Mike French, 25-year veteran of Dart Transit, recalled vivid memories and colleagues of days long gone in the October issue of Advantage Digest, the fleet’s newsletter for their owner-operator contractors.
Contractors, as a good-natured work force, are some of the constants in a changing world, he writes. “Contractors even connected to my family. I don’t have the exact details, but another contractor called ‘Snake’ hauled a Teddy Bear all over the U.S. for my son and sent post cards of where he was to his classroom. Bear and Snake covered a lot of ground and were the hit of the fourth grade classroom.”
French appreciates the unconventional on-the-job training he received as a rookie, with then-supervisor Dale Thompson, getting every load moved with no night dispatchers at that time. “If we didn’t get it done, Dale made sure the mistake didn’t happen a second time. He also taught me great listening skills. If you didn’t immediately pay attention to him, he would staple a note into your arm or you may get a donut thrown at your head.”
Something about the staples or the sticky sugar must have stuck with French — now a senior vice president of national accounts with the fleet. –Lucinda Coulter
