Well then.

That rather lengthy email sent to the general manager turned into chaos.  

But I expected it.  Again, I have numerous job offers, to get fired from my current employer would not mean sent to the welfare services or the unemployment line.  I had to have that to back me up before going down this road.  The assurace in my mind that if they were to play the firing card, I would be able to smile, speak my mind and get up and walk away from it without fretting. Pick it right up where I left off, get into a truck and drive - and make a helluva lot more money.  The reason I have continued to work for less money on a local basis is simply because of the element of being able to go home, each and every day, sleep in my own bed, have my own rather larger bedroom with private bathrooom.

There is value in that and it can and in my case, does account for lower pay.  I wasn't broke, wasn't rich, just somewhere in the middle.  

I saw my new manager this morning and he was just staring at me.  Driving back in the yard he was out there again, staring. Glaring? I don't know.  I thought he had been informed of my email and that was his retribution.  They guy is a piecce of work.  Well, anyway, I went on another run at noon - it was time to go home according to my 40 hour work week.  A freight truck had come into the yard, however and had material that a contractor needed "right now" and I was the only driver there, the other two were on the road.  I wanted to go home.  To hell with this company's 40 hour stringency, I'll give it to them. Take off when I hit 40 hours and had that one nailed.  

I get out on that run and the other driver is texting me that the GM called him. WTH. I start all this stuff and this GM is contacting everyone but me.  I get it though.  He's trying to verify my story.  Was I accurately and truthfully retelling it or was I making up a bunch of hot air and selling it off with an odor of hogwash?  Still, was he going to call me at all?  He said he would.  Well, I got that text from the other driver while driving home - I got off later than I should have but I still left early, in fact, right now it's time for everyone to go home over there - and then I got the call from the GM.I recognized the area code and got myself instantly in to the right mind frame.  

It was a 50 minute phone call.  I spoke my mind - quite freely I might add, I'm on my way out in my thinking though I didn't tell him that. I didn't tell him that because I wondered if there was any glimmer of hope here? Would he tell me that he sides with the manager or would he tell me his actions were horrid and needed to be corrected? I don't like burning the bridges unless it is totally warrannted.  I was treated pretty well in Phoenix - same company different mindset so why pour fuel on this and throw the match?  The latter ended up being true. He emphatically stated that that was absolutley not way that he wants employees to be treated.  

But we went back and forth on both issues: the manager and pay.  I was brought out here with the promise of 50 hours.  I was quite sure on this one.  I asked numerous times.  I wanted it a settled deal.  But, in typical managerial style, they said no, that isn't what happened. Oh, YES, it is how it happened.  You think I'm going to kill myself by coming out here and not know every detail, especially pay?  I knew where he was going to go with it: slow time of year. You'll get more hours at other times of the year. Great, but what about now? Pay?  Forget the hours, let's talk about pay?  Too much detail to go into, but he said well what about when we get busy? And you're making that kind of pay?  I can't justify that to the company.  Now that I'm thinking about it and not in a very intense, back and forth conversation, so what? It would make up for these times of the year when the contracts slow down and incoming money slows down with it.  He was talking about a balancing act I just didn't think about that portion of it.

You can talk a lot of words in 50 minutes. And we did.  This dude seems to have his head on straight.  But when it comes to pay, he talks the coroporate jargon and I talk the pay jargon. The 2 clash.  I kept going back to my pay in Phoenix, who cares about OT?  I didn't even think about OT when I started with that company, I thought: PAY. How much am I going to get PAID?  He then tried to tell me that the market in Louisiana only pays the amount I am getting paid.  I replied that I have talked with a large number of local drivers coming into our yard. Southeastern starts out experienced drivers at anywhere between 20 and 24 bucks and hour.  I've talked to other drivers making anywhere between 18.50 to 27.

I then told him I could easily go out and find a job paying 60k per year.  I would be out on the road all the time, but I would be making good money.  Not only did not try to argue with that, he knows all about it because they have trouble getting and keeping drivers at other locations in that state. Exactly, who wants to work for peanuts?  But isn't there value in being able to go home every day? he asks.  Yes, there is, but at the same time I need to be able to pay my bills and beyond that.  My life isn't just about going to work and then coming home and then spending weekends waiting to go to work on Monday morning.....

Well, he told me that letter I wrote him kept him awake last night, but immediately conceded that I probably haven't been sleeping to well, either. Umm, yeah?  Seriously.  This conversation ended with him telling me that he would run the numbers past corporate once again and try to do something and asked if I could speak with the manager alone or would he have to be there?  See, this is where this situation has failed.  This new manager thinks he can do or say anything he wants because there isn't anyone else there to hold him accountable.  The workers under him are afraid to say anything. I'm the rogue wave in that mix, I refuse to be treated like s*** by an etotistical, self-centered, self-absorbed person who also has the title of manager.  I'll quit before I just  sit around and tolerate that kind of abuse.  I simply told the gm that yes, I can talk to him but....it's a two way street.  He understood that immediately and said the new manager was his next phone call and that he hadn't shared with the new manager or anyone else for that matter the email I had sent him and also promised that he would ensure - I didn't ask for this but I'm glad he offered it - that the new manager would not be allowed to take some kind of "revenge" on me by using his position in an unprofessional manner to retaliate. He also offered that he, too, has an open door policy and I can pick up the phone and call him at any time.

Well that's a first.  From the way everyone talks at the branch, you have to go through your manager to talk to the gm.  Which is a load of bs, expecially in this situation with an egomaniac running a branch that wants everyone to fear him and bow down and worship.  You think I"m exaggerating.  If I could only have gotten a video of him when he went off into his tirade on Monday morning.

It's now the weekend, I started this entry yesterday but got caught up in applying for more jobs - the job search hasn't ended and likely won't.  I have no faith that the gm is actually going to give me any kind of raise, much less a substantial one.  I could probably exist off the current pay if I did nothing but go to work and buy groceries and pay already existent bills.

This is going to be an on-going dilemmma until I have it resolved one way or another.