Sunday, August 16, 2020

 Tired.

Second night in a row getting lousy sleep.  It's the AC unit I finally figured out, it makes  a loud thumping noise when the compressor shuts off.  

But the day moved along quickly and I was done at 2:00 pm. Went to a local restaurant - had to call in advance and make an "appointment" - they aren't calling them reservations for whatever reason I wasn't concerned to find out about - had a special of Prime Rib, got a side order of some beef dish to go and that ate up my $40 allowance for today.  

I didn't think there was any point to going back out again later if I got hungry and this isn't a per diem, it's a daily allowance and if you don't use it, you don't get the money.  It  was $38 without the tip.  

Anyway, the driver that's been training me obviously had had enough of it and said I was good to go.  He lied about not getting training pay tho.  I'm sure he was also lying about getting only mileage pay for doing this gig. It's only 127 miles round trip and you can only do two of them a day, an owner operator would balk at that few miles, no money in it.  I don't know why he felt the need to lie, but I didn't call him out on it.  

Whatever the case, the other driver has had enough of this already and wants to go home.  It's semi junk equipment, most of the company tractors have issues. Many of them, I found out today, have been getting written up forever - months in some cases - and never fixed.  I wrote up the tractor I drove today, numerous issues that the company already knows about.  This is the reason we like to drive our own trucks to these gigs.  At the same time, I wouldn't be staying at a hotel for free or having a rental car.

Anyway, when I got to the terminal after work,  the dispatcher there said well, I just got a text from the head head big big honcho - whoever that was he never gave a name.  After your run tomorrow - I only got one run sent to me for tomorrow - you are to drive down to Connecticut and help out a branch there that is overloaded and not enough drivers.  I mean, really? Now what are they getting me into?

As with this place, details are in short supply. Actually, there are NO details of what I would be doing there, or even what I would be hauling.  Trucks? Who knows.  Check out of your room after work and drive there. And then what? Move into a truck with a sleeper? Get another hotel? What?  These people are pushing the limits of my patience with this nonsense. Get some details, man, don't treat people like this. 

But, I'll try to "eat it" and just do it since the money is guaranteed pay every day. I thought it odd that they only had one run for me for tomorrow.  Like, why even bring us up here if you aren't going to keep us busy? Not that I said that, I don't care if I work 4 hours and stop for the day, that's on them not me.  They make the schedule, they decide the workload.  

Isn't Connecticut just a giant subdivision for New York?  If they put me in harm's way, I'm going home. I'll pull out my credit card and pay for airfare myself out of there. New York is not in the cards.  

Not impressed with this northeastern gigs and I can understand why people don't want to work in any of these places. I didn't grow up here and I have no need for it. I'll do it for the pay and the luxury of seeing new places, but that's about it.  I was informed by other drivers that we aren't slow in our division now, I can go home and work.  

Oh, the Marriott? They didn't do room service yesterday, I thought maybe  an oversight.  I didn't say anything about it.  But when I got back here today? Same thing.  I went to the front desk - where i had to wait forever for anyone to show up from anywhere the place was deserted - and asked. Uhh, no, she said, Marriott has made a nationwide policy that if there is a guest in the room, we aren't going to go in and do anything because of COVID-19. 

How convenient.  I was supposed to be here up to 14 days and these people weren't going to clean the damn room? If I wasn't leaving here tomorrow, I would have asked my company for a different hotel. A plethora of them around here.  Skip Marriott, please, they used to be my favorite brand until they conjured up this nonsense.    Shall I just throw my trash out into the hallway? Lmao.  

For a higher end brand to make that a company wide decision is utter stupidity.  Shut your hotels down if you aren't going to serve your guests. 

Whatever the case, I'm too tired to do any more of this atm. It isn't bedtime but I need to kick back and relax.  












  Thursday - early They just left for the school bus. We decided that the bus would, indeed, make it to school on time and that would be tha...