is syndicated and Orillia sounds like downtown L.A.

And in our car, with the advent of satellite radio, the peace has been further broken by Howard Stern whining ad nauseam and my daughter's Disney station. (not to mention the beeps and plugs and wires of my husband's intravenous cell and headphones. Can't the OPP stop him for a change?)

After awhile I'm almost praying for "Raindrops keep falling on my head" from good old CHAY.

I have a friend who plops her kid in the carseat and blasts heavy metal bands all the way to the cottage, because after all, it isn't the kid's car, but in our car we take turns.

First it's my daughter's choice then my husband's. They both make fun of my music so it's not worth the bother.

Used to be, Friday nights, we'd wait til 9 pm, head out on the highway, and bypass the rush hour traffic on the 400, making it a smooth 2.5 hour drive and getting in to the cottage just before midnight.

That's no longer an option travelling with a toddler. Not to mention that I don't think we see that well at night anymore and the risk of hitting deer and moose just freaks me out.

(Correction: I don't see that well at night anymore and my husband can't take the backseat driving when I THINK I see a moose ahead!)

While she is a good-natured and flexible kid, having a toddler in the car means loading up on wipes, paper towels, drink boxes, a handy change of clothes, kid-friendly CDs, a snack that won't choke her if we hit a bump, and various other sundries.

My husband rolls his eyes when he sees the bags that need packing into our small car for a 3-day trip, but when the need arises he's the one who turns to me and says

"Did you bring the wipes?"

Permalink | Comments (0)

A day in the life of a trucker as we all know is not often a picnic.

But a day in the life of a trade magazine editor can also be a trying affair!

For example, when we're not in the office, which occurs more and more frequently, we're attending numerous conferences and meetings, etc. where we're expected to do the networking thing on top of gathering information.

If you're someone like me who is on the shy side and, when faced with a crowd of unknowns, prefers to hightail it to the bathroom to check your hair for the hundredth time, you'll sympathize.

Not to mention that the transportation industry can be an intimidating one to work in.

When I first started as a junior editor, it was the junior's job to go to the truck stops and do a "streeter", basically accost the truckers and ask them twenty questions, take their picture and run it in the paper as "truck stop question".

Though I never looked forward to doing this, once I was there I never felt uncomfortable.

In my experience, hanging out at a truck stop to do question and answer stories has often been less intimidating than going to an industry function such as conference or dinner.

When I first started in the industry It was not unusual at some functions to see girls in neon stretch dresses and bleached hair handing out little souvenirs or programmes. Used to wonder if they hated doing that sort of job but now I have been educated and I realize that they are not being exploited at all-they are in fact making more in two nights of work than I probably do in half a year!

Going to transportation industry functions it would frequently happen that I'd stumble upon a conversation between long-standing attendees where they'd be looking wistfully off into the distance, recalling fondly how much it used to be permissible to drink before noon and what sort of salacious activities used to go on at the function (before too many Feminazis got into the biz, I'm guessing!)

I don't quite know what the problem is, because Feminazis are now an emancipated bunch themselves in more ways than one.

Even busy wives and mamas are now expected to take lap and pole dancing lessons along with their Pilates.
It's perfectly middle class and mainstream, like hair lice. But that's another tangent.

Eventually I got more and more comfortable at these functions as I got to know more people and see them again and again. But then my editor said: "Let's raise your profile more in the industry."

First he wanted to give me a "special title".

"Okay, I said, well, I'm into the legislative issues, how about policy specialist?"

"No, that's taken."

After going down a whole list, we were no further ahead on things I could pronounce myself "expert" on, but that's ok, because there's nothing wrong with being a good generalist, in my opinion.

But he wasn't done, because apparently, part of raising one's profile also involved attending seminars where you learned how to "network" better.

I attended one seminar not too long ago with my boss where the instructor had a list of "Five quick ways of breaking into a conversation in a crowded room where everyone is already in a group and half plastered and not at all interested in small talk...." (or something like that.)

One of the suggestions that cracked me up the most was this:

Say you've just arrived at a function and there are 300 people in a room, most of whom you don't know. Instead of maybe sidling up to a little group and introducing yourself, this instructor wanted us to start waving wildly at someone in the room, (as if we knew them), go running up to them and then go "Oh, I thought you were so-and-so," and then introduce yourself.

I could just picture this scenario applied in reality at the type of function we normally attend.

If that's what I needed to do to insinuate myself into a hostile crowd the bathroom was looking better and better. Not to mention the bar.

I think, as I've thought all my life, there are times when you have to do a little bit of something you don't entirely like to do, such as working the crowd, doing public speaking and completing "group projects" (which more often than not is either a pooling of ignorance or one person doing all the work).

But I also believe, there are people whose strengths do not lie in this area and if they have other strengths, these shouldn't be discounted.

From my observations as a journalist, the people who go through a room like wildfire and shake hands with 50 people never know those persons' names later on, or remember much about them.

But if you have a few sentences of conversation with one or two, and, a favourite trick of mine that has helped me overcome shyness, ask them more questions about themselves than they'll ever care to ask about you, that's a guaranteed one or two friendly faces in a crowd next time around.

Permalink | Comments (0)

My brother-in-law announced at dinner the other day that he’d take a 5 % pay cut if he could bring his dog to work.

Apparently, so would a third of people who got surveyed recently in a poll for the online dog forum Dogster and the job search engine Simply Hired, (where dog lovers can actually do a search for dog-friendly companies!)

The survey also found that 70 % of the 150 people questioned also considered a dog-friendly office ‘an important job benefit.’

Now my brother-in-law, who works for the Ministry of Finance (ONT), could probably swing bringing his dog to the office (if he could get her past the office allergy police and those people who are sensitive to smells).

It’s not like the dog would ever be overworked. She’d have lunch paid for every day. And, she might come up with a better budget every spring!

I think that in terms of working with your pet, though, this could be an area where some truckers might have the advantage over other professions. Finally!

I remember when I first started working for Truck News, my esteemed former editor, John G. Smith, went with me on a photo shoot. We were doing a story on truckers and their pets, and it was the first time I had ever had absolutely no problem getting people to respond to requests for interviews.

For weeks, we got letters from truckers and pictures of their dogs, cats, and occasionally, some other type of pet.

On the photo shoot, we saw some of the best animal accommodations ever in the truck cabs.

I always wondered, though, how does it work for, you know, pit stops, when a pet is along for the ride?

Many drivers told me that the pets got used to the schedule of when they would stop for breaks, and their pets kept them well-exercised when away from the wheel, which definitely kept them healthier. Of all the truckers we interviewed, we found mostly dog and cat lovers. Not too many reptiles and rodents in the cab, that we saw anyway. It always seems to come down to whether you’re a cat or a dog person, I find.

I’d be interested to know what the situation is nowadays (some six years later) with regard to how many truckers are travelling with pets (especially in a climate of ultra-tight security. I mean, can the pet get a FAST card? Does FDA have to come on board?)

I admit, I like all animals but there’s a lot about dog behaviour I don’t understand.

I appreciate that in terms of evolution, dogs allowed man to get further ahead with regard to hunting, for example.

And all working dogs, like police sniffers, seeing eye dogs and sheep dogs, deserve a lot of praise of course.

But the everyday domesticated pooch has some weird habits in the eyes of “cat people” like me.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have a half-pug, half-Jack Russell called Milla (after Milla Jovovich, the model. Go figure). We see it once a week when we all get together for dinner.

Milla

I pretend to be glad to see Milla although she always jumps on me and licks my face while my sister- in-law uselessly yells “Milla! No licking!” in the background.

I put up with this treatment because as it turns out, my three and a half-year-old is a dog lover.

She likes to boss Milla around and toss the dog’s slimy rubber toy bone around, back and forth, ALL NIGHT LONG (until I hide it in the closet).

I constantly hear her saying “Paw, paw, paw” for the dog to shake her hand. And she was very disappointed at Christmas when we got a new kitten instead of a puppy.

For several days each morning she proposed we send the cat back to Santa in exchange for a dog. She is still negotiating to this day.

But there’s no way that I am walking around the neighbourhood with a plastic sandwich bag, ready to scoop up you-know-what. And given the “debris” that I frequently find littering the local playground, many dog owners are not prepared to do so either.

Now apparently, dogs can’t eat chocolate, even the smallest chocolate chip, or they will d-i-e, but how is it that they can consume shoe leather, aluminum blinds, molding, the silica filling of a stuffed animal, dryer lint and the plastic casing of an I-pod and remain perfectly HEALTHY?

My sister-in-law, refusing to crate the dog while she was at work as the vet had advised, would come home daily to something else destroyed. The only time she punished the dog was for the I-pod though!

(I would have punished it after the pair of shoes, but anyway…)

At least cats go for the good stuff.

I had a bunch of grocery bags in the kitchen and had to leave them unpacked for a few minutes while I ran into the other room.

I came back to see that our male kitten, Giacomo, had clawed through butcher paper and was gnawing his way through several inches of steak. (My husband got what remained of it for dinner).

The cat had also, (though I didn’t find out until later), sunk his claws into a couple of bags of milk, not enough to gash them, just enough so that they leaked out slowwwwwly into all the fridge compartments by the next day.

Giacomo

I blame some of this not completely on his being a cat, but on his still not being “fixed.”

My husband says daily “No one is taking away his balls!” but let’s just see how we get through the spring.

There’s already been a big vet bill for a cat fight that Giacomo got into when he slipped outside unattended.

Simba, an older cat that roams the “territory” near our yard, fanged him right through his front paw.

My husband grumbled that he had never spent so much in his life on all his previous cats combined, but the very next day, he picked up the purring, bandaged cat and said affectionately (for him), “How are ya, gimp? It’s time to get your revenge.”
Stay tuned!

Permalink | Comments (2)

I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately about something that has suddenly gotten put on the radar: the fact that in many industrialized countries, seniors will soon outnumber the younger, working-age population.

In Canada, for example, (according to a Statistics Canada report released late last year), by the year 2015, there will be more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 15. That would be a first in the history of Canada’s population statistics, said the stats agency.

Indeed, a worrying trend has emerged in the country: Canada’s fertility rates (the amount of births per woman) are declining dramatically. We essentially are no longer replacing deaths with enough births.

The trucking industry has been well aware of such dire predictions for ages. Truckers already constitute, again according to Statistics Canada, an older work force whose average age in 2004 was 42 (45 for the self-employed truckers).

Even more worrisome, only 5 % of truck drivers were under 25 in 2004, compared with 15 % in the labour force as a whole, says ‘the Man’s’ Stats division.

And trucking will have to compete with many other industries for scarce employee resources. You can’t exactly offshore the profession either!

Now demographics don’t happen overnight, but I think the sudden panic was probably encouraged by the fact that in 2006, the oldest Baby Boomers (encompassing those born from 1946 to 1964), turn 60. This wouldn’t normally be problematic because their generation is, as we all know, immortal, but now all sorts of queries and questions are coming out about what shall we all do? There’s no one left to work!

Continue reading "Trucking needs a baby boom" »

Permalink | Comments (35)

I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately about something that has suddenly gotten put on the radar: the fact that in many industrialized countries, seniors will soon outnumber the younger, working-age population.

In Canada, for example, (according to a Statistics Canada report released late last year), by the year 2015, there will be more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 15. That would be a first in the history of Canada’s population statistics, said the stats agency.

Indeed, a worrying trend has emerged in the country: Canada’s fertility rates (the amount of births per woman) are declining dramatically. We essentially are no longer replacing deaths with enough births.

The trucking industry has been well aware of such dire predictions for ages. Truckers already constitute, again according to Statistics Canada, an older work force whose average age in 2004 was 42 (45 for the self-employed truckers).

Even more worrisome, only 5 % of truck drivers were under 25 in 2004, compared with 15 % in the labour force as a whole, says ‘the Man’s’ Stats division.

And trucking will have to compete with many other industries for scarce employee resources. You can’t exactly offshore the profession either!

Now demographics don’t happen overnight, but I think the sudden panic was probably encouraged by the fact that in 2006, the oldest Baby Boomers (encompassing those born from 1946 to 1964), turn 60. This wouldn’t normally be problematic because their generation is, as we all know, immortal, but now all sorts of queries and questions are coming out about what shall we all do? There’s no one left to work!

Continue reading "Trucking needs a baby boom" »

Permalink | Comments (35)

by Julia Kuzeljevich

It often comes up in casual conversation with friends and acquaintances, “What do you do for a living?” and when I tell people I’m a journalist, and more specifically, an editor and writer for a transportation trade publication, the response is always, with some variance,

“So do you, like, write about trucks?”

Well, I say, I do and I don’t.

I don’t profess to be an engineer, mechanic or maintenance manager, and I prefer, when researching a technical story, to consult the experts and relay the information to the readers as accurately as possible.

But I have made attempts in my career as a transportation journalist (now in my 7th year) to gain a better knowledge of trucks and how they operate.

I even took, at one point, an admittedly accelerated truck driving course. I passed the air brakes exam with flying colours, and with no surprise-it involved studying an actual book and listening to the instructor, and then responding in concise, organized sentences to exam questions.

I’m a whiz at that.

But I failed rather miserably at the driving exam.

Sure, I could drive smoothly down some of Ontario’s secondary highways while actually shifting gears in the truck without much grinding. (I credit this with having first learned to drive on a standard transmission.)

But on the actual day of the driving exam, a blustery, overcast December day, I did not succeed in backing up my trailer properly. Instant failure.

Of course I blamed it on the female examiner being extra tough on me, and later, on the fact that I was pregnant at the time and didn’t know it, a condition that surely must have affected my already-limited spatial judgement!

And technically, I had only accumulated about half the required driving hours, so I really was wasting the Ministry’s time trying to make a go of the exam.

But I was secretly relieved, because the exam taught me many things.

First of all it, that someone is doing something right by not letting me loose on small city streets to clog up traffic with my wide left-hand turns that put the cab on the curb.

It also taught me that I’m a real Girly Girl who likes uninterrupted sleep, doesn’t like doing circle checks in the frigid cold, or getting grease on my hands, and who is unwilling to part with the high heeled boots that actually would have allowed my 5’2 height to reach the pedals in those multi-tonned machines.

Sitting in the Ministry’s waiting room with some of the other candidates, however, I was ashamed of myself because so many of these guys were relying on a successful test to permit them a chance at a new career when their current ones in manufacturing and farming, to cite two examples, were coming to a premature close due to circumstances well beyond their control.

I was there because someone thought it a good idea for a trucking magazine editor to actually get in a truck for a change, and indeed, it was a good idea.

I’ve gained a whole new perspective, appreciation and respect for what drivers do, day in, day out, night in, night out.

You have a damned difficult job, and it’s time you earned some more credit for doing it.

So the next time people ask me, do I, like, write about trucks, I won’t worry about their eyes glazing over when I launch into all the varied aspects of the transportation industry.

I won’t wish I was writing an article about “10 different things to do to brighten your day” in one of those grocery-store magazines.

I’ll simply say yes.

Permalink | Comments (5)