Keep on truckin'
My coworkers and I have recently begun compiling the most absurd workplace quotes to fly from our motor-mouths. Our days pass chatting up customers, bitching at carriers, and making memories for all. In the fast-paced world of transportation, we find ourselves speaking first, questioning ourselves later.
Yesterday, one of my team members informed me via email, “I have this awesome like red throbbing fucking golf ball size bump under my arm, not really sure what it is, thinking it’s a spider bite but I have no clue. If I die you guys can feel free pillage my cubicle.” Having friends in the medical field, I felt if appropriate to diagnose his soon to be oozing ailment.
“Craig,” I began, “based on your bodily proportions and affinity for Italian cuisine, I surmise a meatball has become lodged in your armpit. Maybe it’s even sprouting.”
“Well, that’s the perfect growing condition for a meatball,” he blurted.
“Yes, thank you, Craig. I was until now unacquainted with proper meatball growing conditions.”
I gauged his reaction and reached toward his shoulder. “It’s OK,” I said in my best consolatory voice, careful not to lick my lips too obviously as I tried to peer into his short sleeve, past the pit-stains of marinara.
Unfortunately, the real doctor’s diagnosis defused my dreams.
Another moment a colleague preserved for posterity: “C’mon, I’m a classy guy. I only piss on someone if they really deserve it.” Guessing the speaker shouldn’t be too difficult.
Last week I was being grilled by a carrier executive about a recurrent wet trailer problem. To clarify, the carrier is hauling dry, wooden freight; thus, the empty trailers (to load) must be dry to avoid damaging and warping the shipped product. Inexplicably and perplexingly for the carrier and shipper, one particular carrier’s trailers keep turning up soaking wet, and these aren’t trailers that are scheduled to have been cleaned, or that have been hauling wet freight.
As my amusement built through the conversation discussing such, listening to the carrier scurry about, testing the feasibility of various excuses, I interjected a scenario of my own: “And maybe there’s a bandit on the loose, targeting only [insert carrier name]’s trailers with late-night water soakings.” The quote itself isn’t astounding, but I heard a collective gasp then laughter behind me.
Working for a logistics/freight brokerage, my company tenders physical load sheets to carriers to confirm and document the agreement, and to provide hardcopy information – times, addresses, and such. Working one specific account, my pre-promotion days were spent “building” loads in the company computer system; each and every repetition, ten to fifteen times daily, I entered the commodity “cabinets.” The promotion providing a pinch of leeway to joke with the carriers supporting the company’s financial existence, I decided to risk a lecture.
Every once in a while you add a new carrier to the mix, to replace an old carrier or to compensate for increases in volume leaving a facility. In one such instance, soon after adding a national carrier, I tendered over a load of “melted chocolate.” The subordinate who received the load was understandably aghast – “They’re going to load 40,000 pounds of candy-goo onto our pristine trailer?” – and summarily referred the mess to her boss. He called me immediately, and, lucking out, we were both breathless with laughter within a minute. The ongoing joke with that company and dispatcher has been chocolate related: chocolate covered cabinets; chocolate covered people; chocolate covered pets. But every carrier now and again deserves a dose of the peculiar. One truck was full of hairnets and lunchladies; another, beetles and cottage cheese; spoiled milk; rotten fruit; the black plague; omelets; dead rats and porridge; military secrets; corpses; severed limbs. The possibilities and combinations are endless (and have grown increasingly gruesome). Commodity fabrication is proof that the smallest pleasures possess the power to transform and enliven even the brutally mundane.
Yesterday, one of my team members informed me via email, “I have this awesome like red throbbing fucking golf ball size bump under my arm, not really sure what it is, thinking it’s a spider bite but I have no clue. If I die you guys can feel free pillage my cubicle.” Having friends in the medical field, I felt if appropriate to diagnose his soon to be oozing ailment.
“Craig,” I began, “based on your bodily proportions and affinity for Italian cuisine, I surmise a meatball has become lodged in your armpit. Maybe it’s even sprouting.”
“Well, that’s the perfect growing condition for a meatball,” he blurted.
“Yes, thank you, Craig. I was until now unacquainted with proper meatball growing conditions.”
I gauged his reaction and reached toward his shoulder. “It’s OK,” I said in my best consolatory voice, careful not to lick my lips too obviously as I tried to peer into his short sleeve, past the pit-stains of marinara.
Unfortunately, the real doctor’s diagnosis defused my dreams.
Another moment a colleague preserved for posterity: “C’mon, I’m a classy guy. I only piss on someone if they really deserve it.” Guessing the speaker shouldn’t be too difficult.
Last week I was being grilled by a carrier executive about a recurrent wet trailer problem. To clarify, the carrier is hauling dry, wooden freight; thus, the empty trailers (to load) must be dry to avoid damaging and warping the shipped product. Inexplicably and perplexingly for the carrier and shipper, one particular carrier’s trailers keep turning up soaking wet, and these aren’t trailers that are scheduled to have been cleaned, or that have been hauling wet freight.
As my amusement built through the conversation discussing such, listening to the carrier scurry about, testing the feasibility of various excuses, I interjected a scenario of my own: “And maybe there’s a bandit on the loose, targeting only [insert carrier name]’s trailers with late-night water soakings.” The quote itself isn’t astounding, but I heard a collective gasp then laughter behind me.
Working for a logistics/freight brokerage, my company tenders physical load sheets to carriers to confirm and document the agreement, and to provide hardcopy information – times, addresses, and such. Working one specific account, my pre-promotion days were spent “building” loads in the company computer system; each and every repetition, ten to fifteen times daily, I entered the commodity “cabinets.” The promotion providing a pinch of leeway to joke with the carriers supporting the company’s financial existence, I decided to risk a lecture.
Every once in a while you add a new carrier to the mix, to replace an old carrier or to compensate for increases in volume leaving a facility. In one such instance, soon after adding a national carrier, I tendered over a load of “melted chocolate.” The subordinate who received the load was understandably aghast – “They’re going to load 40,000 pounds of candy-goo onto our pristine trailer?” – and summarily referred the mess to her boss. He called me immediately, and, lucking out, we were both breathless with laughter within a minute. The ongoing joke with that company and dispatcher has been chocolate related: chocolate covered cabinets; chocolate covered people; chocolate covered pets. But every carrier now and again deserves a dose of the peculiar. One truck was full of hairnets and lunchladies; another, beetles and cottage cheese; spoiled milk; rotten fruit; the black plague; omelets; dead rats and porridge; military secrets; corpses; severed limbs. The possibilities and combinations are endless (and have grown increasingly gruesome). Commodity fabrication is proof that the smallest pleasures possess the power to transform and enliven even the brutally mundane.
posted by Mr. Pibba at 8:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home