(by Kevin)
After a year on the truck together, Sherlene and I have developed a routine for dealing with chores.
On any given day, and during any given evolution, there are certain things that have to be done.
Let’s say, for instance, we arrive at a customer, and Sherlene is driving. If I am asleep, she does everything. She talks to the customer, opens the doors, does the backing, disconnecting, dropping, hooking, paperwork, etc. and she is very capable.
If I am awake, she will talk to customers and back, I will get out and disconnect, lower the dollies, pull the 5th wheel pin, locate an empty, and help her reconnect. Meanwhile, she is sending in our arrival and empty calls, and filling out paperwork.
This works out well, since I would rather cut off my arm than do paperwork, and sometimes, the outside work can be a little physical. So, just to define the different chores, and who is responsible, I have taken to referring to them as “union” and “nonunion” jobs.
A sample of union jobs might be: Paperwork, satellite forms, phone calls to dispatcher, paperwork, making beds, organizing the truck, shopping lists, making sure I take my medicine, paperwork. She arranges for regular showers, keeps the shampoo bottles filled, and makes sure we have clean laundry. She puts away the clean laundry, and groceries, makes sure we have plenty of food supplements, and does paperwork.
This is just a fraction of what the union person might do, but you can begin to get the picture.
She is the detail person, the one who has to know the answer to: “Honey, where is my….”.
She also does the paperwork.
The nonunion guy is much less skilled.
If there is something that needs lifting, fixed, reached, or pulled, that is a nonunion job. In trying to sort this out for herself, Sherlene once made the observation that I seemed to break chores into “hard”, or “easy”, and she pointed out that making the bed in the cramped space of a moving truck is not “easy”.
That is missing the point.
I have made the bed before, and I know it is not easy. Consequently when I make the bed, I figure that if the bed is covered by sheets, and there are blankets enough to cover me, then the bed is “made”. She is much more thorough and I can tell you that crawling into a bed that she has made is a real treat, and kicking loose a knot of blankets so you can worm your way into them is not.
Also, I can assure you that doing paperwork is not “easy”.
Assigning chores is more about matching skill sets and personalities with what needs to be done. Lets move on to a list of what the nonunion guy might do.
Wash the windshield, check the oil, fluids and lights, thump the tires, strap down the load, sweep the trailer, and pull the pins while sliding the tandems, etc. For me, these things are easy, and what she does is hard.
As you can imagine, there are some areas of contention. For instance, the pee bucket; Without getting into too much detail, we have on the truck, something like an old fashioned chamber pot. It needs emptied on a regular basis. Even though I use it much less than the union person, emptying it seems to be a nonunion job. There is nothing really said about it, it’s just that every time I turn around, it is full. So I have to empty it. If given half a chance, when said union person gets out of the truck to use a restroom at a rest area, when she gets back, the bucket will be setting by the driver’s door ready to be emptied.
The nonunion guy learned this trick by having it pulled on him several times.
There are also areas that might surprise you.
For instance, cooking; Because of the way we break up our day, cooking is left to the nonunion guy quite a bit. That’s fine, I like to cook. In the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning, Sherlene might make a sandwich or snack, but most times, if there is going to be a hot meal, with all the trimmings; it will be the nonunion guy doing it.
As I mentioned earlier, any of these chores may be done by any one of us if need be, but given the chance we divide it this way. Most days, we go through our routines without thought, other than making it easy for the other. What I do well, I do gladly, what Sherlene does well, she does gladly. We are both very protective of the other when it comes to sleep time. Sherlene will struggle with lifting the dollies on 45,000 pounds rather than wake me up, and I will struggle through the paperwork rather than wake her up. It may well be that perhaps the reason I empty to chamber pot more often is because I want it to be usable for her, and it may well be that the reason Sherlene does the paperwork is because… paperwork makes me grumpy, but that’s another story.
