So I drive up to Gurdon, unload, leave, make the 1-1/2 hour drive to Eldo, pull in the yard.  I had already spoken with the manager a little while earlier and he had sent me the trailer and truck number I was to use while my truck is being fixed. 

Good deal.  I pull around, park the truck, get out, walk all over the place looking for this other truck, finally find the thing, fire it up, air it up, move it over next to my truck.  I open the doors and start moving stuff.  It isn't going to be a lot, I wasn't about to move everything, just everything I would need.  

Let's back up a minute. It was after 4 and everyone had gone home.  But, as usual, there was a truck in the parking lot sitting there idling with a driver sitting in the driver's seat. I thought nothing of it, it's quite normal to see drivers in there taking rest breaks or having to have come in for repair work, whatever.  

Well, I'm moving my stuff and this dude come right up to me, gets in my face and starts barking orders at me.  He wanted the trailer.  Why? I wondered, it was brought here to have an inspection.  He was taking it to the washout 45 minutes away.  Ok, well I'm moving my stuff, I'll be done in a minute and I'll drop the trailer. 

That wasn't good enough for him, he got right in my face and started telling me I need to do it right now!

I looked him square in the eye and said this isn't even going to take 5 minutes.  He started getting angry.  I just kept moving my stuff.  If he had wanted me to drop the trailer, he should have gotten my attention as soon as I stopped, not after I had parked, walked to get the other truck, pulled it up beside it and start moving things already.  If I had been that dude, I would have just said, ok, that's cool, I'll crank the landing gear down and unhook the air lines and pull the 5th wheel pin for ya.  

That is exactly what I would have done. Him? "I'm just trying to help you out".  I was highly annoyed by this "man" at this point, especially after he started calling me "boy" and talking to me like I was a child.  You can only push a person so far.  It was about the time he threatened to kick my @$$ that I dropped what I was doing and walked towards him.  What are you doing, he asks?  You're going to kick my @$$, do it right now.  He kept mouthing off like an idiot, but, he walked back to his truck and got into it.  

I went back to moving stuff and then, of course, he got back out. I was almost done at this point, it had taken maybe 5 minutes.  Where's the bills? What bills?  The BOL (bill of lading).  I have it here, what do you want it for?  You don't need a BOL for an empty trailer.  You're going to have to go over there and make a copy.  Again, this guy gets in my face, starts barking orders and telling me what to do.  I ignored him, was done moving and went around to crank the landing gear down.  He follows me over there.

I can say that at this point, I was starting to get angry.  This man starting all this s*** over nothing.  Just an a-hole, a total a-hole, looking for trouble and starting it with the wrong person, I was definitely not in the mood.  I wasn't in a bad mood before I came in there, I was just a man on a mission to get this day over with, get everything done and get home.  I had no idea that there was going to be a person waiting there for me.  Communication in this company isn't too good.  I still had a 2-1/2 hour drive home after everything I had already done.

After listening to him cussing me out even, more, enough was enough. Get the HELL out of my face, RIGHT NOW.  SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH WHILE YOU'RE AT IT.  He started walking away and I started following him. I was tempted to knock the teeth out of his mouth and didn't care the consequences, he was harassing me, not the other way around.  I stopped, however, decided that wasn't a good idea and went back to dropping the trailer and pulling the truck up to the shop.  No one was there, I just wanted it where they could easily find it in the morning, to hopefully get started on it right away.  Their trucks are all junk, I am used to this one, I don't want to start over in another pile of junk.  

He had backed his truck under the trailer, I again ignored him, got in the "new" truck, backed it under the trailer on the other side of the yard, started doing a pre-trip inspection.  Note that this truck and this trailer had been inspected by the mechanics and given a green light to go.  The trailer had a half flat tire and the truck had a broken hood latch. There are only 2 latches holding those huge hoods on there.  I ignored both, the shop was closed and I wasn't about to have to wait for someone to come over, if they would even do that, or worse, wait until the morning.  No thank you.  I just hoped the tire would hold since there was no weight on the trailer (no load/glue) and it did have some air pressure in it, but it was obviously quite low. No, there wasn't an air chuck available outside the shop, I checked for that.

NOW, this person comes back again.  I knew what he wanted and I didn't want to be around him, I was afraid I would react very badly to any further harassment and I would do whatever it took to make him get out of my face, stop the threats and stop cussing me out.  So I just said, yes, I'll go get a copy. Except, I realized that no one is in the office, it is locked and you can't access the copier, he expressed the same thing. No worries, I said, I'll deal with it and you can have this copy. 

No, we will have to call the manager. No, we won't. you can have this copy of the BOL, I don't need it.  Again, I don't need a BOL for an empty trailer, I don't know where he got his information and I don't care.  I got the tablet out, took pics and uploaded them to the system for processing, then took a pic of the BOL so I could reprint it at home. I do need a copy for records and I doubt he was going to bring it back to them.  While I was doing that, he walked back to his truck yet again, thankfully.  I got done uploading everything and walked half way over to his truck.  Waved the paper at him. I was pissed at this point and his stupid @$$ could get out of his truck and walk over and get it, or, he can leave without it, at that point I didn't care. 

What did he do? You guessed it, started mouthing off again.  I handed him the paper, he started chiding me and calling me boy and "next time I tell you to do something you better jump on it BOYYY, or I'll..." ENOUGH.  I walked at him again, this time I was angry.  I don't care what anyone else thinks, this is one of those 'you would have had to been there' type of deals where you hear the inflection and tone of his voice, the body language, his facial expressions, the vulgarity coming out of his mouth and the threats.  Especially the threats.  

What are you doing? I didn't say anything, I just started walking faster.  He ran to his truck, got in it and I turned around a walked off.  I don't know what is wrong with that person, I just know he apparently has either never had his @$$ kicked or it's been too long for him to be going around threatening people and mouthing off to them like that. I was literally minding my own damn business before he started in on me. 

He left quickly.  I still had pre trip to finish on the trailer.

The drive back was uneventful. The hood was shaking quite a bit for that broken mount, but the other one is good so I knew the hood wouldn't just fly off of there and I kept a watch on the side view mirror to ensure that tire was staying on there.  It made it back, I didn't feel like talking to anyone so I got out of that park quickly.  I noticed the man had done quite a bit more mowing, tho, it looks nice over there. 

What will I do about the hood? Probably nothing.  As long as the other one holds, it's good and I am hoping they can have my truck done in the next 3 days so I can do all of this over again and pick my truck up.  Tomorrow I have off, then late load Thursday and late offload Friday - and the hopefully get the truck.  They have me off this weekend, didn't ask for it off in fact I asked to work.  

However.... the plant was a disaster today.  I walked in to the main production floor and there was glue all over the everything.  Like some kind of disaster had occurred.  The conveyer chains that move the plywood did have sheets of plywood on them, but they had piles of sludge on each one of them. It was like a disaster zone, obviously the production line had been shut down but why? Well, that was answered: they were doing a clean up of everything.  I didn't ask for details, like why is there glue all over the floors? I mean a couple of inches thick worth.  I dunno, I guess maybe they have to disconnect glue lines to get at the machinery they were cleaning out?  

And, the new driver pulled up shortly after I had parked at the unloading bay.  I wondered what he was doing there so late? He apparently was the early load and that kind of got me going a little, they were supposed to be giving him the late loads.  I went up and introduced myself, he had gotten hung up at a Love's to get the truck inspected.  They made him wait so long that he ended up leaving, they kept putting him off and telling him it would be longer and then 4 hours.  Yup, sounds just like Love's.  

I looked at the tank levels before I left and wondered how they were going to fit another truckload in there? I guess he could offload half into one and half into the other. I dunno, not my problem and he was the late party, not me.  He wasn't complaining tho.  

And that's my day. Got home just in time for the boys to go to bed and made myself a philly cheese steak sandwich, what they had for dinner. I added peppers and onions to mine, put the thing in the oven, baked it for 10 minutes and then broiled it for several more. Delicious.  

The latest episode of Shogun is available to watch on Hulu. It's a pretty interesting show, lots of drama, Japanese themed and a lot of story line, don't feel like explaining any of that right now as I'm getting off of here, get a drink of something and then lay down and watch it.