Yesterday, screwups at the plant ruined my plans to be home today for a good portion of my birthday.
Figures.
One truck developed a leak after filling it. 
They wasted a bunch of time determining that they couldn't fix it and then hours more unloading the trailer. 
It threw everything off for everyone else after that, which was every other load, since that load was the first one.  I mean, my manager could have bothered to tell me that this was going on, I wouldn't have shown up to the yard until last night. 

I went and did some shopping after showing up to the yard and finding all of this out.  But I had no idea it was going to be so late before I ever got out of the plant - 9:30 pm - I didn't even know they stuck around that plant filling trucks that late.  I drove til 1:30 am and that was it.  I couldn't do anymore, my eyes were telling me it's time to go to sleep, so I stopped at the service plaza on the Indian Nation Turnpike and here I sit, waiting for this ridiculous 10 hour nonsense to elapse so I can start driving again. 

I'm wide awake, well rested, there is no valid reason, besides government intrusion and over-reach that I shouldn't be able to get in the driver's sit and get this trip over with.  I still have 131 miles to the destination and then 335 miles back.  I will most likely make it home today, but not until around 9:00 pm or even later.  In my view, I could have started around 7 am this morning, drove up there, drop and hook trailers and then started back, pulled over somewhere, taken a 30 minute nap and then drove the rest of the way back to the yard.  This is why so many truckers are pissed.  The government doesn't know what I need for sleep or when I really should take breaks, my body tells me that information.  I could have driven all night long last night - and that would have been really unsafe, again, government intervention is total bs. 

So anyway, here I sit for another 45 minutes waiting for the government, installed courtesy of my company, via an electronic device, to tell me when I can start driving again. 

The bright side of this is that there is a McDonald's 100 feet from me and I absolutely love McDonald's coffee. I decided to waste money on 2 Egg McMuffins as well - it wasn't the easiest thing to take off the buns, nicely toasted and buttered, and throw them in the trash can.  Leaving very little product left to eat.  But that was birthday breakfast.  It may very well be that when I get back to the yard tonight? I'll just head over to Texas Roadhouse and finish the day off there.  My friends will be in bed sleeping by the time I get home. 

I think I might be a bit grumpy.  It's just the fact I could have left here hours ago and gotten this trip over with to be home at a decent time.  And probably the fact the circumstances at the plant yesterday that caused all of this to begin with.  And likely because I've had this coughing going on for a week now and it's starting to irritate me.  And....letting them know yesterday that today was my birthday and could I switch with someone for a different load?  They just laughed at me.  I shuttered the urge to let loose on them.......I missed Christmas at home, I didn't think it was too much to ask for my birthday, especially considering drivers sitting around doing nothing claiming that they want more work.  Well here it is!

And then.....listening to this long time driver - he's been with the company like 28 years - bitching about the workload. Every time I see this dude he goes off. Like, okay dude, I get it, it sucks, but I don't need to hear this every time I see you. 

Oh, and finally, a trip I made in November, I think it was.  They "skipped" paying me for it and I raised hell about it.  Well this lady in payroll is finally getting back to me about getting paid for this what, 2 weeks later?  It's like $600 that I could really use right now to buffer my checking account and get it back up into a good healthy "ahead" range.  I received an email from her this morning about it, but it was just a forwarded email.  Apparently my manager had gotten a request from her about it and my manager? Had done nothing about it.  So, 15 minutes after this email is put out, I get a text from my manager. 

She wants to know the trailer number and details of the trip?  LMAO.  yeah, that was months ago and you expect me to just cha-ching that info up in my computer data based memory? Lol. Not to mention the fact that I turned in all the paperwork - to HER - for that trip? She has the paperwork - somewhere.  This is all on her.  But. I went through old texts and found the trailer number at least, she had never issued a trip number so that as well is on her.  She claimed she would get this taken care of, at least I have the lady in payroll riding her ass about it to get it done. 

This is what I go through at this company and this is part of the reason I have considered finding a new job.  Money talks, tho, above all of it.  So I'm going to see what this next paycheck will be and the one after it should be quite healthy.  If it isn't, if I'm shorted again, I'm going to be bypassing people in the chain of command and go straight for the CFO or CEO. They won't want to hear from me, but they're going to anyway.  The CEO lives in some mystery wonderland of how everything is going so wonderfully with drivers and trucks and how everything is run.  They likely don't hear from people like me. Or, more likely, the people they do hear from have the same gripes but are too afraid of "job security" and "powerful management" to speak up.

I have no such problems. Never have.  To a fault at times.  If you're going to ask me how things are going in the company, don't expect a sugar coated version of it. Don't expect an exaggerated version of how bad things are, either.  You will hear specific details of what's good and what's bad.  And right now, it's mostly on the bad side.  This isn't the company I signed on with, that's just the plain hard facts. I either have to deal with it and stay with them or move on and say screw this.

It's just hard because I really wanted to stay with hazmat tanker stuff.  I don't have enough experience yet to get on with the really good, local companies. 

Well anyway, I'm going to end this one. Get a refill on my McDonald's coffee, do some cleaning in the cab, do my reports and get ready to go.