From the Editor’s Desk

July 10, 2026

The past ten days have been hectic – not because I’ve been travelling around the country attending to trucking matters but because I’ve been attending to domestic ones. My wife, to whom I’ve been married for 38 years, woke up one morning suffering severe lower back pain. After a visit to the doctor followed by a sonar scan, it was discovered that she had somehow torn two tendons in her back. Quite how this happened remains a mystery because she has never played rugby. The result, however, has been that she has hardly been able to walk, sit or lie down without pain. She has been pretty much immobile – and for a woman who has the energy of a SpaceX rocket, that’s been hard for her. And when she reads this, she will probably want to kill me for telling the world about her ailment. I’m not too worried though. She can hardly walk while I can still run. But there is a reason for telling this story.

Over the past days I have found myself stepping into parts of our household operation that I had never ventured into before. Take her instructions for the first dinner. “Take the mince out the freezer and defrost it in the microwave. Then chop two onions and mash an avocado. Don’t forget salt and pepper – but not too much.” Easy enough. I opened the freezer and immediately recognised the mince. But then I encountered the microwave. “How do you put this thing on defrost?” I shouted. “Push stop, then defrost, then key in 2.50 and press start,” came the reply. “Why do you push stop if you want it to start? That makes no sense,” I queried. “Just do it,” she replied. And guess what? It worked. It was the first time in my life that I had defrosted anything in our microwave and I was ridiculously proud of myself. And then came the dishes. I suggested leaving them in the sink overnight and adding the next day’s dishes so that one big wash could save water. Apparently, that is not how things work. I now wash dishes after every meal. It’s a ridiculous system.

And then there are clothes. Normally, I put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket at night and the next time I see them, they are folded neatly or hanging in the cupboard looking all clean and sprightly. I had never fully appreciated the supply chain behind this miracle. There is the washing machine with its multiple buttons and mysterious compartments for powders and softeners. These things take ‘soap’ to another level. Then there is hanging the washing out, ironing by our dear Loveness, folding and finally packing everything away. It’s a massive operation. These are only two examples of the many things I have discovered over the past days, all while trying to keep FleetWatch functioning. The point is that I never really appreciated just how much my wife does to make our house function. Nor did I fully appreciate her remarkable multi-tasking abilities for she does all this while playing a central and critical role in the running of FleetWatch operations.

I remember a television programme called Undercover Boss, where company executives disguised themselves and spent time working alongside employees to understand what they experienced every day. I am certainly not claiming to be the boss of our house. That title unquestionably belongs to my wife. But I have, in a way, gone undercover. I have experienced first-hand the work that goes into making our home function and I have come away with a far greater appreciation for everything that happens behind the scenes.

Last week I wrote: “Too many executives spend their time studying dashboards, reports and performance metrics while rarely setting foot inside the workshops responsible for keeping their fleets safe.” Unbeknown to me, I had been doing exactly the same thing at home. So here is my challenge to truck owners. Go and experience what your people do to keep your business functioning. Have you ever spent a day with a driver on the road? Have you ever spent a morning alongside your mechanics in the workshop? Have you ever sat with your accounts people at month-end? And, most importantly, have you ever washed the teacups? Go and do it. I guarantee that, like me, you will come away with a far greater appreciation of the people around you and the contribution they make to your trucking business every single day.

And to my wife – I salute you.

Patrick O’Leary
Managing Editor, FleetWatch