How I Screwed Up At Work But Learned Something Valuable

I have recently taken a bucket list job as a rollback truck driver working for my neighbor. I have had careers, don't need another one at this point in my life and have steady income from other sources but need a little extra $$$ from time to time. I never pictured myself as a tow truck driver before but my other neighbor (not the owner of the company) has been doing the job for several months and after talking with me about it, got me excited to try it out.

A rollback is a powerful machine from the speed it can travel, the overall weight of the vehicle and the sheer strength of the hydraulics. Having no experience with this type of machine before, I realized how fast a situation an go from "looks good" to absolutely tearing something up in a matter of seconds.

Damage can be quickly done to the Truck, a persons vehicle/property or to one's physical self.

When one trains with a pro everything goes smooth and easy. One is left with the feeling that "this is an easy job" and "let me at it" mentality. With a week of minimal training, I was put in command of a truck, I could call my own for the shift.

Things happen fast and I am fortunate that the owner of the company has been a driver himself for years, is very forgiving and realizes that "newbies" will make mistakes.

Picking a car up off the side of the interstate is very dangerous. A car passing within inches, doing 90 miles per hour is both frightening and scary. Recently a car drove close enough to knock a side mirror off a driver's truck.

The other day I picked up a nice Jeep not far from the shop but on the interstate. I was careful realizing this could be the quickest way to die while doing this job. The Jeep easily went into gear and loaded compliantly on the truck bed. Most dangerous part out of the way I drove back to the shop wondering what my next call would be.

When I got back to the destination for the Jeep to be worked on, it would not go into neutral and remained in park. I did everything I could to get it to move off the bed. Meanwhile, my dispatcher called and told me nicely to "Hurry UP! I have other calls for you to do". Finally, I ran the winch cable out to the end of the bed, hooked the cable through a "snatch block" (see pic) and hooked the cable to the rear axle of the Jeep. snatch block

A snatch block is a pulley that can be used to run a winch through at different angles or to pull a vehicle in reverse as I planned on doing with this Jeep.

I will not get too deep into all the technical Jargon but suffice to say I was able to get the rear wheels off the bed but did not pay good enough attention to where the cable hook was at and ended up pulling a large metal item through a smaller opening. This resulted in completely destroying the winch block and causing the heavy cable to fray to the point of being unusable. The cable is good for 15,000 pounds of force give or take.

I did not damage the Jeep fortunately and did finally get it off the truck. I learned several important lessons out of the whole ordeal. The bright side is that I can guarantee, that is the last time that will happen to me and I am better prepared for the next day.

I make mistakes in life. The important thing when this happens is learning and not making the same mistakes over and over. It has been said that craziness is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome.

Steemit is new to me and I thank you for taking the time to stop by and read my posts.

I made the mistake in a former post of referring to Steemit users as "Steemers" but I think "Steemians" is much more correct.