Hauling Checks: OfficeSpace, Waiting, Clerks for overnight

 

Hauling Checks was a pretty funny book, focused on watching the death spiral of a company run by a lunatic and propped up by desperation. Pilots who stayed too long to retain credibility, in an industry that is sinking, are forced to extreme measures to earn a payday. What will bounce first, their airplanes broken on the tarmac or the company paycheck for their illegally under-reported flight hours?

I state 'pretty funny' because I had to pick my jaw up a couple times and replace chuckles with straight 'wtf' statements a non-pilot could never understand. This by no means changes the audience, this book is highly approachable by any reader who is okay with some mixed black/construction site humor.

Alex Stone's satirical novel Hauling Checks opens with an Authors Note. "This is a work of fiction. The pilots and other employees of the air cargo industry are actually nothing like the characters in this novel". Stone however, is listed as being a 'Freight Dog' for over seven years.

What I was left to ponder is that the circus of events in this book are probably loosely based on real events and embellished 1:n until ludicrous. Like gutting a fish in an office, dudes closing a conveniences store to play hockey, or drugged out bus boys doing whippets in the walk in fridge, I can only assume that sections of this book wer based on fact. My guesses would be freight falling from the sky, flying under repaired planes that felt unsafe (but not to this degree), and the desperation felt in the industry as paper checks turned digital.