Nobody's Fault by Derek Haines (rm book recommendations txt) 📕

fully loaded seventeen ton semi. Joe’s Truck Stop also served what was agreed by the majority of truckies, the best mixed grill on the Hume Highway. It was an ideal breakfast or dinner. Two lamb chops, steak, three pork sausages, liver, two lamb's kidneys, a pork chop, bacon, chips, tomatoes, gravy and all garnished with three fried eggs! Joe’s price for diesel fuel was also the cheapest on the highway.
His partners and he discussed the few remaining issues over a mixed grill and black tea. Agreement was reached easily. They would engage a solicitor and accountant in Camden, which was a hamlet just outside Sydney to form their partnership and prepare the legal necessities. Each partner would put up ten thousand dollars to give the new business some working capital, and that their trucks would be transferred into the partnership. They would lease a small industrial unit in Narrellan, near Camden to base their operation. Tony’s partners, Trevor and Tom would attend to these matters as Tony would be busy moving his family. They would get everything ready for him to sign when he returned. They also agreed on a name for their new enterprise. ‘Triple T Transport’. As his two partners only knew Tony as Tony, and not Antonio, they did not realise their mistake. But Tony didn’t mind at all. He loved the name. With the shaking of hands the deal was done. To these three truckies the handshake sealed the arrangement. It was far more binding than any signature on a piece of paper.
As he drove back to Perth, the long hours gave him time to let the events of the past few weeks gel in his mind. He was now committed, but the normal fear of such a change in his family and business life chewed in his gut. He was worried and only naturally. He would worry for some time yet. At least until the family had settled in their new home, and until the new business showed signs of success. Or failure. The thought of failure chilled him.
The Pilletto’s were loaded. All the family’s belongings were secured and tarped on Tony’s truck. It was a tight squeeze in the cab, but the two kids made the best of the small bed behind the two seats as their berth for the long trip to Sydney. Normally Tony would do the run in under forty hours, but with kids and a wife, and food stops, and toilet emergencies and the cramped cab, he knew it would be better to take his time. He planned to stop at a motel each night to let the kids and his wife have a good sleep and be fresh for each day. Tony knew this move would be a difficult time for his family and he was mindful to make them his first priority. He would do all he could to get them settled in Sydney before he started working flat out with his new business. It would take five days to arrive in Sydney.
The first few days were hectic. Finding a house to rent is difficult enough at any time in Sydney, but having only a truck for transport would make it an impossibility. Luckily Tony’s new partners and their families proved to be friends in the making. He was lent a car by Tom, and Trevor’s wife offered to mind the kids while they looked for a house. He parked his truck in a shopping centre car park opposite their motel and hoped he didn’t get booked for illegal parking, and that their precious belongings, still loaded on the truck were not stolen.
Within three days they had found a small three bedroom house in Minto. Not a trendy address by any means, but it would be comfortable. The house would be ready for them in a week. Tony and his wife swallowed deeply as they signed the lease and committed themselves to twice the amount of rent per week, for half the size house that they had in Perth. Money was going to be tight for a while, but Tony decided to take his family out to a Chinese restaurant that night to celebrate.
Within two weeks, some normality had returned to the family life. They had moved in to the house, had their eldest, a boy, enrolled to attend his first year of school at the nearby state school. Tony had signed all the papers for the new business. He started work. His wife made a few friends at the school gate while she waited to collect her son in the afternoon. She was invited for a morning coffee by another mother within a few days of her boy starting school. Within a few weeks she found she had made a handful of new friends and settled into her new life without complaint. This had been one of Tony’s major concerns, that his family would be able to settle in their new home. It was a relief to hear his wife’s and children’s excited news about new friends and activities in such a short time. Triple T Transport had just signed up its first contact with a local company in Narrellan to carry concrete mouldings, so Tony started to breathe easier.
There is a saying; The harder you work, the luckier you get. This applied very aptly to Tony. With his major concern of his family’s ability to settle into a new city and life without the extended families they had left behind, now resting easier on his mind, he could concentrate on his new business. His wife had made friends easily, and with the help of his business partner’s wives who lived nearby she was enjoying her new life. Tony had stretched his budget to afford the hire purchase payments on a small used mini van for his wife, so she could get around with the kids. He knew he would be away from home a lot, as the business was going to need every hour possible of his driving to have any chance of success. His wife was used to this in Perth, but he worried for her. New friends are not the same as the reliability of family. He decided he had done all he could, so it was now time to put his energies fully into Triple T.
The first year of Triple T was tough. All three partners knew it would be, but had not been fully prepared for the competitive nature of the transport business. All had known of, and heard stories of backhanders, bribes and slings, but until they actually were involved day to day, they could not have realised how widespread it was. The large national and international transport companies had a monopoly on contacts with customers at the big end of town, so Triple T was competing for contracts and individual loads for small to medium companies. There were far more small transport companies than they had imagined. Hindsight is something everyone has, and for Tony he realised with his own twenty twenty hindsight that he should have done a little more research before starting Triple T. It was too late now though, he was committed, and along with his partners they learned how to compete in the market. Some means of winning contracts did not sit easily with Tony. He was an honest, simple hard working man. He knew that his two partners were similarly minded. He discussed at length with his partners about ethics, but all three had reality staring them in the face. Either they won contracts or lost their trucks. It was as simple as that. For Tony it did not come easy to pay a bribe to a purchasing officer or a warehouse manager. But in the end, he found he didn’t have to offer, it was asked for. For some clients it was as simple as a bottle of scotch or a carton of beer. For some larger contracts Triple T found itself with regular cash payments being made to a few clients. And it was a necessity.
Before the first anniversary of Triple T, all three partners were working beyond the allowable hours a driver is able to work. Log books that are checked by police, were altered as a matter of course to get as many possible driving hours from the three trucks to secure as much business as possible for Triple T. All knew this had to be done to survive. They had hired a lady to answer their phone and do the bookkeeping. This was a necessity, and although they had wanted to wait a little longer before employing anyone, they had little choice but to add this additional cost. Luckily for them the lady they hired, in her mid fifties, had worked for transport companies for twenty years or more. She had moved up from Melbourne to be with her daughter who had recently lost her husband in a car accident. She ran the office with ease. Her knowledge of the industry was extremely useful. Her bookkeeping was creative as well. Creative in the sense that the bribes and slings were hidden. Some as legitimate expenses and others more difficult to hide had to be treated as wages for the three partners of Triple T.
With her contribution, and with a few contacts she had, that bought a few new customers, Triple T settled into business. It was hard work, but it was surviving, and showed a small profit for its first year of trading. In discussions with their accountant the three partners decided that it would be beneficial for tax reasons to form a company. It would allow the wives of the three partners to become directors and shareholders and therefore be able to income-split thus reducing the amount of tax payable by the three partners. It would also allow their business to accumulate profit at the company tax rate, which was far lower than the personal tax they were paying. It was also decided that their plan for a fourth truck should wait a little longer that they had planned, to give the company a firm footing before taking on what would be a very large commitment.
Tony explained to his wife the plans that had been discussed for the formation of a company. Tony had limited understanding of what a company was, but explained the best he could to his wife. He explained the income-splitting, which she understood to some degree. She knew Tony was a hard worker and was putting all of himself into the business, so if Tony thought this was a good idea, who was she to disagree. And anyway, it all sounded perfectly logical. Within a month, Triple T was Triple T Transport Pty. Ltd. The company now had six directors and six shareholders. The first purchase order written by the new company was to a local sign writer to produce a big sign for the front of their small factory unit.
In less than a year from the formation of the company, and a little under two years since the Pilletto’s moved from Perth, Tony and his five other directors signed a contract for a new Kenworth prime mover and rig. It was to be delivered in January 1986. The second employee was hired in the same month to drive one of the old semis. The three T’s were going to draw straws to see who drove the new Kenworth, but in keeping with their good working relationship, they decided to have it month about. They drew straws to see who got the first month though! Tony won month three. He didn’t mind at all. He was just pleased the business was growing, but also mindful that they all had a lot of hard work in front of them. This business would always be that way. As long as they were in transport, they were in a tough business. Tony