Tuesday - night
I know, I haven't been writing much. Just too much going on what with work and all the bs that has been going on with that, the park tho that hasn't been as bad and then helping out with the kids now that the guy is out again. He's still trying to get his CDL and then? He's going to be on the road. He failed the driving test by one thing: he dragged the trailer tandems over a curb and that is an automatic fail.
The reason is simple and valid: If you pull your tandems over a curb in certain places? The tires/wheels will fall into a ditch and the entire trailer will flip over on it's side and pull the tractor over with it, destroying both and potentially doing harm to people and also if there are spills. IN other words, it's something you avoid at all costs. However, I see drivers doing it all the time and they are lucky it isn't in a place where that would happen.
There has been a lot going on and I don't even remember what I have posted about. Wow! Just took a look, I haven't posted since I had the truck in the shop and was in a hotel room in Arkansas! Dang!
Well, here's one thing that happened last weekend. The kids came home from grandma's, also in Arkansas and we left for Tyler. We went to the hotel, went to the pool, went swimming, then to the gym - they wanted to - then got some food and spent the evening playing games. Next morning, we got up, played some more video games and then headed to the zoo.
That is where there was going to be a birthday party we had been invited to. Spent 3 hours there, had a great time both looking at all the animals and also in a private party room there doing the party.
Yesterday? Yeah. I was at the loading plant. I was 8:00 am load. But, they didn't have me down for 8:00 am, they had me down for the 1:00 pm load. This is a rather long, involved story I don't feel like going into all of it. Basically, there is a person there, low level management, that decided I should wait. I figured and found this out after being there 4 hours waiting to get loaded and then, after going to the control room, having this dude tell me that I would have to wait at least another 2 hours.
Now, these people know that we had 3 trucks loading there yesterday and yes, even after 4 hours, the other 2 hadn't shown up. That's because they had been running a different run trying to play emergency catch up and they were then yanked from that and put on this detail. The point here is, all 3 loads going to the same plant and delivering the same product. This "manager" apparently wanted to teach me a lesson about showing up early arbitrarily. Not, it was on my tablet, I looked again to make sure.
The problem was, after contacting my manager the first time and telling him he needed to make some phone calls RIGHT NOW, is my manager had forgotten to ask the plant rep to get us the 8:00 am time slot. To really get a grasp on this, this low level manager who decided that I was going to end up waiting a total of 7 hours to load, is a known a-hole. This coming from another driver who is normally quite level-headed and doesn't even speak like that.
Anyway, after having long talks with my manager including me, getting extremely annoyed with the waiting, well I figured they must be getting stuck on my load number, so please give me the first load number, the 10:00 am one, and I will give THAT to them and see what they say. So i went back in there, they were cranking on me as if I were lying about my load time. "I don't get up at 3:45 am unless they WANT me to". I said fine, switch me to the 10:00 am and yes, this a-hole manager was there and he said, well, that's all well and fine, but since we didn't have "that" truck here, we have made other plans, you'll just have to wait.
NO. I knew this guy was trying to get my goat, I just walked out on him, outside the doors but plainly visible to this dude standing there staring at me, likely taking great joy in making people unhappy for from what I ended up hearing, this person is a miserable man with no life. I got out my phone, called my manager and said you need to call our rep and tell that guy to pressure them into getting us loaded and getting me the hell out of here. This is ridiculous!
After making sure he saw me on the phone, I walked back to my truck, I wasn't going to entertain another word from that dude. 10 minutes later? The loader comes out, you can back in now! HAH!! I figured someone higher than him would be reasonable and see that there is absolutely no reason to make us wait, it's already 2 plus HOURS past the 10:00 am loading time, much more the 8:00 am slot!
I probably had a smug look on my face and quite intentional later on when I walked in to get my paperwork and he was just standing there staring - glaring? - at me. He lost his power trip and I was more than happy to see him eat it.
I will not be taking another 8:00 am load without calling the manager and verifying that he has CONFIRMED that it's ok to show up that early. I don't even ask for that slot, they just dump it on me. But that was the second time in a row that this has happened. The only difference is, the first time was with a different loader and he didn't ask management for permission, he loaded me after he got the truck he was already working on completely.
Anyway, I was supposed to have tomorrow off - didn't ask for that either, they just had it in there. The manager called me and texted me and left messages for me this afternoon. I didn't answer because I came home tired from getting up so early and needed a nap. It was more like deep sleep, I slept an hour and a half and had to force myself to get up. I knew what he wanted before I ever called him back, there is no other reason he blows my phone up like that: to ask me to take a load tomorrow.
His concession without my asking for one is that I will have Sunday off. Ok! I didn't need tomorrow off, I do need 2 days in a row off, during the week and I asked him for that today as well as a couple days off next month for the lady of the house has to go to Dallas for a work convention and assuming the man of the house won't be home. You can't really know what he's going to be doing, likely he'll be in a truck with a trainer driving somewhere with some mega trucking carrier learning the ropes.
I feel kind of sorry for him, what I have seen? They don't know how to train people to be drivers, they train them to be "steering wheel holders", that's a rather derogatory term given to drivers who really don't know what they are doing.
I have to go to bed in a few minutes so cutting this one short. Have been following the government shut down. Democrats have really dug themselves a hole. They are hypocrites for shutting the government down in the first place. They are trying to use healthcare as a tool. They desperately want - and need frankly - a win. I have seen the GOP cave on these things before, I hope they do not this time. Republicans have done a good job in conveying the message that they are offering a clean CR and also that Schumer has voted for the same thing 13 times previously.
Democrats need points, if republicans hold their ground, however, democrats are going to have to cave in sooner or later. Constituents will be none to happy as more and more government services get shut down and the fault laid squarely at their feet, they are the side that is refusing to sign off on the CR, something they have condemned Republicans for many times over in the past.
Nothing new under the sun or to see here.
Nothing else I can go into, either, not without it eating into my sleep time.
