SAFETY ZONE

SAFETY ZONE By Chris Pape

THE INEVITABLE CHANGE PART 2

Hello everyone,

In the last issue, we spoke of change and how it elevates our need for continual training in our new environments. At the time of writing, we had no idea the change just around the corner we faced, yet again. Nearly every day we hear of more impacts of the COVID 19 virus. Restaurants, many small businesses, large department stores, and even many trucking companies have closed their doors. It is a sad time in many ways, but let’s not forget, it is a learning time in more ways!

How do we get up? How do we move forward!? I believe the best way to face a change is to embrace it. I have no doubt most of you reading this now have experienced a great deal of challenging decisions and heart wrenching changes in the past few months. With our drivers being kept away from terminal facilities, forced to wait outside for food to be brought to them, struggles to get in and out of loading and unloading facilities, they are being challenged in more ways than most of us. We must find ways to change with this and to stay in social contact with them. They need us!

We found that live webinars are a great resource for daily communications, working groups, project management and even training courses. Many have welcomed the new way of communicating and have even stated that they would rather do it this way than face to face, in some cases. Phone calls and even having conversations in a break-room while social distancing are also easy ways to keep the contact up. Constant communication in any form is a human’s natural desire.

I’m asking all of us, to be diligent in removing ourselves from the constant staring at our computers, the routing, logistical planning, the hooking this trailer to that truck, for just a few minutes a day. Remember that what drives America is not a truck, a trailer, a load, or a customer. It is a driver. A human being that bares the same struggles, without someone by their side to help them most of their days. It’s up to us to move America. It’s up to us to learn how we maneuver through this ever-changing environment, without losing the one thing that all of us care about equally, the people that it takes to achieve it.

Have a safe day, Chris Pape, OSSC Chair

Practice for the impossible, because someday, it’s inevitable -Chris