Backing up

I got stopped on my way to work this morning as a truck driver worked to back his semi-trailer into the loading docks at Maple Island.

I admit to a certain level of frustration. It was the type you feel when the stoplight changes from green to red just as you pull up to it. Or perhaps, when you are hurtling down the highway and the person several cars in front of you sets their cruise control at precisely 54 miles per hour and you end up being in a long caravan of frustrated drivers waiting for the driver to eventually turn somewhere.

My frustration at being within eyesight of my office and being delayed in getting to work on what I anticipated would be a busy day quickly gave away to the fascination of having a front row seat to watching the driver patiently making minor adjustments to line the trailer precisely to the loading dock.

To those who drive big rigs, the skill of being able to back a trailer into position is just part of their job. A few years ago, a driver was dropping off a pallet of inserts to The Star News office going between cars in our parking lot. He was nervous because he was in a short-box truck and said that with a full 53-foot trailer he would have been able to do it blindfolded. I don’t doubt his ability.

In my world of covering local government meetings, it is akin to knowing that a motion to table is not subject to debate and proceeds to a vote by the chair and that someone calling for the question requires a vote to close discussion before a vote for the motion can occur.

When I was stopped this morning and watching the driver back up his rig using his mirrors to guide him, I watched someone do something I knew I would not be able to do — or at least not be able to do without some significant training and practice. Even then, judging by my painfully plodding attempts to back up my family’s pop-up camper, I am certain I would not be able to do the truck driver’s job without sweating out at least several buckets.

To master a skill is to make it appear effortless to the person watching from the sidelines.

You are in dangerous territory when you find yourself thinking, “Golly, that looks easy. I don’t know why we are paying that guy so much to do something anyone could do.”

This sort of thinking is at the heart of the do-it-yourself industry, and is coincidentally also the root cause of many emergency room visits, chiropractic visits and frantic calls to real contractors to fix the work of the weekend warriors.

This is not to say people’s shouldn’t work to expand their skill set. I still have the knitted hat that Ron Roth made for me while he was undergoing cancer treatment late in life.

Mastering any skill takes time, patience and aptitude. The challenge in life is to not be so constrained by a fear of failure that we do not even attempt, but also to recognize that natural talent still requires practice and building on fundamentals. Failure is the only guarantee we have in life, and that in itself is a good thing. Failure gives us a something to build from and a base level for improvement.

I spent a few minutes watching the driver patiently back up to the factory loading dock. He would back up and find that he was a few inches off to the left and then pull forward and correct his line and back up again. The whole operation took less time to complete than it did for you to read this, and far less time than it took for me to write it.

As I drove the remaining blocks to my office, I thought about how at times we all need to stop, pull forward, adjust our course and try again.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.