If you’re transporting Dangerous Goods anywhere north of Arizona this time of year, it seems like every conversation starts like this:

“Cold out.”

“Yeah. Supposed to get colder.”

“Really? $*%#@!”

But Dangerous Goods shipments don’t care if your eyelashes freeze together or your fingertips go numb. You have to keep your shipments safe and on-time—but how do you cope with the cold?

Here are a few must-haves to make winter less woeful:

1. The Spacemaster placard system. Don’t your fingers just love changing placards in a subzero, pre-dawn yard? How about after one of those delightful ice storms? Save your fingers (and a ton of time) by simply flipping to the hazmat placard you need, and leave the pliers in the shop.
2. An electric thermos. Plug it into the dash or the nearest socket, and your coffee or chicken soup (see #10) stays warm all night.
3. The Coldmark Freeze Indicator shows when a shipment has been exposed to cold temperatures for more than 30 minutes during transport. Hey, you’d turn colors, too, after a half hour outside in this weather.
4. A wind chill factor widget for your phone. Because when someone asks you how cold it is, “really freaking cold” doesn’t sound science-y enough. Get one for your Android or iPhone.
5. Insulated 1-14 day packing kits. They’re designed to keep cold stuff cold, but in this weather you might need them to keep ordinary stuff from freezing.
6. An “I Am Freaking Cold” t-shirt, so people will know what’s wrong, even when your lips freeze together.
7. Serious gloves. These are thick enough to resist box cutters. Think they’re warm?
8. Serious hand cream, because even the best gloves can’t keep your hands from feeling like used lunch bags. Get something with aloe or, better yet, lanolin.
9. A cold-resistant prowler pool. When it’s this cold, any spilled liquid becomes a hazardous material. Avoid unexpected skating rinks in your workplace with one of our prowler pools—half the weight and twice as strong as PVC, and good down to 65 below.
10. Progresso Chicken Noodle Soup. The best canned chicken soup, as rated by a six-judge panel in a blind taste test. Because if you’re working outdoors—or, say, driving Billings to Bismarck overnight—you want to load up on the good stuff!

What items help you make working through the winter more tolerable? We’d love to hear your subzero suggestions—leave a comment!

Make sure your shipments are safe and in full compliance, with a full line of solutions from Labelmaster—a full-service provider of goods and services for hazardous materials and Dangerous Goods professionals, shippers, transport operators and EH&S providers.