Long day at work. Seriously.  I am not afraid - at all - of driving in heavy rain. In fact, I'll brave pretty much any weather conditions.  But when it's pouring rain and you are having difficulty seeing anything through the windshield, that takes hyper-concentration and just drains me.  But that's what i did for 8-1/2 hours, I knew when I got back to the yard they would send me home simply for the fact that I have too many hours on the clock. I ended up with 45 for the week.

Now, when I got back, the co-worker approached me and told me that he had been texted by the General Manager who said that Thomas - an inside salesman that's been there maybe a year now - had called him and said that this place was operating in the good ole' boy's club mentality.  Yes, I have been saying that forever. But it takes more than just me saying it to confirm anything. The GM didn't believe me - he called the inside salesmen though to see what they sould say and they told him everything was fine.  Which was a bald-faced lie.

They are yelled at every day, belittled, and in Thomas' words: treated differently.  Yes, we all are that haven't been there for 20 plus years. I've said that in this blog, too, several times over. But, I wasn't making any points with any management over there calling them out on it.  Not sorry, the working envirnoment is horrid and has stagnated at the same - low - level that the new manager brought it down to.  Well, allegedly the gm is going to call everyyone including me to find out what is going on.

Duhhh. What did you expect was going to happen? Instant paradise with a man that has no people skills?  That chums around and laughs it up with the people that have been there for 20 plus years but gets a stoic, ugly look on his face with everyone else?  And on...and on....and on.....the gm is a double-talker and plays people - or tries to but us newbies see right through it now.  He makes promises and then simply drops them in the trash can to be forgotten about forever - or until someone like me brings it back up.

I gave up hope on the place a while back, they can say whatever they want now, I consider it meaningless drivel.  They never follow through on anything so I don't say much of anything to any of them now.  I'm just biding my time until I find a new job that will suit me.  OTR is on the backburner.  Not my first choice.  Got my new CDL in the mail yesterday - replete with tanker and hazmat endorsement.  I'm  now applying at places that haul - whatever - in tanks, mostly fuel though.  Many of them want previous tanker experience, some of them will make exceptions if you've been driving tractor trailer rigs for a predetermined length of time.  I'm applying at all of them regardless of their requirements.  UPT last night - which has previous tanker requirement or at least 2 years tractor trailer experience.

But there are many more.  I just like the bigger companies because it is usually more stable and usually offers better benefits.  But, I also found a pamphlet in a truck stop the other day advertising CDL jobs for heavy hauling.  I've done a bit of it.  It's not that hard, really.  I just don't know the nuances of when a particular load has to have an escort or when it has to have a police escort.  Yes, I'm applying there today as well.  Those are very high paying jobs in the 100k range for experienced drivers - which I'm not in that particular field but give it a year and that would change.

Whatever.  Just apply, apply, apply, sooner or later something will break.
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And apply apply apply I have been doing. What a way to spend a Saturday.  ATS has specialized hauling that pays a good deal of money.  It's not local but I would be willing to do it for that kind of pay for a year or two until I get some serious money saved up.  Applied at several fuel hauling sites and spent even more time perusing trrucking magazines and looking up companies.

Now, off to the trucking sites.  People in the industry might have some ideas.  It gets very tedious doing this for long periods of time but it must be done.

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Entertainment of the day.
First, I am sitting here in my bedroom filling out endless applications.  A man yelling at the top of his lungs comes through the window. WTH.  Obscenities and threats.  I look out the window, there is a pickup parked right there so I couldn't see anyone.  Welll whoever this dude was, he went on.  I went outside.  I am hearing a man yelling behind some bushes that are on the neighbor's property.  Where are you? You effing a-hole and all kinds of bs language.  I finally see this dude, next to the street, emerging from behind the bushes.

He walks over to the neighbor's other side of the house, cussing and shouting all kinds of profanity, enraged.  Now I'm just gonna stand there and see if anything happens, cause' whatever it is, that ist he deputy Sheriff's house and there is no way those people could possibly condone whoever this freak is behavior.  The deputy's cruiser was gone - he has 2 jobs, one as law enforcement the other as a banker.  Under any other circumstances, I would have called the police.

Well, he walks into their carport - out of sight but certainly not out of hearing.  This is too much. I text the Sheriff.  He replies...huh?  Turns out the man is the Sheriff's brother who was yelling at the Sheriff's son - but it wasn't just yelling. This was livid anger.  Apparently this dude has had a stroke and has totally messed up his brain.  That's what was texted back.  Okay, not trying to start trouble.  I texted him because he asked me to a while back.  So, no biggies, sort of.  Well kind of is, I mean I wouldn't tolerate that kind of nonsense at my house in Phoenix by any neighbor.

Well, anyway. So, I'm going through the tedium it is to search out companies online and apply.  I have been doing that off and on all day long.  I have to take breaks from it, it just gets tiresome.  I mean, I am going through an entirely new round of this stuff looking for hazmat/tnaker jobs.  I now find out a lot of them want a TWIC card.  It's basically - I had to look it up honestly, had no idea - a card  that gives you access to "
access to secure areas of the nation’s maritime facilities and vessels. TSA conducts a security threat assessment (background check) to determine a person’s eligibility and issues the credential." Well I just went through TSA's background check for hazmat, getting a TWIC card would simply be applying for one.

Same with pretty much anything else.  Well excepting for going out off the country.  I finally found out, just a few days ago from mother, why my oldest brother tried to tell me some 20 plus years ago that "you can't leave the country". He would lose his security clearance. And thus, his position.  I have no idea what would come back for a passport with that kind of crap going on.  Oh, hey, your brother is working in a position with security clearance so we can't issue you a passport based on the potential that you will be kidnapped for ransom/information.

I always go off on tangents. The second event with the neighbors occurred when the boy from down the street came ringing the doorbell.  I get a knock on my bedroom door.  I'm trying to remember his name - Conner - wants you. What for? Blank stare.  Okay.  Well, he says, we got an install kit from Home Depot to put in a new drain for the sink in the bathroom. It is the wrong size.

Well I'm walking in the door with this kid that doesn't live there - but is over there all the time - and apparently she - deputy's wife - thought he was just going to come over and ask me.  She sees Conner first and starts making a comment about whether he knew what to get - and then saw me.  I'ma take a look at it, see what you need.  I walk back there, take a look, figure it out.  Not the wrong size.  Well how do you connect that sized pipe to that one?  Those kits come with everything, they just didn't know how to use them.  I have been doing that stuff for decades, showed the boy - literally put everything together off the sink and handed it back to him - what to do and that was that.

I'm one of those cheap skates when it comes to plumbing, electrical and cars.  I can fix most all of it. If I don't want to, I'll pay someone else to do it. If I don't want to spend the money on labor and shop fees and inflated parts prices, I'l do ti myslf.  Actually I can fix a lot more than that, it's just a thing I decided that I could do out of necessity.  I'm learning 4 wheeler repair because they want as much as auto repair shops or even more for labor fees. Gag, no thanks. This ain't that hard. Just don't necessarily want to do it. It's a pretty strange situation going on over there.

As for me? Way past my bedtime.