Al
10-03-2008, 12:23 AM
I cut-n-paste one of many tales from a street sweeper driver out of TN. Follow the link and you will be rewarded to about 20 more!!!
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2411937&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
BTW- "auto edit"...poo poo = shit, caress = f*ck
When I burned out of college in spring of 2006, I found myself needing cash in the worst kind of way. I was flipping through the newspaper when I found an ad that read:
"Sweeper Vac Driver needed. 3rd shift only"
and gave subsequent contact info. I'm really great doing over night work and decided that I'd give it a shot. I arrive at the office, fill out an application, and before I walked out of the door I was given the job and told to report for training the following evening.
So, I reported to the office the following evening... and had the weirdest/craziest/funniest 8 months of my life. I was hoping to share a story or two with you guys. If you like 'em, I've got TONS.
Stopping a robbery
Incorrectly thinking some guy was dead
Screwing with ricers
Helping the 5 - 0 bust a tranny hooker
and more than I can remember
Training Day:
Trying to make a good first impression, I showed up at 7:30; 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I found a note taped to the door that told me to have a seat in the break room and that my trainer would be with me shortly. Well, 7:30 eventually turned into 8:45 when I had decided to say "gently caress it" and walk out. As I was heading for the door, a very unkempt man wearing jeans and a dirty T-Shirt stumbled in.
Hey..uh.. you Bruiser?
Yeah, I've been here since-
Cool... alright, well uh, lemme go clock in and we'll get going. Here, take this stuff around back to our truck and I'll meet you out there.
I walked out, found our truck, and did some more waiting. Eventually, the guy comes back out with a bag full of stuff and sets it behind the seat. The guy finally introduces himself as Mark. He explained the finer points of the job.
We go around to places like malls and grocery stores, use the sweeper truck to suck up the trash, use leaf blowers to blow trash away form the sidewalk, and empty all of the trashcans.
Wow, that wasn't in the job description.
haha, it never is. Don't worry, FNG's get the hang of the job easily
FNG?
That's you, buddy.
Mark and I got to know each other en route to the first place we had to clean. He's one of the coolest guy's I've ever met and continues to be a friend to this day. He's got a really dry sense of humor, he's kind of a , and had been doing the job way too long.
I got the hang of it midway through the night. It wasn't hard at all, just mind-numbingly dull manual labor. Happy to have someone to talk to, Mark kept me entertained the entire night with stuff he had seen "out there". He also let me in on the fact that the "Sweeper Vac Guys" are pretty tight knit just for how lovely a job it was, and that leaving the "FNG" in the break room is kind of a hazing.
After a quick coffee break, we pulled up to one of our last stops for the night. It was a Walgreen's dead in the center of the Nashville ghetto. Mark dropped me off in front of the building.
Alright, buddy, I'm going to run across the street to our last stop of the night. Go ahead and change the trashcans and check the back of the store for anything out of the ordinary. I'll pick you up when you're done and we'll call it a night
You're leaving me?
Don't worry, call on the radio if you need anything!
and just like that, my pasty white rear end was in the middle of the ghetto at 3am on a friday night. But, luckily for me, I grew up in D.C. and had learned some street sense.
I change the cans really quickly and went around back to "look for anything out of the ordinary".
Usually, I'm really good about watching my back. Notice I said "usually". I was noting that the lights had been shot out when I heard something behind me. I whirled around to see a crack head standing a few feet from me.
Hey man! Hey! Uh, do you have a light, man?
Sorry, I don't smoke
Hey! Uh, do you got a dollar, man?
Listen man, I'm covered to my head in stink at 3am on a Friday night. Does it look like I have a dollar?
The guy then pulls a knife from his jacket pocket. This is not going to happen. I'm covered head to toe in grime, I'm exhausted, and now a crack head is trying to mug me on my first night at work. This is not going to happen. So I did the only thing I could do.
Come on, man! Give me that wallet!
I hold up my hands, nod, and make like I'm reaching behind me for my wallet. Well, some asshat had missed the dumpster with a pallet earlier in the day and had left planks of wood scattered about behind me.
I grab a plank of wood, whip around, and crack it as hard as I can on the side of his face. He drops like a ton of bricks and I reached for the radio.
Hey! Some crack head just tried to mug be back here. I think I knocked him out. Do we need to call Metro PD or something?
*long pause*
Hello?!
Is he dead?
WHAT!?
Is. He. Dead.
I reached down and felt a strong pulse on the guy (but man was his face a wreck).
No, he's alive.
gently caress it, I'm coming to pick you up, see you in a sec.
A moment later, Mark comes roaring behind the store, stops, and looks at my handy-work.
Good form!
Can we go now?
I mean, I've had to drop guys before, but this takes the cake!
Can we please go now?
Mark then takes a picture with his cell phone
I can't wait to show the guys when we get back to the office!
Later on that morning, he introduced me to everyone in the group. After showing off the pictures and bragging about "How his FNG dropped someone the first night" one of the other guys, Jay, got me a cup of coffee.
It was then that I found out that almost getting robbed was apart of the job and I handled it like it was supposed to be handled.
I also found out that "FNG" stood for "******' New Guy."
Edit: I'm now back in school
Illegal Street (sweeper) Racing:
Halfway through my stay at the company, I was working 7 days a week. 5 days on my normal route in Murfreesboro and the weekend sweeping in Clarksville. Now, for those of you not familiar with the geography, Murfreesoboro is in the exact center of TN where as Clarksville is on the TN/KY border. I had finished my Friday night in Clarksville and was cruising down I-24 when i get a call from Mike.
Hey, where are you at?
I'm about 20 outside Nashville, you?
I'm just wrapping up here in Green Hills (Nashville 'burb).
Cool, you want to meet up?
Actually, I'm so fast I'll probably beat you back to Murfreesboro AND have time to gently caress your girlfriend.
That fast, eh?
That fast.
Well, perk up your ears, old man. I want you to hear this. Never. Not in this lifetime or the next will you ever beat me in a race. Not tonight. Not ever.
Oh, we'll see. Give me a call before you reach the Trinity Ln. Exit. I'll be waiting.
See you there.
Now, Mike and I are pretty close. We tended to hang out after work during the week drinking beer and playing Need for Speed: Most Wanted until noon. By the way, getting drunk at 9am is awesome. But I digress.
I radio in that I'm about to pass the exit, and the race is on.
I pass his truck at 80 and he quickly catches up. My side mirrors are filled with his headlights as we fly down I-24 at 4 in the morning. He passes me and I drop the hammer. Tucking in behind his truck, I start drafting him at 97 miles an hour.
The entire truck is shaking. For a brief instant I think that this rat-trap piece of poo poo is going to fall apart around me. A demon is trying to escape from the hood. I can't imagine what two sweeper vac trucks traveling at speeds close to 100 miles an hour, inches apart from each other looks like*.
I see the sign for our exit; 3/4 of a mile. I sling shot around Mike and take a glance at the speedometer. There I can't see the needle and the rear end end is poking toward "5". I finally pass him and rocket up the on ramp. Our office isn't too far off the interstate and I do a good job of blocking until I get to the shop. Needless to say, I won.
Well, We pull in and hop out.
Hah! What the gently caress did I say!
Um.. Bruiser?
You see that poo poo?! I had the needle buried into the dash. I'm awesome!
Bruiser?
I think you need to buy the beer today, because that poo poo was outta sight!
BRUISER!
WHAT?!
Look at the rear end end of your truck.
I walk around and take a look. The rear axle at the wheel hubs was smoking. I did the mental connect the dots.
Was I on...
Fire? Yeah. You were. I tried to tell you, but you didn't hear me.
Did it look cool?
...
I bet it did.
Are you kidding me? It was like the sweeper truck from hell! It was loving fantastic!
I knew it.
And that was the end of the story. Or at least I thought it was until Bryce called me.
Hey Bruise
Bryceman!
Yeah.. uh, hi. Listen, I just got a call from a trooper friend of mine talking about a pair of sweeper trucks doing about a buck-oh-five down 24. You know anything about that?
NOOOOOOOoooooo, are you serious? These things? They hardly do 80
Riiiiiiight, well just look for the smoking truck, apparently the guy was burning his axles and looked all seven flavors of hell coming down the highway.
* check that, it looked awesome.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2411937&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1
BTW- "auto edit"...poo poo = shit, caress = f*ck
When I burned out of college in spring of 2006, I found myself needing cash in the worst kind of way. I was flipping through the newspaper when I found an ad that read:
"Sweeper Vac Driver needed. 3rd shift only"
and gave subsequent contact info. I'm really great doing over night work and decided that I'd give it a shot. I arrive at the office, fill out an application, and before I walked out of the door I was given the job and told to report for training the following evening.
So, I reported to the office the following evening... and had the weirdest/craziest/funniest 8 months of my life. I was hoping to share a story or two with you guys. If you like 'em, I've got TONS.
Stopping a robbery
Incorrectly thinking some guy was dead
Screwing with ricers
Helping the 5 - 0 bust a tranny hooker
and more than I can remember
Training Day:
Trying to make a good first impression, I showed up at 7:30; 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I found a note taped to the door that told me to have a seat in the break room and that my trainer would be with me shortly. Well, 7:30 eventually turned into 8:45 when I had decided to say "gently caress it" and walk out. As I was heading for the door, a very unkempt man wearing jeans and a dirty T-Shirt stumbled in.
Hey..uh.. you Bruiser?
Yeah, I've been here since-
Cool... alright, well uh, lemme go clock in and we'll get going. Here, take this stuff around back to our truck and I'll meet you out there.
I walked out, found our truck, and did some more waiting. Eventually, the guy comes back out with a bag full of stuff and sets it behind the seat. The guy finally introduces himself as Mark. He explained the finer points of the job.
We go around to places like malls and grocery stores, use the sweeper truck to suck up the trash, use leaf blowers to blow trash away form the sidewalk, and empty all of the trashcans.
Wow, that wasn't in the job description.
haha, it never is. Don't worry, FNG's get the hang of the job easily
FNG?
That's you, buddy.
Mark and I got to know each other en route to the first place we had to clean. He's one of the coolest guy's I've ever met and continues to be a friend to this day. He's got a really dry sense of humor, he's kind of a , and had been doing the job way too long.
I got the hang of it midway through the night. It wasn't hard at all, just mind-numbingly dull manual labor. Happy to have someone to talk to, Mark kept me entertained the entire night with stuff he had seen "out there". He also let me in on the fact that the "Sweeper Vac Guys" are pretty tight knit just for how lovely a job it was, and that leaving the "FNG" in the break room is kind of a hazing.
After a quick coffee break, we pulled up to one of our last stops for the night. It was a Walgreen's dead in the center of the Nashville ghetto. Mark dropped me off in front of the building.
Alright, buddy, I'm going to run across the street to our last stop of the night. Go ahead and change the trashcans and check the back of the store for anything out of the ordinary. I'll pick you up when you're done and we'll call it a night
You're leaving me?
Don't worry, call on the radio if you need anything!
and just like that, my pasty white rear end was in the middle of the ghetto at 3am on a friday night. But, luckily for me, I grew up in D.C. and had learned some street sense.
I change the cans really quickly and went around back to "look for anything out of the ordinary".
Usually, I'm really good about watching my back. Notice I said "usually". I was noting that the lights had been shot out when I heard something behind me. I whirled around to see a crack head standing a few feet from me.
Hey man! Hey! Uh, do you have a light, man?
Sorry, I don't smoke
Hey! Uh, do you got a dollar, man?
Listen man, I'm covered to my head in stink at 3am on a Friday night. Does it look like I have a dollar?
The guy then pulls a knife from his jacket pocket. This is not going to happen. I'm covered head to toe in grime, I'm exhausted, and now a crack head is trying to mug me on my first night at work. This is not going to happen. So I did the only thing I could do.
Come on, man! Give me that wallet!
I hold up my hands, nod, and make like I'm reaching behind me for my wallet. Well, some asshat had missed the dumpster with a pallet earlier in the day and had left planks of wood scattered about behind me.
I grab a plank of wood, whip around, and crack it as hard as I can on the side of his face. He drops like a ton of bricks and I reached for the radio.
Hey! Some crack head just tried to mug be back here. I think I knocked him out. Do we need to call Metro PD or something?
*long pause*
Hello?!
Is he dead?
WHAT!?
Is. He. Dead.
I reached down and felt a strong pulse on the guy (but man was his face a wreck).
No, he's alive.
gently caress it, I'm coming to pick you up, see you in a sec.
A moment later, Mark comes roaring behind the store, stops, and looks at my handy-work.
Good form!
Can we go now?
I mean, I've had to drop guys before, but this takes the cake!
Can we please go now?
Mark then takes a picture with his cell phone
I can't wait to show the guys when we get back to the office!
Later on that morning, he introduced me to everyone in the group. After showing off the pictures and bragging about "How his FNG dropped someone the first night" one of the other guys, Jay, got me a cup of coffee.
It was then that I found out that almost getting robbed was apart of the job and I handled it like it was supposed to be handled.
I also found out that "FNG" stood for "******' New Guy."
Edit: I'm now back in school
Illegal Street (sweeper) Racing:
Halfway through my stay at the company, I was working 7 days a week. 5 days on my normal route in Murfreesboro and the weekend sweeping in Clarksville. Now, for those of you not familiar with the geography, Murfreesoboro is in the exact center of TN where as Clarksville is on the TN/KY border. I had finished my Friday night in Clarksville and was cruising down I-24 when i get a call from Mike.
Hey, where are you at?
I'm about 20 outside Nashville, you?
I'm just wrapping up here in Green Hills (Nashville 'burb).
Cool, you want to meet up?
Actually, I'm so fast I'll probably beat you back to Murfreesboro AND have time to gently caress your girlfriend.
That fast, eh?
That fast.
Well, perk up your ears, old man. I want you to hear this. Never. Not in this lifetime or the next will you ever beat me in a race. Not tonight. Not ever.
Oh, we'll see. Give me a call before you reach the Trinity Ln. Exit. I'll be waiting.
See you there.
Now, Mike and I are pretty close. We tended to hang out after work during the week drinking beer and playing Need for Speed: Most Wanted until noon. By the way, getting drunk at 9am is awesome. But I digress.
I radio in that I'm about to pass the exit, and the race is on.
I pass his truck at 80 and he quickly catches up. My side mirrors are filled with his headlights as we fly down I-24 at 4 in the morning. He passes me and I drop the hammer. Tucking in behind his truck, I start drafting him at 97 miles an hour.
The entire truck is shaking. For a brief instant I think that this rat-trap piece of poo poo is going to fall apart around me. A demon is trying to escape from the hood. I can't imagine what two sweeper vac trucks traveling at speeds close to 100 miles an hour, inches apart from each other looks like*.
I see the sign for our exit; 3/4 of a mile. I sling shot around Mike and take a glance at the speedometer. There I can't see the needle and the rear end end is poking toward "5". I finally pass him and rocket up the on ramp. Our office isn't too far off the interstate and I do a good job of blocking until I get to the shop. Needless to say, I won.
Well, We pull in and hop out.
Hah! What the gently caress did I say!
Um.. Bruiser?
You see that poo poo?! I had the needle buried into the dash. I'm awesome!
Bruiser?
I think you need to buy the beer today, because that poo poo was outta sight!
BRUISER!
WHAT?!
Look at the rear end end of your truck.
I walk around and take a look. The rear axle at the wheel hubs was smoking. I did the mental connect the dots.
Was I on...
Fire? Yeah. You were. I tried to tell you, but you didn't hear me.
Did it look cool?
...
I bet it did.
Are you kidding me? It was like the sweeper truck from hell! It was loving fantastic!
I knew it.
And that was the end of the story. Or at least I thought it was until Bryce called me.
Hey Bruise
Bryceman!
Yeah.. uh, hi. Listen, I just got a call from a trooper friend of mine talking about a pair of sweeper trucks doing about a buck-oh-five down 24. You know anything about that?
NOOOOOOOoooooo, are you serious? These things? They hardly do 80
Riiiiiiight, well just look for the smoking truck, apparently the guy was burning his axles and looked all seven flavors of hell coming down the highway.
* check that, it looked awesome.