8 ms·
My Truck Desk
- getpokedagain 1y agoAwesome story. Sometimes over enough time a little is enough.
- herewulf 1y agoFrom the title I had imagined that someone had turned the cab of a truck into a dedicated computer workspace. Hmm...
- hk1337 1y agoyeah, I feel like the missing desk could be resolved with a trip to Home Depot and a jig saw.
- ianmcgowan 1y agoLovely essay, tone reminds me this book which has a similar vibe. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/truck-on-rebuilding-a-worn-out-pickup-and-other-post-technological-adventures_john-jerome/ https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/truck-on-rebuilding-a-worn-out...
- jcjmcclean 1y agoI think there may be an issue with your link, it's just taking me to the thrift books home page. I also really enjoyed the writing style.
- qmmmur 1y agoI suspect it is this book. https://www.booktopia.com.au/truck-john-jerome/book/9780874517552.html?srsltid=AfmBOop6SF62CjKbOXPWY1B2jxMR2E9lHZ8TFba3YKCYzrEg2CmAZGXg https://www.booktopia.com.au/truck-john-jerome/book/97808745...
- teiferer 1y ago> I hadn’t interacted with any of the office staff, but they’d seen me. This story would have taken a very different turn if early on he had realized that befriending the office staff would have scored him a permanent place in one of those empty unused cubicles. No need to be best friends, but just being friendly and forthcoming now and then would have avoided their attitude of "who's that weirdo let's involve the site manager to get rid of him". It fits with his lonely wolf persona though which makes it easier for him to be a hero in his story and which he seems to cultivate in purpose.
- forgetfreeman 1y ago" if early on he had realized that befriending the office staff would have scored him a permanent place" I feel like you don't have any first hand experience with the kind of classist horseshit that is endemic to these kinds of work environments.
- teiferer 1y agoI do, thus my comment. The key is to use this to your advantage.
- arethuza 1y agoIt depends on the environment - many years ago I used to have temp job in the summer working on a large industrial plant that had a nice office building where the managers and admin staff were based. There were no signs saying "temp staff keep out" - and you did occasionally have to go in there but it was pretty clear to me that you couldn't go and hang out in there - particularly as the temps got all the muckiest, smelliest jobs in all weathers.
- criddell 1y agoIn my experience, it isn't necessarily classist horseshit that divides office and shop (or field) workers. > They’d followed my oily bootprints down the hallway and begun to leer. Who is this diesel-stinking contractor? That's probably the real reason. Being a welder is messy, stinky work and office workers don't want that in their space.
- helsinkiandrew 1y agoReminds me of the ad I saw for the Ford transit van - whose steering wheel can be converted into a 'desk'/laptop table: https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a45497067/ford-transit-steering-wheel-tray-table/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a45497067/ford-transit-ste...
- wildzzz 1y agoI've rented pickup trucks before and I've always been so fascinated with the hanging folder rails in the center console. I have no need to work out of a truck but the fact that you could turn it into a mobile office is very cool.
- bluGill 1y agoIt is very common. The foreman on a larger project drives a truck and uses it as an office. They need a truck for some activities so it can't be a car (often because the tools are in the back), but they are spend a significant amount of time in the truck doing paperwork. Large jobs will have mobile offices brought in for the job. Even if you are a small company (think pouring a sidewalk), you still need a place to fill out the paperwork so you can bill the customer.
- SoftTalker 1y agoI can see that 10 or more years ago but these days I'd think that would all be done on a laptop or tablet.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y agoLots of small businesses out there that still do everything with paper.
- bluGill 1y agoYou still are working with it for long enough to want to sit.
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- Gigamouse 1y agoLovely. I kind of wanted to hear this guy reading this out aloud
- metalman 1y agoI know a good few who live versions of this particular life, feral creatives living inside the guts of our industrial complexes, working high steel, marine,etc. The drive for this goes way back, all the way to human origins, perhaps further to progenetor species, something to do with describing our world and rearanging the bits and pieces into a pleasant form, even in the harshest environments, something right, placed, just so the other impulse to then smash everything and have palaces and vast halls on the ruins is less explicable, inspite of the huge efforts at rationalisation, but also self evident
- TimCock 1y ago[dead]
- probably_wrong 1y ago> "(...) I’ve written stories and parts of my novels during breaks—fifteen minutes for coffee and then half an hour for lunch. (...) Most artists I know are like this. Finding time to make art while working another job, or taking care of loved ones." Has anyone had success finding a way do this, but for drawing? I've been trying to make time for a small comic project and, while I do have plenty of fifteen-minutes breaks I could use, those breaks are usually in places where drawing is impractical (such as buses).
- farleykr 1y agoWhat are the aspects of working on a bus that make it impractical? When I find myself in your position usually I end up realizing I'm self-conscious about people seeing what I'm doing more than I'm concerned about any practical downside or benefit.
- probably_wrong 1y agoIn my case it's mostly the shaking - trains are mostly fine, but buses are just too unstable. They also tend to be more crowded, meaning I need to tuck my elbows in and adopt an even-less-stable position which compounds the problem.
- webnrrd2k 1y agoAll I can suggest is to make it as easy and cheap as you can manage. Carry a sketchbook and just get in the habit of making quick drawings. If you're into painting, watercolor is pretty portable; oil is less so, but try a search for "pochade box" to get a few ideas.
- mailund 1y agoI'm having the same question about sewing. I feel like the lead time to first stitch is quite high, but I think I could make quite significant progress on my projects if I could use the all small 15-minute breaks to make some progress.
- bluGill 1y ago
- sussexby 1y agoRoald Dahl approved. https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/literarytourist/?p=351 https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/literarytourist/?p=351
- neinuke 1y agoSeems much better than a lap desk, as it probably gets air flow.
- bookofjoe 1y agoI use this: https://imgur.com/a/X8tBXUg https://imgur.com/a/X8tBXUg https://www.amazon.com/JUSTTOP-Steering-Multifunctional-Portable-Computer/dp/B08BNRQV8J?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/JUSTTOP-Steering-Multifunctional-Port...
- geocrasher 1y agoJust added to my cart. Thanks. Working from the car sucks, but it happens now and then. This should make it a lot easier.
- bookofjoe 1y agoGreat!
- throw0101c 1y agoWorking on the road has become so prevalent for many field folks that Ford's F-150 has a "Center Console Work Surface" (at least as an option): * https://www.ford.ca/support/how-tos/more-vehicle-topics/f-series-features/what-is-the-center-console-work-surface-in-my-truck/ https://www.ford.ca/support/how-tos/more-vehicle-topics/f-se... * https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-the-ford-work-surface https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-the-for... * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GyZgeM7JM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GyZgeM7JM0
- munificent 1y agoAnnoying if you're a lefty. :(
- NAR8789 1y agoImport one from Australia or the UK? Someplace where they drive on the left?
- inanutshellus 1y agoOr just learn not to be a lefty! So easy.
- RankingMember 1y agoI'm very impressed by (and jealous of) anyone who can context switch fast enough to make use of 10 or 15 minutes here and there to do a completely different task (and actually have it be coherent).
- scandox 1y agoYes I also cannot do this. I comfort myself by believing the nature of their work allows them some sort of meditation on what they will do in those little gaps...but they may just have an enviable power that I do not have.
- dave78 1y agoI got much better at this when my kids were born, because it was the only way I could get work done on some of my (computing) side projects. I went from having hours of uninterrupted "in the zone" time during evenings and weekends to having much less time overall, and what time I did have was broken into smaller chunks. I got much more thoughtful about how I used my time and also got better at pre-planning what I had to do so as to make the best use of it. Mostly the key was to just try to tackle smaller tasks and accept that progress would be slow.
- cluoma 1y agoThat's been exactly my experience as well. Sometimes doing a little research on a lunch break gives enough direction on how to spend available time later on my project. Accepting that progress will be slow has been the most difficult adjustment, and applies to more than just side-projects. Choosing books or games also becomes a more strategic decision when what used to be a weekend sprint, turns into a several week marathon.
- ChicagoBoy11 1y agoI had a friend in college who was the ultimate expression of this. If he was in a line, waiting for someone, outside a professor's office hours, etc., he was working on SOMETHING, usually getting ahead of some reading for class. I asked him later, and he gave quite a compelling account of how if you truly added it all up, it had a pretty huge effect in how long it took him to get through his work. He was incredibly bright, went onto a PhD at MIT, and was also very sociable, which I suspect was helped by this strategy of aggressively seizing on these little breaks of time. I need a good chunk of time to settle into "productive" work, even if it is just reading. I suspect that what is needed is a little bit more discipline at first and slowly it gets easier, but I just never had the ethic to stick to it, and because of this friend I don't even have the ability to claim any doubt as to how impactful it would be.
- temp0826 1y agoPhase 2: replace makeup mirror with 27" lcd
- ggm 1y agoVictor Papanek approves.
- slow_typist 1y agoWhat struck me most was “You’ve gotta make your own conditions”
- dfex 1y agoLovely story. I work out of the back seat(s) (Crew Model) of my Ford Transit pretty regularly and can relate. I'm astonished at how productive I can be while waiting around outside a job site for late deliveries/people or even my kids music lessons for an hour or two, or when sometimes I can sit at my desk and get nothing done in the same time. Maybe it's the constraints of the time/space? I (only half) jokingly wonder if some times I'd be more productive sitting in the van in my own driveway rather than in my home office. My "truck desk" is the rear parcel shelf/cargo blind out of a Hyundai Accent and the moulded counters fit my laptop and mouse pad perfectly. It also tucks nicely into the void behind the back seats when not in use. I recently acquired a Vision Pro and am still coming to terms with how incredible it can be sitting in the back of my van parked literally anywhere in the country and having a full ultra-wide desktop experience that packs away into something the size of a lunchbox. This is the cyberpunk future I dreamed of as a kid.
- el_benhameen 1y agoI’m the same way with working on a plane. 2 hours of plane work is worth 4 hours of desk work. Something about the ambient noise, incentive to stay in the seat, and strict time boxing. Shitty internet (if it works at all) means there’s a high cost to trying to outsource my thinking to the internet, and there’s no immediate reward for pursuing a distraction.
- mrdarkies 1y ago[dead]