Caution do not scare the GROUCH!

Some of you that read this may realize that I train folks to drive big trucks. Those that do not will now. Last week quite by accident I found a new training technique. I had a student from New York City, and he was pretty nervous about driving my truck because it has a 13 speed transmission. I tried everything I could to make him more comfortable. Nothing seemed to work.

I use post-it notes to write the route out so that students stay on the right roads when I go into the sleeper. (I do not sleep much back there, but when I go back there students seem to relax.) I went back there with this guy and he woke me up suddenly. I got up grouchy. He did not say anything about it but I was a little bothered by it. I apologized to him for being grouchy, but then told him that I had been asleep. He seemed surprised. Then he asked if he had scared me. I told him no, he would not like me very much if he had scared me. We had a good laugh about this. Then I wrote on a post it note "CAUTION !!!! DO NOT SCARE THE GROUCH!!!!!", I put this note behind the route, and did not say anything to him about it.

Then next day we we leaving a parking lot and a car almost hit us. He stopped and controlled the situation well. Afterwords he asked me if he had scared me. I then showed him the note, and told him no but he should stop trying to scare me. We laughed but he was much more relaxed after that. So it worked.



As an aside I am planning on doing the entire Run For The Wall this year. More on that later