Saturday, March 9, 2013

Rainy Friday

So it rained all day long.  I was all over the place in the semi, too - Phoenix; Casa Grande; Coolidge; various other places. I-10 northbound (I-10 runs north and south through an at least 120 mile stretch through Arizona) which officially would be westbound was a parking lot for miles and miles and miles.  I was headed southbound looking at this stuff on my way to Casa Grande thinking: "Gee, I don't think I'll be coming back this way".  What a miserable thing it is to get stuck on a highway like that with no place to exit for miles and no end in sight to the crawling pace.

Today was the first day for Big Brother to be watching me via the new "phone".  This is no ordinary phone, smart phones have nothing on this thing that costs almost 2 grand per unit.  It has EVERYTHING  on it.  Including GPS and the ability for managers in the company - any manager - to access the web-based software and see where I am; how fast I am going; what direction; even if I am driving faster than the speed limit.  It has a LOT of other stuff on it including a running truck route that has me clicking it at every stop when I get there; having people sign the thing to acknowledge receipt of delivery and then when I leave I have to indicate that I am "en-route".

  My only real objection to this thing is the potential for phone calls and managers asking me whatever about where I am and what I am doing.  My immediate manager - great.  The rest of them? NUNYA (for those not educated in current day colloquialisms that means none of your business).  I am quite certain the operations manager was watching all of it and I know for a fact the main warehouse manager was watching me as well because he suggested such today when I was downtown picking up yet more material.

Whatever.  Hopefully the hooplah of seeing every driver and what they are doing and where they are at will wear off and they will get bored with it. If you can't tell, I am definitely NOT into being micro-managed.  To the point that if it gets to be too much for me, I WILL find another job.  I don't need people imposing themselves on me all day long simply because they have the label of manager.  Micro-managing is counter-productive and instills the idea that you, the person being micro-managed, must apparently not be doing your job well enough that they think they need to see and evaluate your every move.  In this day an age of technology, that is completely possible.

I am 1 mile away from the yard when I get a call from my manager.  He asks me where I'm at and then informs me that that roof blew off.  I laughed.  I thought he was joking.  2 minutes later, from the street and looking at the building, I was startled.  The entire roof had come off, including the 4x8 sheets of plywood underneath it!  That portion of the building is about 30 feet wide and 100 feet long.  Wow!! Today's storm the culprit.  The roof ended up draped over the side of the add-on building next to it and much of south side of the bowling alley parking lot next to us. HUGE roof, a LOT of money worth of damage. Funny thing? The owner of the building was just lamenting last week how the roof needs to be repaired and how he doesn't have the money to fix it right now.  Problem solved.  Insurance will pay for a new roof, I am guessing, without him having to shell out a single dime.

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Long interlude.  Trailer tenant came in with tude' all over his face- door locked on the trailer, forcing him to "talk" to me about this situation.  At the pace he came walking up to me in the kitchen, I decided to stand up and make sure I was prepared in case he was going to try anything, somewhat vulnerable in the sitting position.  Nothing so bad happened, thankfully and we had a rather long discussion about his living here, avoiding me, attempting to fill my ears with BS and basically I want him out.  He started discussing his new job and other things.  Okay, prove it to me and get me some money.

In the middle of this conversation, the college tenant - who used to be very reliable with rent and if he was going to be late, he would tell me - was taking off somewhere.  He had what appeared to be all of his rodeo equipment in hand and also appeared to be leaving for a while.  So, I cut off the conversation with the trailer dude and asked someone if he was leaving for the weekend?  College dude was already out the door and to the street by that point, but when someone said yes, I ran out there.  I confronted him on the rent.  He said yes, his hours had been cut back but that he was off to get some money and bring it back to me before leaving town.

He never returned.  Which really pissed me off.  He's going to find a 5-Day Eviction notice on his door when he returns.  He's going to play games with me, he can leave.  The trailer tenant situation is up in the air.  I'm giving him until Monday.  If I don't hear back from him by then, the door will again be locked on the trailer and  he will have no choice but to deal with me.

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Enough of all of that.  It's Saturday, it's cloud/dark cover outside, it's been raining overnight, I wish it would start raining again!  However, I have work to do outside so rain prolly not going to help anyway.  Like, I won't do anything, lol, if it starts raining, just sit around and listen to it.  Next week, hopefully, I am getting 2 days off and if I do (not been confirmed yet, dispute between my manager and his manager as to when I should be given the days off, my manager saying it's a done deal while his manager saying it would be "better from an operations viewpoint to take it off the next week after) I intend on going up to the mountain abode for at least a couple of nights.  Whatever the case, this entry waxes long and I am ending it.

G'day.

ben

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