I am often asked what it’s like to be a tow truck operator and I always respond with, “it’s the best job ever!” Most people don’t really think much about tow operators; that is, until they need them, and then they often expect them to be some kind of superheroes and do the impossible. Nevertheless, I would never change my job.
Working for Capital Towing in Ottawa I never have a boring day. The number of calls we get differs from day to day and of course from season to season, as do the nature of the calls. During the winter the drivers tend to be more cautious but still when it’s windy and icy there are always accidents. Summer is busy, I guess people just tend to be less cautious. I work in shifts, because we need to be available 24/7, so that is one of the reasons that no two days are ever alike.
A Good Example
Take yesterday, for example, I was starting the day with a nice cup of coffee when I was called to a car lock-out. I got the coffee, and made it to the call in good time. The driver had left his keys in his jacket, which he’d left in the car trunk. It took about ten minutes, but I opened the car and recovered his keys. Then just as we were finishing the paperwork I got another call from dispatch. This one was a little different. I was told that a car had driven into a house, so I hurried off to the address. What I found was a car that had slid off the road into the garden of a house and had hit the porch railings. The owner of the house wasn’t very happy, to say the least, and I did my best to get the car out of there, fast and without adding to the damages. The house was on a steep slope and I had to get my truck into the garden close enough to hook up to the car.
It took a while to move the car out from between the railings and the mud and onto my truck, and then we went off to drop the car at the shop. Sometimes I have difficult calls – accidents, but it’s always good to know that I’m helping people out. And for the most part, my customers are all happy campers.
