While I've been sick and out of it - still am, getting better I can say finally, but far from ready to go back to work, a new development has happened at work. 

Our manager said a while back that they are going to get rid of detention pay, which I thought a joke at the time, but apparently, that joke has become reality.  

He sent out an email several days ago saying that payroll will no longer pay for detention time that isn't done while in on-duty status.  

This is a huge blow to detention pay.  Up until now - the entire time I've worked there - we have been able to go off duty while on detention, we aren't working, we aren't responsible for any trailers, at least not in Brownsville which is the vast majority of our detention pay, but we do get some at the loading plant as well.  

Basically, the company is stealing our pay - they get paid whether we do or not for detention and they certainly don't have to go "off duty" to get it, they just bill the customer.  

It has caused a considerable uproar with all the drivers.  I estimate it's a minimum $15,000 per year of our pay, probably a lot more actually.  

Here's the Brownsville scenario before this new "initiative" it was labeled as was implemented.

You get to Brownsville, drop the loaded trailer. If there isn't an empty, you show it on your tour trip sheet and then you go off duty.  You don't go back on duty until an empty trailer shows up, which could be any amount of time later, usually no longer than a day, occasionally 2 days.  

Now, with the new "initiative", you will have to either stay on duty once you arrive for however long you can - up to 14 hours so maybe another hour and a half, but then, you have to go off duty for 10 hours.  So, if I show up down there at 9:00 pm, I might stay on duty until 10:30 pm, then have to take a 10 hour off duty break - of which we will no longer get paid for.  So, in this scenario, I go back on duty at 8:30 am and then stay on duty until an empty trailer arrives.  

So, on a typical day down there, it shows up at 3:30 pm.  I was on duty after arriving the night before for 1:30 hours, plus the 7 hours the next day, I will get 8 and a half hours of detention pay instead of the normal 14 I would have received.  See how that works? I just took a 5 and a half hour pay cut.  

But the problems have only just begun for the company.  Because while they are attempting to shaft us, they are giving themselves a huge headache as well.  If we want the detention pay at the loading plant, we will have to stay on-duty the entire time.  So, if I'm there 3 hours, that means I will definitely not be making Brownsville the same day.  Now you've turned a 2 day trip into 3 days.  What's the problem with that? Well, they won't have that empty trailer back up the next day to load it.  So now, the customer gets screwed and pissed - the Mexico company coordinator has a short fuse.  

Hire more drivers? Sure, where are the trucks? We are already driving old junk.  And you'd have to increase the number of trailers as well. At $350,000 a piece, that probably isn't going to happen.  

So, drivers are forcing their hand. I'm out of the game at the moment but I'd definitely be a part of that scenario. They want to take away pay for not more reason that corporate greed, they are going to pay as well.  Actually, several drivers are out looking for new jobs, saying they can drive a regular tractor-trailer rig (not hazmat tanker stuff) for the same money as we will now be making and not have to deal with all of the hassle.  

There is definitely some hassle involved with hazmat and cryogenics and tanker trailers.  

We're definitely looking at a pay cut and a substantial one with this new and improved driver rip-off scam.  And yes, there are plenty of regular dry van jobs that pay well, but in my case, I don't want to be out that much.  Most of that requires you to be out a minimum week at a time and most of them are longer than that. No thanks.  But, I would start seriously looking into local jobs.  

I have no idea when this RVpark is going to come to fruition or if it's going to haul in some decent revenue, as I have said several times, there is risk involved with any business venture and I will have a decent amount of money put into this project.  I'm confident I can make something work eventually if my initial business plan doesn't generate the revenue I need it to.  

This isn't exactly a situation I wanted to have to deal with right now, what with everything else that's going on and I am nowhere near making any kind of decision about what to do next.  I want to wait a bit and see what effect all of us spending extra days on runs is going to do for the motivation of the company to want to keep current, very lucrative contracts.  Or, as this company is want, they don't care who leaves and will just eat it.  

The company seems to take pleasure getting rid of people and any senior employee in the company that is open about it will tell you there is literally no job security.  You get what you can out of it while you can and the....move on.  For me, moving on was hopefully full time RV business, not another trucking company.  

Oh, and I also want to see, speaking of waiting to see what happens, what kind of paychecks I will get without any or very little detention pay on them.  You see, if they could just keep us moving on the Brownsville run - versus sitting around waiting alot - we can make as much money.  Of course, I love sitting around getting paid but I've done plenty of Brownsville runs without any detention pay at all and the paychecks came out well.  The problem, of course, is the Mexican company and their flare for getting empty trailers up whenever they please to do so.  It's a really weird thing. Because then, if they don't get them up in time, they start crying about not having enough product - be we can't haul product without trailers.  

They have fully 7 of our trailers on lease plus they have 6 of their own trailers.  Yes, they have 13 trailers of this stuff and the bulk of those trailers sit down in Alta Mira, Mexico, loaded and waiting to be used.  

Anyway, it is what it is and I'll have to somehow deal with it.  It's really kind of crappy this company is doing this to us, tho.  The dispatchers must be having a lot of added stress on them, this deal is coming from corporate, higher ups.  I don't know that they understand the headaches they are now creating for themselves with drivers being out longer than ever before getting back on any given trip.  

Coughing is subsiding even more.  I'm still having rather violent episodes but at least there are fewer of them.  

 So, this is day 8 of this nonsense.  11:00 am on a Thursday morning, I would really like to get back to work, but there is just now way I'm doing that until I feel at least a bit better than what I am now. I'm at probably 50-60% right now, that's just not good enough.  

My 401k is down almost $13,000 with the "stock market crash" some are now calling it that is currently going on.  Down another 700 points today, I can only be thankful I got the old 401k out when I did.  At least it was well ahead of where I had ended with it at that employer.  

I've been following some things closely - the food supply, gas prices-oil, inflation, supply chain.  You know, at this point, I don't care who is responsible for all of this, let's fix it.  The problem is, the current administration thinks that spending even MORE money is the answer. Why can't these people just listen to neutral academics in the world of economics and understand that government spending is NOT the answer, it's the PROBLEM.  

I was not a fan of the government Covid stimulus from the get-go, people being paid to stay home an do nothing. A bit of that was bias - I was still working and have been the entire time - but the other part is that I have never believed that the government is your daddy and you should rely on it to the point of it dictating your whole life.  I had no idea at that time, however, the extent of the problems those payments would cause' further down the road.

Now, people don't want to work. Not everyone, of course, but small business especially suffering nationwide due to labor shortages.  There are plenty of heathy, able people that can work, there is no problem with that. But they are now demanding much higher wages for unskilled labor, or so we thought. Then a bunch of places started offering those higher wages and then what? They still won't work.  I still wonder how these people are all surviving, is  a bare existence on meager government programs any kind of life?  

And we found out how dependent we are on China and how China is taking over American industry and buying up millions of acres of American farmland.  Why do we allow this to persist? It's a communist run nation, there is no good reason to allow this.  They certainly won't allow us to go over there and start buying up all of their land?  

Whatever the case, I just wonder where this all ends, or how it turns out. Because from what I'm seeing, these lefties are in love with Marxism and they will stop at nothing to get rid of capitalism and property ownership/rights.  No one owns property in a communist run nation.  And no one is motivated to do much of anything in such a scenario, when your efforts are betrayed by a nation that takes everything away from you the second you "earn" it and it is given back to the people.  The problem, of course, is that no version of socialism or communism has ever worked, that's historical fact that is easily sourced.  

Meanwhile, back to my little world, the contractor is allegedly coming out today to do measurements and the bushhog guy is going back yet again. I was like, dude, I am not paying you that much money until the whole entire thing is completed as you promised.  He did smooth out the front, yes, but he didn't mow down all the weeds.  I'm sure he wants paid, he will get it when he's actually done. 

The sign people disappeared after I offered a couple of changes.  They have full time jobs, I don't expect them to get this done overnight.  But I do want to get that sign out there.  And the ATV? Nothing lol.  That's the way things go around here lmao. 

I would say the ATV is holding up starting commencement on the bridge, but I don't have the energy to go out there and do anything like that anyway.  There is no way besides hand carrying all of that stuff back hundreds of feet to get all those materials back there without having the ATV available to 

OIC. The sign people were somehow waiting on me to get back to them, even tho I got back to them and was awaiting an answer from them lol.  Ok, whatever, let's move along here.  I also have to meet a fencing guy out at the property, but I need to determine where I want that doggy park first and lay it out.  

There are a lot of different aspects to this proposal that I am working on and there are a lot more to go. The legal aspects I haven't really even delved into yet nor the insurance, excepting I have found 2 nationwide companies that specialize in RV park insurance. Once utilities are installed, I will get general insurance to cover any losses, but not the RV park version of it until we're closer to opening day.  Taxes are a mystery to me and I'm going to need software or something that makes it easy.  I'm not fixing to try and skirt taxes, I just need help with it - like a LOT of help.  Insurance probably won't be a headache tho I'm a little leery of the price tag, I figure liability might turn into a headache and right now, I have enough headaches from being sick.  It's just something I will tackle when I get to it.  

I don't want to get burdened down with huge legal fees trying to get thing going.  I'll have to start researching it, I guess, perhaps there are some suggestions in the RV managers/owners groups I am in.  Others have asked but all I saw was "seek legal counsel". Maybe I really only need to discuss with RV park insurance agents about liability issues and not really need the input of lawyers.  

What I'm going to do, tho, is go to one of the websites of one of the huge, RV resort style places and go through the registration and see if there is a bunch of legalese included on the forms anywhere.  If anyone is going to have such verbiage, those huge resorts will. They spend millions of dollars building those parks, they have something to lose if things go south.  

Ok, my energy levels just went bye-bye. G'day.  

 I feel like I have just taken a tour of the depths of hell.

The coughing has been incessant. Prescription cough medicine only works for a little bit and then the coughing comes right back. And we aren't talking about a light cough, we're talking full throttled hacking...and it accomplishes nothing.  I can hear the sounds of wheezing every time I exhale, I haven't had bronchitis in a long time. I had forgotten how seriously foul this sickness is and how much it affects my system. 

My manager said at the beginning of this after I found out what it was: "Well thankfully it's just bronchitis".  I had to give him a history of my life with asthma and severe respiratory issues and the fact that Covid is actually preferably to bronchitis.  I haven't heard from him since, but it's been that way throughout my life, that when I get bronchitis I have to give an explanation of why it hits me so bad and that it is far worse than what happens to most people. 

Now? My head and my torso are absolutely aching from coughing so much.  I called the doc office yesterday and they just said "well wait a few more days". I would like to think they could give me more powerful cough medicine, even if it's stuff you can't drive on - I'm not driving so what difference does it make except to give me some relief from this internal animal. 

Meanwhile, the painters have come up with a pretty decent version of what a painted sign would look like.  I wanted a few changes of which I am waiting for them to show me.  The bush hogger dude was out there yesterday with a box attachment and smoothed out the dirt. I forced myself to drive over there and take a look. It looks decent but he didn't finish up by using the attachment to cut down the weeds.  So, he will have to do that to get the money I promised him for that job - I have all of that in writing.  

I have heard nothing from the contractor, but I need to get the pipe out there.  Dunno if I have the energy for that today. I did sleep last night, albeit waking up multiple times last night with extreme coughing fits, in 12 hours of laying in bed I probably got 9 hours of sleep. That's the first night I've gotten any decent amount of sleep since this thing began, but it doesn't seem prudent to just get up and walk out the door acting as if all is hunky dory, let's go back to work!  

It wouldn't take much to load up that light pipe onto the trailer tho, and it definitely needs to be done before they do any gravel work. I've sent him some texts about the next steps - I don't feel like talking to anyone on the phone atm.  

Well that was quick. The contractor has been doing doctor's appointments - in Houston? - why he would drive clear down there, who knows, maybe a specialist, but he said he forgot about the rolling, but they install the utilities first before rolling it.  He said he would measure it all and give me a quote on the pipe.  However, he already gave me a quote on that so I'm not sure what he's talking about.  Again, if there are even more costs to this than I know about, this would have been good to know before making any commitments.  I dunno, but this project has taken on more costs than I originally knew about and it's getting a bit disconcerting.  

However.  Once the pipe, electric and sewer is run to the lots, expanding won't cost near as much. The utilities will already be in place, it's only a matter of adding on to it. 

__________

Wrote that 2 days ago. The coughing is beginning to subside. When I say that, the coughing spasms are still hellish but there are few of them.  Working has been out of the question.  I just got through talking to dispatch, they're like, get better first before coming back.  Yes, thank you, at least they have that part right.