An entire spent in orientation today. 
As I said yesterday, whatever reservations I may have had? I'm here now.
I need the job, I need the money, I can work on finding something else if it comes to that.
But, the safety Director is also a Christian so we hit it right off.  But, the first half of the day was spent with the recruiter going over policy and how to do paperwork and such. Which was fine, but I was tired.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and my head was full of thoughts.  Mostly, what the heck have I done? Til I remembered what my paycheck is going to look like when they direct deposit it tonight at midnight.  It will be - nothing from my perspective.  They want you to do at least 3,000 miles per week, which at the pay I am at equals to about $550 more per week then I am making now. 

We got through with all of that and then came time for road tests. I didn't want to do it first. I figured it would take a while and I could take a nap.  There were only 3 of us there for this orientation.  The road test - by the time you get done with the pre trip and the paperwork and the actual driving test - takes an hour.  At least.  I disappeared after the first one and fell asleep on a bench outside. Then I realized I have access to a brand new pickup truck they rented for me, so I mozied on over there, turned it on, cranked the AC, and took a nice nap.

I felt much better after that.  I am hopeful these bouts of sleepless nights will diminish with a change of jobs and getting away from an abusive manager.  But there is still the shell shock of leaving a company I have been with for 12 years hitting me. I expected some of it, I didn't expect it as much as it has hit me. This too shall pass.

I guess the thing that really got to me was all this talk about "we run in 16 states".  That's nice, I most emphatically did not agree to be running to North Caroline or Ohio or Pennsylvania.  Sent me out west, that's what I agreed to, that's what we discussed.  This is a "wait and see" thing.  As it stood, they wanted a volunteer to drive to Bowling Green, Kentucky to pick up a stranded driver.  I gave that little thought.  Well, if I do that, they'll think I'm good to go for anywhere, screw that. 

Look, I wouldn't mind an occasional trip to the east and especially to Pennsylvania, that's where I was born and raised for the first 10 years of my life.  But all the time, no thanks.  Get me west, I'll come back east to pick up, get me back west again.  My road test was, in fact, done with a loaded trailer with the paper rolls in it. And my goodness they are heavy.  That truck was 79,000 and change pounds.  They are going to open up a terminal in Dallas soon. They keep pointing at me because I am from Texas. Yeah? That is 150 miles from me lol.  Not like it's a trip to and from work on a daily basis. Still, I would much rather be based out of that terminal than a terminal so much further east of me. 

The even more bad news today was the giant letters on a printed piece of paper. I was handed a stack of papers and read through all of it.  We have a no rider policy, which includes pets! Yes, the exclamation point included.  I was like, well damn.  If I could bring my Dane with me on a trip here and there, that might make make it a little better, providing he can handled the traveling.  Like, not every trip, but he's going to miss me as much as I miss him.  He lays around more than he does anything, sleeping in a truck really shouldn't be a problem with enough exercise on the 10 hour off times. 

But when we actually got to that sheet during the orientation, the recruiter said, well, that policy has changed.  A rider as long as they are registered with us first, a pet with a $150 deposit.  Okay!  I'd try it once to see if he could deal with it.  I don't care anything about human riders, who wants to do that? My son is grown, no kids to take or a wife.  No-one in the house would want to and even if they did, I wouldn't want them going with me.  It is a very intricate, delicate thing to think about taking a person with you that is not related to you. You are stuck in this little box, 24 hours a day.  If that person is unclean, smells bad, doesn't take showers, has annoying habits or characteristics? Screw that.  A dog, totally different story. Some dogs are cool with travel, some hate it. 

Okay, I'm the guy from Marshall. That's what I'm being called. They don't have people from all over the place currently.  So it is an oddity I guess. The allure was driving through my town frequently, getting to stop frequently for my breaks.  They did say finally, after the day was near done, that I was a different situation and would be heading west "a lot".

Ideally, I will eventually find a local job that pays well and can go home.  Weekends are off at this company, but if they aren't off at my house, that isn't going to work.  This is a wait and see, see how they are going to work this out type of thing.  If they really do my right, I will stay. The earnings potential is good enough.  A young lady driver was stuck there for a while today preaching the virtues of just staying out the entire week and getting your home time on the weekend.  Yes, ma'am, well you haven't been doing this that long. Wait til you have 20, 30 years under your belt and come back and talk to me about home time not mattering.