Appreciation post: the route supervisor who told me to stop taking every extra shift
I drive a delivery truck out of a depot in Columbus, and about two months ago I was grabbing a sandwich with my route supervisor, Dale, a guy who has been doing this for 22 years. I was bragging about picking up a sixth shift that week, mostly because I felt like I had to say yes to everything. He put his sandwich down and asked me how long I planned to run on fumes. I gave him some dumb answer about paying down my truck. He said "a driver who shows up tired is worse than a driver who calls in." That hit me harder than it should have, partly because I had been treating my job like a contest instead of a career I actually want to keep. I went home and looked at my pay stubs and realized the extra shifts were adding about $90 a week while I was sleeping maybe five hours a night. So I cut back to my normal four days and started asking Dale how he lasted this long instead of how many hours he could stack.
Sounds like the guy just told you what any boss with half a brain would say to keep a good driver from burning out. Ninety bucks a week isn't nothing, but framing this as some big life lesson feels like a stretch.