Monday - mid afternoon

Yesterday wasn't bad.  Not great, considering it was a Sunday, but not bad either.  The only negative was the loader at the plant in Lufkin.  The slow dude, he won't load more than one truck at a time, while everyone else there will load 2 or 3 trucks at the same time.  So, I had to wait almost an hour before he got to me.  But other than that, it was a short day.  

Today, however, was a bit different.  When I got to the plant in Gurdon, I knew something wasn't right. Well, after I scaled in and got parked and hooked up the air line to begin pressurizing the tanker.  There was no one around except a couple of people on the production line. Very odd, that line entails using a lot of personnel working various portions of it.  

A lady finally came up to me, realized what I wanted and told me to wait while I go find "them".  She came back and informed me they were busy and "trying to get the level in the tanks low enough so you can offload".  Oh, there's plenty of room for one more truckload in the west side tank. Well, they're just busy, something is broken and they are trying to fix it.

Outside, closed the valve for letting in air pressure, who knows how long that is going to take.  In fact, got in the truck, tilted the driver's seat back and took a nap.  The line manager comes knocking on my window however long later and told me about it.  Some "worker" came in last night, he said, and totally destroyed the press.  The press is where the plywood goes into and gets pushed together with hydraulics.  "I've been working here for 24 years and I've never seen anything this bad".  

Whatever the case, it was over an hour wait, not great, not terrible.  He signed off on the paperwork and I got busy.  Had to keep working around a crew of construction workers installed new rails for the railroad running through there.  It's a spur where cars are dropped to load with wood.  Anyway, about 50 minutes and the tanker was empty.  I turned the air pressure valve off and the water valve on, they require us to wash out the lines with water.  

Nothing.  I'm looking at all this menagerie of lines coming into this area and I'm not seeing anything that would answer the question as to why water wasn't flowing through there.  I finally had to go find the same supervisor and he came and started opening and closing all the valves. I had already done this, but more power to him. He got frustrated and started following lines back into the depths of the building.  He came back and said he couldn't find anything.  

Well, I replied, I'm done offloading it's just that y'all want us to flush out the lines when we're done.  Yes, you can't leave without flushing out the lines first.  So he gets on the phone and starts talking to someone, follows another line which lead to a dead end and I'm standing there thinking, hmm, how long is this going to take?   He then goes off yet again following lines and finally, after a while, he must have found where someone had shut off a valve, because water pressure came into the line, I could hear it bang up inside the pipes.  

The end of that story, it took me 3 hours to get in and out of that plant, far longer than it normally does.  Shrugs shoulders.  Doesn't matter, the dispatcher had removed the other loads for this week out, she didn't contact me about it, but I already knew why, because the line supervisor had already told me: he canceled the rest of the loads for two days.  

I didn't even get back to my park and it had all changed again. They must have figured they could get the thing up and running faster than they had originally expected, for after they took all of that work out of my tablet, they put 3 loads back in.  But, instead of working tomorrow as originally planned, I am working on Wednesday.  I guess that's ok? I don't have any control over this stuff, the work has been pretty sporadic the last week or so.  

So, I'm about to enter the park and the lady that is always cleaning someone else's dog poop up said she was going to deposit 2 piles on "their" doorstep.  I already knew who she was talking about and I didn't try to stop her. These people lie to me about it, I know they are, I just can't prove it.  And she did exactly that, dumped it right in front of their door, lmao.  Sorry, I don't normally take pleasure in such things, but this has been going on for quite a while now.  

After that, a man calls me.  Is this the RV Park? Yes.  Back and forth, the man acted like I knew who he was, I had no clue.  Not expecting anyone in until Friday, I just went  with it. "We're over at the Convention Center, how do we get there?" I give them instructions.  "Ok, we'll be there in a little while".  Well, I thought, not too long please, I assumed it was people wanting an overnight spot. I have plenty atm, come on!  Sure enough, they showed up 10 minutes later.  Farmer John and Jane.  Literally.  They spent 50 years running a farm, sold it and now? Rich. 

We got into this incredibly long conversation and then I found out they have family in a couple of nearby towns. They wanted to stay near where they are, but not near enough where it would be assumed they would be seeing these family members too frequently. "How much is it for a month?" I told him the price. He pulls out an envelope filled with $100 bills, there was a lot of money in there.  Hands me 4, fresh, crisp $100's and that was that. "Can we have a receipt?" Sure, but I'll have to go home to get one, my office is over there, not here, that building has a laundromat, shower and toilet in it.  

I can't say I didn't welcome the finances.  The welder's money showed up today, odd for them, it usually shows up either early or on time.  So now, I'm looking at my business account wondering if I can make that property tax payment?  Maybe.  But, whatever fees are being assessed, they are assessed already. Won't go up again until next month.  I figured if my next paycheck is enough, I could probably make the payment. However, my paychecks have sucked and just because I was promised more pay doesn't mean it will show up in real life.  I can't be screwing myself and not be able to pay my bills.  

So, I"ll definitely wait until the second paycheck of the month and hopefully, there will be enough to pay the power bill, pay the property tax and still have enough left over to pay my personal bills.