Today, we spent the entire day driving. Well, I should say, attempting to drive, because I don't think what I did could be called as "driving" by even the most generous definition of the word. For those don't know, these trucks have a ten-speed manual transmission that requires a more complex shifting pattern. Also, the trucks are several feet wider, so there's very little room to move around within your lane before you slide over a line. I, in short, managed to fail miserably at both of these things.
Seeing as I've driven a stick shift exactly once before, I had no idea what to expect when I got into the truck. Sure, I had a general idea from the simulator yesterday, but the clutch pedal in the truck is a lot harder to press down, quite a bit less forgiving, and there are a lot more things to pay attention to. Like, say, trying not to drift even six inches to one side or the other. This becomes an even bigger problem in traffic, since you just don't have any room to work with. By the end of the day, my nerves were completely shot; I was trying not to cry as I finished parking. I still want to curl up into a ball after all that happened today.
Tomorrow morning, I get to be up there and will spend four hours, one on one, in the truck. If I can't get my nerves and mind under control enough to at least keep the truck under control, I'm going to be in serious trouble. Worse, tomorrow, we'll be carrying a trailer, so I have an extra 53 feet in length and about six more inches in width to watch for. Yes, I know that I'd be carrying that around all the time anyway, but I'm still struggling with the most basic parts of controlling this thing; I don't need any more problems added to what I already have.
On a somewhat brighter note, as some of you know, I was having trouble with my roommate at the hotel. I filed a complaint and got changed to another room, with another roommate. This guy at least seems willing to be civil; he's not turning the TV up excessively loud and wants to go to bed just as early as I do. Hopefully I'll be better off after getting a full eight or nine hours of rest. I need something to go right tomorrow, because today was disastrously bad. The trainer tried to convince me that I was doing fine, but I really don't feel at all comfortable with the thought of getting into that truck again at 7AM tomorrow.
Well, the best advice I can give you is to stay calm. They say once you know how to drive a stick you can drive anything. I don't think that applies to big rigs. Even so I doubt that would give me as much heart ache since i have been driving a stick since 1999.
ReplyDelete