Wednesday, 11:15 am.
I heard from the manager at 3:00 pm yesterday.
Consensus from my friends is that this place isn't doing to well right off the bat considering they knew we were coming and yet had no solid plan in place to take care of the most basic need to
get the job in trucking: an actual truck to drive. 
But now, we are on the cusp of  Thanksgiving.  I'd rather them not come up with a plan until
Friday at the earliest, at this point, and simply enjoy the holiday at home.

From my perspective, they failed me, I might as well get something out of it.  I'm not getting paid
to sit  home and do nothing.  I didn't get paid for yesterday and if nothing happens today, I'm not
going to get paid for today, either.  I'll still have a check next week, it will look the same as my
checks from my old employer, so I can deal with that. 

I guess I figured that at this late hour in the morning, and this going on for as long as it has, they would have had this figured out by now.  I'm seriously considering a local job that I had dismissed
several months ago. The pay wasn't that great and the hours too long.  But after doing that last job where I was driving 11 hours a day on many days and working the full 14 hours allowable, I have had a change of mind about that.  Actually, I didn't have to work that many hours, but if I didn't I would have to work on Saturday to get caught up on the minimum amount they want done. 

$18 per hour doesn't sound like much - it isn't really - but multiply that by 70 hours, 40 at regular wage and 30 at OT.  I have no idea if they would even have me after I asked them about the hours and such.  But that's $1500 paychecks.  Not fun work, but none of it is.  It's all just driving trucks all day long.  At least you go home at night and if you really work it, you get a full weekend off.

I never really thought about it in that context because I didn't think I could handle such long hours.  I proved myself wrong on that one.  It's a large company, too, they have good benefits that grow over the time you spend working there.  Very tempted to call them.  Their job board still includes a postion out of my town.  But, I guess I'll hold off and see what happens with this one I'm at today. I don't really consider myself an employee here yet since I have yet to drive a truck for them excepting to do a road test.  The thing about this other company is - they have day cabs. That's guaranteed home every night, most of those companies with day cabs aren't interested in paying for  motels. 

But I am curious that we're getting close to noon and still no word, whatsoever from this company. Doesn't that sound like a company that doesn't have it's act together? Yet, I have yet to hear a single negative word from any of the drivers I have met that have been working there forever.  This is really a difficult position to be in for me.  I don't want to jump ship yet again and have my employment record showing me at 4 different jobs in a pretty short period of time.  Yet, if this other place would have me, I would just eat it and go with it. I was ready to do that at this current place and I definitely paid the price to get to this point in going through 6 days worth of safety training.  That stuff will rot your brain, I'm telling ya. 

Not only that, but they don't want to give us vouchers for new work boots - company policy that they pay for them because they want you to go to a specific supplier and buy a narrow range of boots that fit the bill for their hazmat requirements - until next month.  See, my manager was having a conniption about that as well. She isn't really too happy with the company at this point in how they are  handling this situation.  I wouldn't be so tempted to move on - yet again - but I'm sitting at home. I'm not earning any money. I will get a paycheck next week (bi-weekly pay) - but the next paycheck after that is going to be spartan. Paying me for mileage to and from Amarillo and a couple of paid days and reimbursing me for meals while out there. Yeah, they're paying me 41 cents per mile for the miles I put on my car, that adds up to around $500 and I might have $250 in expenses for the TWIC card that they are going to reimburse and food, but after that, it's just Monday at 6 hours, yesterday at nothing and today -  so far - at nothing as well.

I bought that smoker on one of my credit cards with full intention of paying it off before the end of the month.  You get cash reward on everything you buy.  But now?  I dunno about that.  I've paid most of my bills for the month tho.  Only thing left is car insurance about to hit, I think I got everything else covered. Guess I best check to make sure lol. 

Well, here I sit, waiting on a phone call.....

So here it is, 9:15 am and still no word on trucks for us.
This is getting a bit ridiculous.
They knew we were coming, for weeks.  They knew they
would need trucks for us.  I mean, a call could come at any
moment, I dunno.  The manager said no point in coming in until
they have this verified.  There are allegedly trucks available, just
nothing close by.  Someone up the line will have to make a
decision and they best be doing that soon, cause otherwise, I'm
going to pick up my job hunting again and see if there is anything
local I can get into.

Well that prompted me to look at several waterworks stores since I
know that product very well.  No one hiring at the moment..  But I"ll
keep looking.  If someone were to offer me enough money I would take
it.  I'd be right at home, wouldn't take much for me to learn any of my
former company's operations and I would be right back in my comfort
zone.

That is something I will keep looking at on at least a weekly basis.
This job I am at now is allegedly a "gravy" job, but so far, there isn't
any gravy being poured. Just empty promises.

I'm not completely giving up on them, but this isn't a good sign to
start out with.  And then, one of the manager's managers was asking her
if there is even enough work to keep 3 new drivers busy?  Ugh.  Please.
Don't tell me after all of this y'all are having second thoughts?
Fortunately Ann - manager's name - said yes.  Empty trailers all over
the place that need moved to different locations and 3 loads - for today
actually.  Well, those loads must have been handled by existing drivers or
put off.  Cause' we sure aren't getting them.

________________________

I finally heard from my new manager (she's a really sweet lady) this afternoon around 3:00 pm.  I had already given up hope of anything getting done today.  She was pissed at her own company.  We talked back and forth and she finally just said she thinks her company is making itself look bad in this situation..I couldn't disagree, actually, but hey, I'm the one in limbo here. Not getting paid to stay home, I'm sure of that, not earning a paycheck. Drover the 509 miles to Amarillo, did 5 days worth of training there and a days worth of training in a nearby town, that's 6 days of training.

She went on - they've only known about this for 2 weeks now.  I"m not happy about this situation, but I'm not going hog wild crazy about it either.  I don't really mind a few days off.  I fully expected to get a phone call this morning, come over here to go over - wherever - get a truck and lets' get this started.

Anyway, there isn't a truck within 500 miles of here for rent from Ryder.  They were looking to see if there are trucks available from Penske, even though they don't have an account with them. But finding out the new trucks are sitting there waiting to be picked up - 400 miles away - why not just go get them?  This doesn't make any sense.  These trucks are sitting in a yard, somewhere, waiting for us to get them, we can't get a rental truck, why wouldn't they just have us go get them?

The whole situation is rather draining.  Now, if we were sent out to get those trucks tomorrow, we would be coming back on Thanksgiving, in time for Turkey dinner.  Sounds good to me, let's do this.  Cause honey, we smoked the second night in a row in the new smoker and that thing is perfectly awesome.  It smokes the meat so much better than that last thing we had.  The meat has the flavor of the wood chips - whatever kind you put in there - so nice.