Friday  - early

5 days in a row getting up early. Taking it's toll, not used to it.  Not this early anyway.  Sleep is sporadic, some nights sleep well, some not so great. Today is a not-so-great day for sleep and I'm feeling it.  I don't think there is much to do today, pretty much like yesterday where I spent a few hours on the tablet and then basically nothing.  Today is interview with the big boss and then if I'm hired, I would like to hope after all of this stuff I would be getting hired - then we switch out of orientation phase and into actual training.

I mean, I've been here 5 days now and haven't really trained on anything. There were some modules on entering, loading/unloading and leaving a certain plant, but that was about it. 

The nuts and bolts of hooking up hoses and actually filling or draining a tank hasn't begun and that is what I came here for.  But, it's expected in the trucking industry that you go into repetitive type of company training that orients you to how they want things done.  In regular driving stuff, such as van trailers or flatbeds, there isn't much beyond that, you should already know all that stuff and they assign you a truck and you are on your way. 

You obviously don't do that with hazmat tanker trucks hauling acids and formaldehyde and chlorine style chemicals.  I'm just going through all of this to get to the other side of it and get home.  I should have decent health care coverage once again as well.  That was another main reason I wanted to get back into trucking, health care is very expensive if you want a good plan. Like $800 or more per month just for one person.

What I've heard, this company is relatively inexpensive for just the driver, it's when you add on a spouse or kids that the price gets jacked way up. A lot of companies are like that and I'm just glad I am the only one that will be going on the plan.  Until I get the park expanded and bringing in a lot more money, I can't really afford health care coverage that is any good.  And I'm not turning 65 for quite a while, that's over 5 years off.  So, this is the only real way to have any kind of decent health care coverage until I get more money rolling in from my business.  

It's a little after 7:00 am now, took my shower, shaved, coffee, etc, have to be over there at 8:00 am sharp, I was informed, in order to get with this interview.  Yes, well I've been over there before 8:00 am every day.  It was actually what I figured it would be: orientation hours would start at 8:00 am and continue until they just said, ok, enough for the day and let you go.

The real stuff and probably much earlier starts - when? Tomorrow? Monday? No idea.  This other guy has been getting up at 3:30 am every day this week for his truck training. He was expecting to get out of here today, but I don't see how that's possible considering he's out in a truck again.  It's more like this weekend and that only if they sign off on him.  

I am stuck here til next weekend so it doesn't really matter if I start tomorrow or Monday.  Tomorrow would thrust me back into the trucking lifestyle, Monday the same.  Just that if I start Monday, I won't have to spend as many days in a truck.  I don't know what my schedule will be, but I doubt I will be starting at 3:30 am once I get back home. But....you never know.  I''ll adapt to whatever and get with the program.  I may not like it, life usually has little things that you don't like but you deal with it.  

I'm just going to freely admit here that getting up at 3:30 am, if that's what it's going to be, is going to suck . I will have to force myself out of bed and try to get into work mode in my mind.  I won't be driving tho. The trainers know you already know how to drive and frankly, I don't feel the need to learn this area at all. I won't be driving over here and I don't care if I never come back here.  No offense to the trucking company, I don't like Portland and I've heard bad things about Eugene as well.

And the same thing you hear everywhere: People don't want to work anymore since Covid.  I get that the government and "experts" engaged in extreme fear mongering during that time and they handed out a lot of "free" money. That's done and over with. How are these people surviving without paychecks?  They're  not business people, they don't own businesses?  Rich relatives/family members?  Just barely surviving on what little government handouts they can get? I don't get it.  But I hear this same sentiment and have been hearing it for quite a while every where I go.  

Seriously, if I hadn't had the money I did when I lost my last job, I would have gone straight back into trucking.  At this point, I don't wonder if I should have anyway.  It wouldn't have worked out tho. I needed to be there for a lot of what I have been trying to get done over there.  Just now? Looking at my checking accounts, yea, time to get back to work.  That last electric bill wasn't helpful and I doubt the next one is going to be, either.

Well, the next bill has already showed up.  $1,800.  Expensive but less than the $2,500 the last bill was at. Well, that should be the end of  ultra-high bills. I would expect next electric bills to total less than a grand. I've got to get money saved up for the insurance bill coming up in December and also the ridiculously high property tax bill. Supposedly, the state legislature passed a bill to lower taxes for everyone, I haven't seen anything about a lower tax bill yet.  Maybe next year?  Over 3 grand for a property valuation of less than 200K? Does that seem reasonable? I don't get a tax bill that high on my AZ property and that house is valued well up there.  

I guess I best get offa here. Need to finish getting ready, I like to be there on time to show that I am punctual.  Not that I have that much to do, I just want to get this over with, behind me and find out what's next and when.  I probably need to do laundry sometime this weekend. I have enough to last me several more days but not until next weekend.  And the ugh part is coming, there is rain predicted here all next week. Could we do this in reverse please? It could have rained all this week and hardly affected me.  Oh well, they gave me a chemical suit which is nothing more than a glorified rain coat and pants.  

So, not only am I expecting to face long days I haven't really done in quite a while - not that long - I am also facing the misery of having to load and offload in rainy conditions.  Just checked again, it's changed slightly, but several days one would expect some amount of rain fall.  Maybe I'll get lucky, lmao.

G'day