It takes so many great people working hard behind the scenes to keep our business humming along. Here are some recent thoughts I had upon meeting one of our long-distance truck drivers a few mornings ago.

A full truckload of spas, carried to Rochester from Phoenix.

I watched as the big white eighteen-wheeler sat in the driveway of our Greece location early this morning, waiting for our staff to start their workday and unload the cargo. That “cargo” was a total of 14 hardshell spas and covers, piled in rows of three on top of each other, two across. The driver was from Southern Europe and has been in the United States for ten years. He had driven 2,300 miles to get here from Phoenix where the spas had been manufactured according to the order placed by Pettis Pools and Patio. Some were pre-sold and customized while the others were standard models.

He told me his name was Bojhon; he had pulled into our driveway around midnight and then slept in his truck. He still had two more spas to be delivered to Pleasant Valley near New York City, another five hour drive from Rochester before this run was finished.

John Mastrella, our assistant warehouse manager, was quick with the tow motor, reaching up to the top level and easing the tongs into their space in the pallet, securing the spa and bringing it down to ground level. Then he took each pallet back to the storage area until all fourteen of our spas were in place.  These spas individually weigh between 700 and 900 pounds, not an easy item to move in and out of the store for display and eventual delivery to the customer (unless you’re a tow motor).

Unloading the spas at Pettis Pools & Patio in Greece, NY.

And not an easy delivery for the young man from Serbia who misses his family back home but needs the money he can earn in America. We offered him coffee and a chance to take a shower before he left; which he accepted gratefully, expressing surprise at the kindness being shown to him here in the Town of Greece, in America. “Never before,” he told me, in slightly broken English. “I can’t believe it!”

Tonight, he’ll sleep in his truck once again, parked who-knows-where, as he waits to learn where to go to pick up the load he will carry back to the West Coast since a large truck must never travel empty. It seems to me that long-distance truckers really earn their money.

Drive safe, my friend.
—Erma Pettis