Thursday, April 4, 2019

Day 4 - off work.
Not sure what I'm going to do today since it's raining. Most of my activities yesterday were focused on doing outdoor cleanup and related issues.

Plenty more I could do out there today, but it's been raining and the forecast is for more rain.  A lot more rain.  My project was going to be to take down and carefully roll up the greenhouse.  It served it's purpose for the winter over the pond, it's time to take it down.  But  I ain't doing that out in the rain.  I was going to pull out the grass - I mean literally pull it out of the ground - put some decorative flagstone over it and dress up the edges of the pond.  I'm also definitely going to put a gazebo over it this year, in no way shape or form do I want to deal with all the junk from the trees continuously falling into it.

It actually wouldn't take more than an hour to take that thing down, perhaps later on this afternoon if the rain stops I'll have a window of opportunity.
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And a reply from the president of our division.  Nice gentleman, professional and courteous.  Note that I didn't just blast him or the company, I made requests and did it in a respectful manner.  He's going to look into it and find out why the director of maintenance said no, thanked me for my thoughtful input and assured me he would at least get the information as to why the decision was made.  He wanted me to make sure I informed my manager of everything, so I did that as well. Now? more waiting.

Meanwhile, off to several stores to find various things I needed and then home.  Tomorrow is up in the air.  The mechanic texted me earlier asking me if the truck has a manual or auto tranny in it?  Manual, I replied, tho he gave me no info as to why he was asking.  That's the way this company works, keep you in the dark.  Sorry, but I don't work that way.  If it isn't up front - info that should be made readily available - it only piques my curiosity even more. WHY do they want to keep this information hidden?

Admittedly, I may be setting myself up for unwanted scrutiny in this company, but, considering the way I have been treated, that doesn't really matter to me at this point.  It was a simple request, not outrageous, not something that isn't already going on everywhere, not something that is dangerous.  The engine brake that is.  I look forward to hearing a rational statement for the decision.

As for the rest of today? Taking down the greenhouse is out of the question. Everything is wet. I don't want to roll it up - wet- and then have mildew growing on it. It must be a dry day outside for me to engage in that operation.  I did go to Lowe's to try and find some new blinds, but the only ones they had that were appealing were not the right size.  That can wait.  I also looked for Bermuda grass seed, they only had small bags of it. I asked when they were going to have a sale - they always do, every year, they put huge bags on a pallet and put a sale price on it.

The lady wanted to argue with me that they have "never" done that, to which I just shrugged my arms and said I wasn't going to argue with her about it. Pretty rude customer service, tho.  I let it go and left there, only to find a good price on the seed at Walmart. 

Now home, I'm not sure if I want to do anything. The next door neighbor commented to me a bit ago that "you were busy yesterday", referencing everything I was doing outside.  Yes, I wanted to take advantage of a dry, rainless day.  I hadn't noticed that anyone was observing my activities. Daytime in this neighborhood? You hardly see anyone outside during the weekdays.  I'm really just waiting to hear whether this truck is going to be done.  I bought food to cook for a road trip, but I'm not making it until I know for certain that I'm actually going out somewhere.

I guess I'm just a bit disconcerted about this truck situation, not really thinking about much else. I was going to have a pit fire outside, but it's not cold enough.  Low 60's, but I only like having a fire if it's cold outside and I have to wear a jacket. 

So, I think I'll just watch a movie instead, lol. 

I wasn't going to sit around all day long doing nothing.  The truck isn't finished and now it's going into Thursday.  On that note, I called work a while ago asking if it was done. No, no word from Peterbilt yet.  I'm not one of those kinds that sits around waiting for a call. I'd rather call them after the time has elapsed to fix the thing in the time they say it should take and find out what's going on. But, I didn't do that, just bite my tongue and let them deal with it.

However, the mechanic said we aren't going to be changing the parameters for the engine brake. Meaning, they aren't going to change from the odd configuration of having to hit the foot brake for th engine brake to come on and instead just having it come on when you let off the accelerator.  Why?  He said the VP of the company said no and that the maintenance director called him and gave him an earful about it.

At that point, I understood it was out of his hands and I either live with it or go up the chain.  I went up the chain, immediately actually. Wrote a letter to the "Executive VP" of our division of the company.  However, the mechanic said the decision came from the VP of the mother company. No explanation why, just take it or leave it I guess.  I'm fully prepared to write a letter to everyone - the entire chain of command and their emails are readily available on a Google search.  But, I'll see what, if anything, happens with this individual.  I'm in no hurry, I'm obviously not going to get the thing configured the way i want it - which is not unreasonable and most other trucks in the fleet are already configured that way.  That's the kicker.  The previous 6 trucks I have driven in this company, 3 of them company trucks, were configured the way I want it.

Well whatever.  I'll wait and see what becomes of it, but at the very least, I want a rational explanation of why, exactly, they won't allow this.

So, I set out to get a bunch of outdoor stuff done around the house today and I can say that I accomplished most of what i set out to do.  Just cleaning up, raking, hauling and burning leaves, cleaning up the front porch, mowing the lawns. Used the electric blower and cleaned up the entire cement areas in the back of the house, tidied it up and then fired up the smoker.

Popped in a pork loin and cooked it in there for about 2-1/2 hours and finished it off in the oven at 325 degrees for however long, I didn't really pay attention, came out very, very tasty.

Busy day, made the best of time off at home.  Taking vacation hours for the time wasted sitting here waiting on yet another broke down truck.










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