Another Kevan story?

After getting my driver's license, and while working as a driver for my father's roofing company, I seemed to always have problems associated with a dump truck. There was the destruction of the garage, which I got away with, and then there was the time I got caught...

I was on gravel duty: we were graveling the roof of a home (we flood the flat roof with hot asphalt, and before it cools, we throw pea-gravel into the asphalt--this creates a white, very hard, protective surface for the new roof), and I was assigned to drive the dump truck to the sand and gravel pit to pick-up the gravel and bring it to the job site.

In most gravel yards, I would simply pull into the yard and a large loader would scoop-up the gravel and dump it into the back of the truck; then I would get the truck weighed on the way out, and pay for the gravel. However, on this particular day, I picked-up the gravel from an unusual gravel pit. In the middle of the yard they had a long, underground, concrete tunnel. There were holes, or trap doors, in the top of the tunnel, over which the various kinds of sand and gravel were placed. Inside the tunnel, each trap door in the ceiling was given a number.

When picking up gravel, I would check in at the gate and they would tell me which number to stop at for what I wanted. I would then drive into the long tunnel, look for the number, and carefully line-up the back of my truck under the proper door. Then, using a long handle attached to the wall of the tunnel, I would open the trap door above the truck and fill the truck with as much gravel as I needed. Pretty simple, huh?

On this occasion, something went wrong. It had been cold, and a large portion of the wet gravel had frozen together. As I opened the trap door, and the gravel began pouring into the back of my dump truck, this large chunk of frozen gravel got stuck in the door, preventing me from closing it! As soon as I saw the problem, I jumped up on the truck and tried to dislodge the clog, but without success. In the meantime, loose gravel continued pouring into the back of my dump truck!

Not knowing what else to do, and with my truck full to the brim, I finally gave up and drove out of the tunnel...

Now, at this point I could have done one of two things: I could have done the responsible thing, and run to get someone, explain the problem, and help them find a solution. The other option was to simply drive away without explanation... I think you can guess by now which choice I made!

Thinking that I was going to get into trouble, my first, and only, thought was to run. So I drove to the gate, paid for my gravel, and drove away without saying anything-- all the while hoping that somehow I would not get 'caught'. In the meantime, the gravel continued to drain out of the trap door, and filled the tunnel with gravel. Not only did this cause them the labor and expense of clearing the tunnel, they also lost all the revenue from people who came after me looking to buy sand or gravel, and were turned away because the tunnel was blocked.

This was one of the easiest mysteries for anyone to solve! All they had to do was to see which type of gravel filled the tunnel, then check their receipts to find out who was the last one to buy that type of gravel... By the time I drove the dump truck back to the shop, the gravel pit had called my company to complain-- and 'the powers-that-be were waiting for me when I got there!

What I discovered was a simple lesson: had I taken responsibility, and ran and told someone what the problem was, they could have contained the problem, and I would not have gotten in any trouble. But since I had run, and tried to escape responsibility, it didn't matter what I said, or that it wasn't my fault the trap door was blocked open! What mattered is that I didn't tell anyone about it, making the problem many times worse.

Over a long period of time I finally learned to confront problems as soon as possible-- that the sooner problems are confronted, the easier they are to fix. And that running from, or ignoring problems never works! Problems NEVER simply go away, and ALWAYS grow bigger and bigger! Of course, now it is all so much common sense. But for some reason, for me, back then as a teenager, it was an unsolvable conundrum...