An entire spent in orientation today. 
As I said yesterday, whatever reservations I may have had? I'm here now.
I need the job, I need the money, I can work on finding something else if it comes to that.
But, the safety Director is also a Christian so we hit it right off.  But, the first half of the day was spent with the recruiter going over policy and how to do paperwork and such. Which was fine, but I was tired.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night and my head was full of thoughts.  Mostly, what the heck have I done? Til I remembered what my paycheck is going to look like when they direct deposit it tonight at midnight.  It will be - nothing from my perspective.  They want you to do at least 3,000 miles per week, which at the pay I am at equals to about $550 more per week then I am making now. 

We got through with all of that and then came time for road tests. I didn't want to do it first. I figured it would take a while and I could take a nap.  There were only 3 of us there for this orientation.  The road test - by the time you get done with the pre trip and the paperwork and the actual driving test - takes an hour.  At least.  I disappeared after the first one and fell asleep on a bench outside. Then I realized I have access to a brand new pickup truck they rented for me, so I mozied on over there, turned it on, cranked the AC, and took a nice nap.

I felt much better after that.  I am hopeful these bouts of sleepless nights will diminish with a change of jobs and getting away from an abusive manager.  But there is still the shell shock of leaving a company I have been with for 12 years hitting me. I expected some of it, I didn't expect it as much as it has hit me. This too shall pass.

I guess the thing that really got to me was all this talk about "we run in 16 states".  That's nice, I most emphatically did not agree to be running to North Caroline or Ohio or Pennsylvania.  Sent me out west, that's what I agreed to, that's what we discussed.  This is a "wait and see" thing.  As it stood, they wanted a volunteer to drive to Bowling Green, Kentucky to pick up a stranded driver.  I gave that little thought.  Well, if I do that, they'll think I'm good to go for anywhere, screw that. 

Look, I wouldn't mind an occasional trip to the east and especially to Pennsylvania, that's where I was born and raised for the first 10 years of my life.  But all the time, no thanks.  Get me west, I'll come back east to pick up, get me back west again.  My road test was, in fact, done with a loaded trailer with the paper rolls in it. And my goodness they are heavy.  That truck was 79,000 and change pounds.  They are going to open up a terminal in Dallas soon. They keep pointing at me because I am from Texas. Yeah? That is 150 miles from me lol.  Not like it's a trip to and from work on a daily basis. Still, I would much rather be based out of that terminal than a terminal so much further east of me. 

The even more bad news today was the giant letters on a printed piece of paper. I was handed a stack of papers and read through all of it.  We have a no rider policy, which includes pets! Yes, the exclamation point included.  I was like, well damn.  If I could bring my Dane with me on a trip here and there, that might make make it a little better, providing he can handled the traveling.  Like, not every trip, but he's going to miss me as much as I miss him.  He lays around more than he does anything, sleeping in a truck really shouldn't be a problem with enough exercise on the 10 hour off times. 

But when we actually got to that sheet during the orientation, the recruiter said, well, that policy has changed.  A rider as long as they are registered with us first, a pet with a $150 deposit.  Okay!  I'd try it once to see if he could deal with it.  I don't care anything about human riders, who wants to do that? My son is grown, no kids to take or a wife.  No-one in the house would want to and even if they did, I wouldn't want them going with me.  It is a very intricate, delicate thing to think about taking a person with you that is not related to you. You are stuck in this little box, 24 hours a day.  If that person is unclean, smells bad, doesn't take showers, has annoying habits or characteristics? Screw that.  A dog, totally different story. Some dogs are cool with travel, some hate it. 

Okay, I'm the guy from Marshall. That's what I'm being called. They don't have people from all over the place currently.  So it is an oddity I guess. The allure was driving through my town frequently, getting to stop frequently for my breaks.  They did say finally, after the day was near done, that I was a different situation and would be heading west "a lot".

Ideally, I will eventually find a local job that pays well and can go home.  Weekends are off at this company, but if they aren't off at my house, that isn't going to work.  This is a wait and see, see how they are going to work this out type of thing.  If they really do my right, I will stay. The earnings potential is good enough.  A young lady driver was stuck there for a while today preaching the virtues of just staying out the entire week and getting your home time on the weekend.  Yes, ma'am, well you haven't been doing this that long. Wait til you have 20, 30 years under your belt and come back and talk to me about home time not mattering. 

So, I'm finally in Jackson, Mississippi.
Got here and got a sick feeling in my gut.
What am I doing?  Why did I quit my job?
I'm so far from home right now.....

Had to seriously revisit all the reasons I quit my job, the biggest
and most pressing one being paycheck to paycheck living.  But it
crossed my mind, after getting here, that at least with that other
company I was looking into, I might be out 3 days but I am always coming
back home because that's where the plant is to reload. They don't reload
those trailers anywhere else in the US.  It's like, guaranteed come home time.

Then, when I started discussing the situation with the recruiter, he changed the
other guy's tune.  Well we will get you through there mostly.  Mostly? Where the
hell else am I to be driving?  All over the US? Really, really don't want OTR, didn't
sign up for it, if that's where this is going, they can stick it in their rears. 

Now wait just a second, I have the email from the owner of this company, I do believe,
going to go look it up. Ugh, no, it was a phone conversation with him now that I think
about it, the rest of my communications have been with the recruiter.  But even the job
parameters were set up in the Indeed ad for drivers out of my area for dedicated run.

But, that job listing has expired and the details of it have disappeared hahaha.
Well whatever, I'm not going to stress too much, it's more of this thing that I quit an almost
12 year job.  I distinctly remember the CEO of this company saying I live in a good area, I can
get home most nights. He didn't guarantee every night, true, but the idea was that this was a
dedicated run. I am not sure where this is going, I will ask a lot more questions tomorrow.  I don't mind just getting right back on a bus and heading home, to be honest.

I take that back, not good on your resume too much time in between jobs.  I'm kinda stuck here.  For now.

So.
I spent the day driving down south.  They expected me to get a slate full of stuff done before a certain time frame, the final stop would have to be before 3pm.  Yeah, I knew that wasn't happening. The manager has us coming in at 8 am, which is a ludicrous notion for a start time in the construction industry, of whom buys our products.  I didn't get back to the yard until after 4:00 pm and that was without getting to the final stop.

The warehouse "manager" had called down to the second to final stop - the place that I was to pick up an entire load of concrete meter boxes and then head almost 2 hours north to Ruston to deliver them. The place is a joke.  Have me come in a 6:30 am for a situation like this, I'll get it done.  Anything after that? I don't care who it is, it is not going to happen.

Not that I cared. I will be ridding myself of this company in about 20 hours from now.  You know, if my job fell through? I would still leave.  I still have not received any kind of response from my manager or the GM of my notice and I am quite sure there will not be one.  Screw this place, screw these people.  May it come to bite them on the ass in the future.

This is going to be a different lifestyle. It's going to be a change to my routine.  It's going to be a lot of things I may or may not want, but it's also going to be AWAY from that place.

____________________________

Tuesday.
Today was last day of work. I got sent out to a town about 80 miles away to deliver an entire truckload of concrete meter boxes.  I wasn't in a big hurry.  I figured when I got back, I would be sent off to a lunch break and I"m not doing that anymore.  I was going to leave.  And so it was.  I got back, did my paperwork, went through my company email account, forwarded a bunch of emails that I was interested in keeping - some from my dad, brought back memories when he came up to Caleb's graduation.  It was really the last trip he ever took.  I thought a remembrance of it work keeping, going to forward some of that to Caleb, he really loved his grandpa.  Mostly I did not interact with family in the company account, but i found a lot of funny emails that my mom had forwarded.

There was also a whole episode of emails from company security about that woman that was living with me long ago that was smoking meth in the house.  I didn't save any of that junk, I have that firmly cemented in my memory and seeing emails about it wasn't really helpful.  Way back in 2009, lol.  That's how far back my emails went. I'm not really good at deleting email. 

I probably missed some emails that I would have liked to save, but I didn't have all day and enough is enough. I got that done, and then found a fresh email from the GM.  Well well well. He waited until the last day to actually try to contact me.  He asked me to call him before I left work.  Why? who knows, I thought, I know he's not going to offer more money, what is the point.

I called him, he was busy. But, he called me right back.  He started on the same line of junk, we'd like to keep you.  Yeah..... and?  Well we can't offer you more money right now.  It actually turned out that it was my manager who was denying more money to me.  I already know how it works, the GM was lying and I just didn't want to go there.  My GM in Phoenix taught me how the company works, this GM apparently didn't understand that I know full well how raises are granted.  I just cut him short, you know, you aren't going to change my mind, I'm not going to change yours.  I want more money, I am broke. That's my bottom line. If you can't help that, thanks for the call.

It wasn't quite that blunt, that was just what was going on in my mind.  I was actually being pretty polite about it, but my thoughts were, what the hell is wrong with these people? Stingy Scrooges.  Driving brand new Ford pickups, the GM is driving a new Platinum series that is estimated at around 60k, and he's telling me that the company can't afford raises?  Of course, I understand how it works, I just see the utter hypocrisy of it and laugh.  Whatever dude.  I informed him that my manager told me that "I don't believe in asking for raises".  The GM was actually shocked.  Ohhh, well of course you can ask for a raise, with other blather involved.  Again, whatever dude.  This is really YOUR venue, not my manager's. Again, my thoughts, that last sentence, not anything I said to him.

Why bother?  I didn't want to get into an argument over pay, my mind was already made up: I'm leaving.  I dd leave it at this: if y'all decide you want to pay me what I'm worth, feel free to call me.  A long pause.  No reply to it, didn't figure there would be but - I didn't burn my bridges.  That was the only thing I can safely say I didn't do today. Well I sort of did.  I didn't go into the manager's office.  He's been a coward, avoiding me this week and last.  He's not a manager, he's just a person occupying the manager's space. 

Anyway, after was all was said and done, he finally offered some praise, some kind works, a good ending. Seriously, he could have just gone straight to that and bypassed all this pay talk, I guess they didn't believe I would actually do it. Hey, over here! Yeah! I know what I'm worth! I will find a place that recognizes that, thanks. That will pay me that right off the get go without all the bs.  Thanks.

But, I was nice.  I really was.  I just didn't see or say anything to my immediate manager. He isn't worthy of my time, frankly.  He's a total ASS. I would have been tempted to unload on him if I had gone in there. 

I contacted the inside salesman that left 2 weeks ago, via text messaging.  He said the other inside salesman has actually been looking for a job since this manager took the position.  I hope he finds something.  It would end this idea that it's just troublemakers that are leaving.  He hasn't started anything with anyone.  He's obviously fed up with the manager. 

Well anyway, that was it.  I said goodbye to everyone in the showroom.  The warehouse manager grunted. That is his way of saying goodbye, lolol.  He did say earlier that "you have to do what you have to do", which coming from him is actually a blessing to leave.  If you ever met that man, I can guarantee you you will never meet another person like it in your entire life. 

I was kinda sad that my coworker buddy wasn't there to wish goodbye to. He was out on the road somewhere. I took my time getting everything done hoping he would come back in time to wish a goodbye to, but it didn't happen. Likely never see him again.

Well whatever.  16-1/2 hours from now, I'll be on a miserable Greyhound bus - lol - get over there, get this going.  I liked their idea of a rental car, but apparently that wasn't going to work out too well.

Not much consuming my mind at the moment, excepting the thoughts of getting debt paid down and getting a newer vehicle to drive, preferably a pickup truck.  Getting some things done around, helping out my son a bit, such as my dad did for me.  Lots of things, but, don't count your chickens before they hatch.  Right, got it, still hopeful at least. 

 Well, the weekend is here. Have redeemed the time today, too.  Got a bunch of cleaning done around the house, went out for 4 hours and got a bunch of errands done, including getting a nice haircut for a new job.  But a lot of other stuff as well.

In fact, the only thing I didn't get done was buy a new charging cord for my Iphone - because the place I went to doesn't take credit cards.  Well, he says he does but his "machine was down".  No biggies, especially considering the fact that his guaranty is that if it fails, just bring the cord back, I'll give you another one without a receipt, hassle free.  Didn't make it back there.

Meanwhile, I am still considering my decision to quit my job.  200 hours of vacation as of January 3rd of next year if I were to stay. It makes it so hard to walk away from . But, what can I do with all that time off if I can't afford to go anywhere? Stay-at-home vacations are nice, I suppose, but I want to travel.  I'm going to hope that this new  job pays as much as they say it does and I'm going to both pay off credit card debt and save for vacations at the same time.

Trust me, I'm accounting for the potential that it doesn't pay as much as they say it does, but if it comes close at least, I'm good with it.  Still far more than I'm making now.

___________________________________

Sunday.  I just got done looking at the route between the 2 destinations for pick up and delivery.  It is possible to get 3,000 miles per week in and be home every  day or night, just depending on when I would get there, excepting 1.  Plus have the weekend off. It involves 3 days of driving 537 miles, easy enough and 2 days of marathon driving at 730 miles.  That can be done legally if the traffic conditions are right.  You can drive 11 hours legally, be on duty for 14.  That simply means the other 3 hours are for fueling, loading and unloading.  The tangents, of course, are if you can keep up a pretty high MPH average which may not be possible with road construction going on in Louisiana right now, that slows you down for a stretch that costs you time.  It may not be doable legally, but it's a goal  I mean, looking at maps on my iPhone, it's a 5 hour and 17 minute drive each way from my place to there and back.

The recruiter told me they have their trucks set at 72 mph.  It would be helpful to notch it up to 75, but I'll take it.  Btw, maps takes into consideration road delays and speed limits and going through cities and such.  Most of the driving is Interstate excepting the part where you jump off the 20 to go down to Lufkin. Even that, though, the Texas part of it is 65 to 70 mph speed limits,, meaning I can get away with top speed without worrying about it.  Texas 2 lane highway speed limits are much more generous than most other places in the country, save for wide open expanses like Montana and such.

It works on paper, anyway.  Took me a while to figure it out, I wanted to get this down. Will I actually be able to get home during the week and sleep in my own bed?  Simple question that I wanted to be able to answer on my own without them trying to cook it.  It has to be legitimate and within legal hours of driving.  If I can do that for the most part - I almost always beat maps time.  If it says it takes 5 hours to get somewhere I'm there in 4-1/2 hours, or usually at least 15 minutes earlier. I'm a "driving fool" when I want to be. Haven't done it in  years but I can pick it up again.  I was kinda worried about that particular aspect of this job, how much home time, until I sat down and figured it out.  My pay would increase just short of 2k per month. That's the increase in pay I would get.  even if it were $1,500, I would be happy as a bug in a rug.

Still, you never know. Sometimes trucking companies will say anything to get  you over there and into their office.  That's why you have to ask a lot of questions and do some figuring on your own.  I haven't done this kind of driving in so long, I looked up several different sources for average driving per day for experienced drivers.  A lot said average around 550. Some went higher, some went much higher.  Really, a lot depend on the speed limits, the max speed of your truck, road/weather conditions and weather there is construction or not.  I am prepared to face the fact that if I get off that schedule on any given day, that throws it all off and who knows how many days I'll get home during that particular week.

I'm fairly partial to being able to go home, thanks.  I've done my time OTR. I wouldn't consider it unless the pay was just too good to pass up, like 100k.  There are some places with specialty trucking that pay that much, but those jobs are far and few between and when they come available, they are swamped with applications.

I haven't actually given up on filling out applications tho. I applied last night for one that is a "local" job even though you go out of town.  In a trucker's world, local simply means you are home every night.  It doesn't mean you stay in town or even close to town.  In fact, my current job has me driving all over the upper portion of the state somewhat frequently, though the new manager has cut back on the driving.  He's hurting the business, actually, by having us coming in late.  It's the construction industry, no one starts their drivers at 8 am.  We've already lost business because of it and some of the other companies are sending their own trucks in to pick up materials.  All well and fine, but our biggest competitor is picking up their game and matching what we do. If they start under bidding us and giving better service, well the writing is on the wall.

The other drive and I have discussed this pretty thoroughly.  The need for 3 drivers is already questionable.  They rotate who is going to spend most or all of a day in the yard because the amount of deliveries has gone down drastically under this new guy. I don't know what he's thinking.  Cutting back on expenses is all well and fine, but cutting back your service level when you have hot competition wanting to take your business away is cutting your own throat. Anyway, we already have a yard hand/ex driver there all day long.  It gets monotonous standing around doing nothing. The manager comes out and gives stares.  Of which I could care less, this current situation is because of his policies and yes, because him and certain contractors go wayyyy back and they dislike him greatly.

It's just another reason I want to get out of there. If our numbers stay down, as they have been going now (we've had some good months but we've had several that are low in terms of gross sales and GP), corporate will come along and force the hand. They will tell the GM that "that store doesn't have the numbers to support that much labor costs, you are going to have to cut back".  They've done it before, I've gone through several layoffs in this company. I've survived all of them but with this manager? He doesn't like me because I don't bow down to him and worship. I would certainly have the thought of being the first to go.

Anyway, I looked at whatever reviews of this new company I could find.  Not a single negative word about them, either from current or previous employees.  That's certainly a good sign. It's a family run business and they apparently take care of their people.

I am not 100% sold on this place. Yes, I have a job offer, yes I am planning on heading over there Wednesday by whatever means they have available, but....if something else comes through that looks better, and researching it, I am not stuck on the idea of this place. Home time and pay are my top concerns.  After that I don't much care.  A pet policy would be nice. Take Addler on a trip here and there with me.  Not a deal breaker though.

There is a pro that is also a con to this job.  It's the driving.  No more working in a hell hot yard.  No more working around grumpy old men.  No more winter work outside where your hands freeze while picking up parts.  The flip side to that is I don't get all the exercise, either.  Picking up heavy parts and putting them onto pallets.  I would have to consider starting up a work out routine to make up for that.

Whatever the case, even the yard man is looking for a new job.  How many people will it take quitting there before corporate gets the idea that the rosy picture being painted of that place is not in alignment with the reality of long time employees walking out of it?  When I leave, that will be 3 people with a combined total of 30 years of experience having up and walked out.  If the other driver leaves, add 14 more years to it.  This is part of how corporate looks at things. Why are all these long time employees leaving?  The exit survey is the teller.  If you are candid about your reasons for leaving - but not getting hysterical, keep it calm, cool and collected and not exaggerating - then you might get some credibility when stacked up with other exit surveys that might be saying the same or at least close to the same thing.

Anyway, this is pretty much where my head is at right now.  Hard to think of much of anything else.

Welp, the last few days of work.  I have a coworker with which we really get along. Actually, we're pretty much going at it a lot, but all in fun.  Definitely in fun, keep things live spirited versus dull an boring.

This afternoon in the yard, I"m loading up the semi for Monday delivery.  He's looking at all the pallets on the ground and looking at truck: You ain't fixing to get all of that on there.

Oh yes I will, there's plenty of room.  He says, no way, you can't get all of that on there. I'm firing back, hell if I can't, all of that is going on there, pointing at the truck. I had already assessed the loading sequence necessary to get it all on there.  He says I'll bet you can't. I said fine, I'll take your bet.  He says, you want to be a beer? I said, no, I"ll take 3 of them!  I was taunting him for the next 30 minutes as he was driving by on the other forklift and I was almost finished.

"Well yooooooouuuuuuu cheated!".  Cheated? How do you figure?  Well you put that pallet on top of that other pallet and you moved the pipe.  Whoa, pardner, there wasn't any agreement on this bet as to HOW I was going to load the truck, only that I would get it done.  He finally shook his head, sitting there watching me load the last pallet on there.  You won.  And yes, true to his word, we went to the liquor store after work, he bought a 6 pack and gave me 4 of them.  Lol.

I have subsequently found out, today, that everyone but the outside salesmen are looking for new jobs.  No idea if any of the salesmen are or aren't, they aren't letting on.  I would guess no, because they are making bank. Or are they? I looked at the numbers today, sales are down.   Meaning their commissions are down as well. Even the yard guy today was overheard on the phone talking to an employment agency.

Anyway, I'm not doing anything differently at work. I work my butt off, I get the job done.  There is no-one that is going to be able to accuse me - legitimately anyway - after I leave that I had a change of attitude at the end.  Monday is a full day.  Drive the truck to the port, unload all of that stuff I put on there today, drive to Lena, make a small delivery, drive to Alexandria, load the truck up with concrete meter boxes, drive up to Ruston, deliver all of them and then back to Shreveport.  With all the driving and loading and unloading time? That's getting me back to the yard by 5 at the earliest.  Tuesday will be my last day and then, get a suitcase, load it up and get over to Mississippi in whatever fashion they are going to figure out.  Which is likely a truck coming through here, going back to Mississippi.

I saw one of their trucks driving through Shreveport today which sparked the memory: Oh yes, I've been seeing them coming through here for a while, just never gave it any real notice.  I mean, I am a truck driver from the old days though.  I look at trucks.  The colors, the chrome, the name of the company. I always note things that are wrong with them.  Today? A logging truck with no mud flaps on the tandems.  Violation of FMCSA regulations - they are there to protect the motoring public's vehicles from debris flying up from the tires.  There weren't even brackets for flaps on this truck.

BTW, have you ever seen the signs on the back of these dump trucks that say "stay back 300 feet, not responsible for damage to windshields"?  The hell they aren't.  They are solely responsible for any "unsecured cargo" that is ejected from their trucks, including rocks that they are hauling.  I got on a hauling company's case one time for a truck dumping rocks all over the highway and cracking my windshield.  They thought I was going away, but I made frequent calls and increasing levels of irritableness.  YOUR truck did NOT have a tarp on the load and those rocks were flying out everywhere.  They finally dd replace the windshield.

Anyway, the manager has been avoiding my like the plague.  He rushes on by if I happen to be heading towards his direction.  There is no way he's spending any time in the same room with me, at all.  If I come in, he walks out.  This is a "manager", an insecure, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing small, little man.  My last thing to do there will be to send an email to the regional manager and also include corporate management in it with a forwarded email - the one I sent these 2 individuals - and a statement that I never received any kind of reply form them at all. Note,  it doesn't matter if the reply doesn't agree with my assessments, but can these people see beyond their own pathetic selves and wish me a successful career such as I have them?

I am going to contrast the GM of the region I am in now and the GM of the region I was originally hired into.  WORLDS apart.  My Phoenix GM I will ever hold in respect and admiration.  A man of class and a true professional, yet had compassion for every single worker. He showed concern for the everyday trials and tribulations we went through. He gave generous raises to those that supporter his vision and kept within the parameters of the goals of the company.  Held Christmas parties at his house.  Compared to a GM here that could care less, doesn't check up on anyone,  is part and parcel of the good ole' boys club - so on and so forth. If it burns my brdiges, so beit.  It likely will have no effect. so beit as well.  But I am likely to speak my mind -within some boundaries.

 So yesterday, I write a professionally worded intent to terminate employment, here is the advance notice you requested email to the manager and his manager, the GM.  I am good at writing letters like that when i want to, learned that in High School learning secretary stuff while learning typing.  Some of it still in my head lol.  I did leave the option for a pay increase offer.  Not getting my hopes up - AT ALL - but still put it in there.  There was nothing accusatory, condemning or any malice in that letter at all. It wasn't even that long, quick and to the point.

So, neither manager responded.  No email back, no phone call, not even a word about it in person.  Instead, this morning, they had a dude in there applying for my position.  What a lame management structure.  I have only a few times in my life worked for such pathetic, sad, sorry people and that was when I was in my mid teens working kitchens in restaurants.  I distinctly remember one of them, she was the GM of this restaurant I was working at, she was a drunk and would get drunk at work. And, she was a total b****.   That's the only real word that comes to mind, sorry.  She intentionally had me replaced a "burnt out" light bulb to see me get electrocuted.  Yes, she was cracking up about it when I got zapped by the current that she already knew about.  Without going into full detail, stuff like that.

These people aren't any different.  Juveniles in adult bodies.  I'm trying to hang in there til Tuesday, but I am finding that to be very difficult.  The only reason to stay, obviously, is a full paycheck next week when it comes into my account.  Just one more day for that.  I could skip next week at work completely for the way they are treating me and not bat an eye.  I have 137 hours of vacation that they will pay out - how long that takes I don't know tho.  It's a couple thousand dollars worth and then some, enough to tide m over for the interim of starting a new job and actually getting a full paycheck.
I'm slated for orientation on Thursday.  Meaning I have to take a bus or something over to Jackson, Mississippi.  They were going to try to find me a ride with a truck coming through, dunno how that may work out.  I would rather ride in a truck than take a Greyhound.  I can't drive my car because the intention is that I will leave there in one of there trucks after a couple days orientation and go straight to work.  Which is fine by me. That's what I want.

Meanwhile, I called the other place. Not as alluring because of the lack of time off.  You are out 3 days and come back, no guarantees on that 3rd day that you actually get to go home, you might be sent straight back out.  Anyway, they were supposed to have me slated for a driver test a week plus ago and she never called me back.  Out of curiosity, I called her.  Well, she says, I was going to call you. I thought, when? but didn't say it.  She said my application says that I don't have a Hazmat or Tanker endorsements.  It's an old application I placed there 2 years ago.  These trucking companies keep your name forever, basically.

So I told her no, that has changed since that app was put in, I have an X endorsement (hazmat and tanker combination), what's next?  Driver test and physical.  Let me get some stuff done and I'll "get back to you".  I mean, I'm getting mixed signals from her.  If she doesn't like me or want me, why not just come out and say so? Or is this just the way she operates?  She seemed to be a very organized person when I was in her office.  The allure of this job is the money. .51 per mile, which in the trucking industry is excellent mileage pay.  The other place is starting me out at .40 cents per mile, which is the top end for new drivers coming into that company. That is the top end for a lot of companies for a new hire, tho some pay more.  You have to prove to them that you will get your work done, ie: get as many loads as they want you to get done in a specific time frame.  you do that, consistently, over a period of time, they'll bump your pay up.

Actually the job I am already slated to going to in Mississippi sounds better because there is no weekend work, there will be nights during the week I can sleep in my own bed and see my doggies and not be out so much.  I can still make decent money there, around $1,250 per week to start.  I never did ask them if they had a pet policy.  I could take my giant Great Dane on a trip here and there.  He is quite at home laying on a bed and sleeping lol.  Btw, that's about 60k per year, which is FAR more money than I'm making now ever since this manager took over and stripped us of our OT.

Changing the subject, do you ever listen to the potential side effects of these drugs that are touted on TV?  I don't know how many of them say "and possibility of heart attack, stroke and death" for drugs that aren't life saving for a life threatening situation. Would you take one of these drugs?  Knowing that you might keel over after taking it? How is it acceptable to have drugs that can kill you?

Just one of many things I ponder in life.  Like, if I had condition, would I take that drug?  I guess it's hard to say what you will allow yourself to get into when you are faced with some dire situation.

Oh well. I was slated to have the lowest paycheck I can possibly get until the manager decided I should take a late run that would have me out a couple extra hours.  How nice of him.  But when I get these paychecks as of late, I just laugh at them.  These aren't paychecks. They're like spiffs.  A bonus.  Like a big tip at a restaurant.  My next paycheck will still suck with only 3 hours of OT on it. Remember, that's a 2 week pay period, not a weekly check.

I do believe on my last day there, I'm going to write a letter to the regional manager - who probably doesn't care either but I'll tag corporate into it as well - and the manager and GM, forward the message I sent to the GM and manager to him and explain to him that I sent this email out of good faith because I was asked previously to give an advanced notice, and instead of a thank you or some kind of reply, I got nothing from either of them.  Why go there? Why not.  This is not the way this company operates anywhere else. This division was mom and pop thing that was a statewide setup with several stores that was bought out the company.

If hindsight were 20/20, I should have left as soon as I found out this new manager was taking over.  If I really want to fault myself, I should have never agreed to a pay cut to come out here working the same job and taking a $6.24 per hour reduction in pay.  Actually, I probably should have never come out here in the first place, but I am not really regretting that decision.  I made new friends, people that actually love me (and even say so) - my friends that own the house - and it's a much nicer environment out here. I miss the mountains, mostly.  No mountains here, none at all.  A few hills here and there but nothing like the Rockies.

Of course, changing the subject again, in all of this, finding an entirely new line of employment goes out the window in sitting behind the wheel of a truck every day for 10 or 11 hours.  \

At least my 401k is growing if nothing else.

I was actually amazed that it's been a year already since I did the fed loan restructure thing on my house.  I've made a year's worth of on-time payments, but for whatever reason, my mortgage company always lags behind on updating payment information by up to 3 months.  Once it ever updates to showing a full year's worth of on time payments, that should bump up my credit score. I don't know how much, but that's what i was reading some time back about the subject.

I am trying to wait until I get my score up into the good range before looking for a car loan.  My current car is simply falling apart, has a lot of miles on it, I"ve been driving it for 9 years now, I'm tired of it.  I want something - newer.  Not new, but at least 2010 with low miles.  I just don't want to pay anything even remotely akin to "high interest".

With a new job, hopefully I can start saving money again.  I am literally down to almost nothing in both my checking and savings accounts, which is what led me to start looking for a new job in the first place.  I haven't been in this position in a long, long time and it doesn't feel good.  The manager could care less.  He's a total jerk. He knows business, he doesn't know people, how to deal with them and how to treat them.  He should have never been put into that position, a scenario that will likely play out as more people leave the company solely because of his bs.

When I do the exit interview - they call you - I'm going to spell that out.  In fact, I am writing my thoughts down so I don't forget anything.  They will have heard by 3 different people at that point complaints about this manager's behavior and how he treats the employees.  When the other inside salesman quits - providing he does - that will send a resounding message, this manager is a piece of s*** and needs to be dealt with, ie: fired or moved back to his old position.  Not that it will matter to me, I'll be gone, but in this case, that dude has ruined for me a 12 year career that I was attempting to make out of that place, has forced me to find new employment because of his petty, narcissistic and egotistical views on things and now I am losing the ample amounts of vacation time.

Note that OT wasn't removed from anyone else in the region. It was reduced slightly, but they are still getting OT.  I looked at our sales today, pretty lame.  This time of year should be double what's in there near and at least triple that by the time the end of the month gets here.  Writing on the wall, since I've been through this with this company before: enough of that and layoffs.

Well whatever.

Sunday afternoon.
Haven't been to work since Tuesday morning - went and came home. Sick. Been sick the entire time.  I was hoping the flu would run it's course and go away, but it got replaced by other things.  I finally went to the doc yesterday who said I have an upper respiratory tract infection, sore throat, had the flu, had GI tract junk and .... possibly TMI....but jock itch.  Never had that one before so I didn't know what it was, only that everything in that region was quite sore.

I wasn't able to get the prescriptions til this morning, pharmacies close early around here on weekends.  I was, of course, there at opening.  Because right now, I still feel quite bad and if I feel like this again in the morning, it will be yet another day that I don't go to work.  Which might cause issues at work with this manager.  Not that I care what he thinks, but I would rather not hear it.  People get sick, oh well, s*** happens.

The whole thing has put off my new job aspirations at least temporarily.  I can't even think about starting a new job feeling like this. Heck I can't even think about doing my current work like this, but at least I know what I'm doing, if I must go, I can force myself through it.

Well anyway, nothing really new going on.  The part for the dryer came in, popped it on there, fixed in less than 5 minutes.  Dodged another bullet on that one.  Of course, I didn't dodge the bullet on the doctor's visit, hence the reason I hadn't gone.   $108 just to walk through the door of the place and pay that up front.  I didn't have to pay anything else so I guess not that bad and I will get half of that back - eventually, like a month or two down the road.

_______________________________

So, the inside salesman quit on Friday.  Today, showed up to find out they had already transferred a young dude from one of our stores down south to take his position. The position was never offered to any of us, at all. Not to mention this kid doesn't know anything about the software that we use, doesn't know the basics of anything, really.  It was astonishing to see that they had not only filled the position that quickly, but also just passed over all of us for any kind of promotion.

That prompted me to write the manager and the GM a short letter.  Basically, I'm quitting.  Unless I receive and offer of increased compensation, Tuesday of next week will be my last day working here. That was his advanced notice. The inside salesman gave no notice and the other drive didn't, either.  I got no reply back from either of them.  I didn't expect them to offer me money, at all, but I did expect that they would at least have the courtesy to say something.  I hate going to work.  It's a daily thing. Go to work, dread being there.  It's even worse now. In the middle of summer, our sales are slumping when they should be rocketing towards the moon.

The reality is, several contractors despise this manager - decades old bad blood - and refuse to do business with him.  That coupled with the fact that we start at 8:00 - none of our other outlets start that late.  That means, we come to work, contractors want their stuff, we aren't even out of there sometimes as late as noon.  We aren't servicing the customers.  That's it, this is the kind of business where you go out of your way to do whatever it takes to make them happy, and a large portion of that is early deliveries.  I was amazed that this guy was allowed to even get away with starting that late, but, the GM is a gutless wonder. He doesn't have his managers under his control.  He simply lets them do what they want.

So, I was discussing this with the other senior driver today. Good luck! I exclaimed to him, because now they are going to have 2 new drivers that know nothing or very little about this type of work.  they nothing about loading big trucks.  If you stay here, you do understand that this isn't going to get any better?  Remember what happened when the other driver quit? We were still held back at 8 hours.  He hates driving the big truck.  He's 57 years old and tired of all the work entailed with it.  The new guy has no clue.  I'm not leaving to spite him or most anyone else, I'm leaving because of low wages and an ass**** manager whose bizarre, narcissistic and egotistical behavior is insufferable.  Tho if they offered me enough money, I would just ignore his stupidity and do my job.  That would be a far easier thing than going to some company I have no clue about excepting what I can find online, get thrust into a totally new environment and also have no tenure, ie: benefits.

But, now I've freed myself of this current place, I have nothing anchoring me down anywhere.  I'm fine with going to work for this place and if it doesn't work out too well?  Find another one, keep going til I find the pay and home time that will work for me.  Pay being the biggest issue.

Meanwhile, my new Citi card arrived.  It has no credit available since I am transferring it's limit from my Capital One card. It's a zero interest deal for 18 months.  So, that pays down the Capital One card quite a bit, still some on there tho.  This deal was just to get zero interest, not to have more credit available.  It will, however, increase the amount of available credit on my credit report, so my score should go up a few more points. It's slowly creeping up there.  Still a bit off from the good range, but it's actually a light at the end of the tunnel now.

My sickness is almost past now.  That is one of the worst ones I have ever gone through - 6 days laid up in bed.  I can't remember being laid up by a virus that long.  I can remember being bedridden for a long time after getting fully injected with a black widow spider's venom, that was a hellish event as well.  But this thing here was an animal  I got hit with the flu - body aches ALL over, terrible headaches, fever, cold chills.  Then 3 days later I got hit with an upper respiratory infection and a terrible sore throat, meanwhile, the flu symptoms hadn't subsided and in all of that, I had stomach junk going that ended up with - a lot of bathroom visits and then on top of that, I find out I had jock itch, I a thing I have never had so I didn't know what was going on.  The doctor just said - you've had a helluva a week!  Yes and it sucked, totally.  Sometimes you get in the middle of these things and wonder if you're ever going to get better.  Like, am I dying?

I can't say that I'm 100% but dang it's good to be back among the living!

Umm, well what a day!
See, I thought I felt some grumbling downstairs this morning before going to work, but I didn't give it a lot of thought.  I got to work, got in the truck and headed south.  And that's when it started.  I don't want to TMI, so I'll just say that I spent quality time in the woods on the side of the highway dealing with business you would normally do in a bathroom.  Yea, that bad.  Either crank the truck over and get out in the trees or end up with pants filled with.....

I finally got to a place 6 hours later where I could both get some acetaminophen and some Pepto.  That helped - a lot actually. Though the day was 2/3rd's over by then.

Huh.  Didn't stop me tho.  I got off work at 3, as I had asked the manager, and headed the 65 miles over to the job interview  The lady says, well, what are you here for today?  I mean, she knew I was there for a job, but took that question in stride. I'm here for a job, going into current situation - without going into foul management, just pay issues.  I kinda think if you sit around saying your manager sucks, they might think you are the one with the problem and dismiss you.

Well, we didn't really get too far into before she invited me out to meet some of the drivers that happened to be there.  I knew where this was going.  Lol, no problem there, i can talk to other drivers for hours.  And sure enough, we got to talking that she eventually left. But, that was what she wanted.  She told me before we went out there: well, you aren't really going to hear what you need to know in here, let's go talk to the drivers.

She eventually resurfaced and said, ok, let's go back in side. She had a 5 page list of pre-printed questions.  The only thing I disagreed with was team driving. No thanks.  I'm not driving all the time with another person I don't even know.  She said, yea i didn't think so, lol, it's not mandatory.

I left thee with a job offer pursuant to passing a driving test.

__________________________________

That was Tuesday, now Wednesday.  Whatever I had yesterday? Got worse today.  I had half a mind to call in sick today, I should have.  I took a load of concrete pipe out to a job site and started feeling really bad.  I got back to the yard, noticed that the delivery board had been wiped clean of deliveries. Went and asked the boss, can I go home? Doesn't look like anything going on today. I left there, 10:00 am, came home an slept 4 hours.  Body aches all over.  Just a virus of some sort.  But yeah, yucky feeling all over.\

Hopefully I won't get a call to go on the driving test today.  I dunno when she was going to get that set up, I just asked her if it could be after hours or on the weekend so I don't have to figure out an excuse to leave work early.  Today simply wouldn't be a good day. I could do it, but I'd rather be on top of my game for a driving test, considering it will be done by another 30 or 40 plus year driver.  We can get a bit picky on how a person drives, lol.

So that's that.  I also so yet more jobs that looked interesting today, so I applied for those as well. Ideally, it would be a local job. The Kag one is 3 days out, sometimes longer.  They have various length runs and she - the dispatcher - likes to even them out so the drivers get equal amounts of long and short runs.  Which is cool, means you get some good miles in and decent paychecks.  I'm still kinda leaning towards that other job, tho, too.

That's really my focus right  now.  I am taking into consideration that it's kinda hard to be involved in a church in any capacity if I can't even be there consistently on Sundays.  Not that I am involved in this new church yet, I'm just going to services and feeding on the Word for the time being.

Well, today is mom's birthday. I texted her early this morning a Happy Birthday wish, got on her FB wall and did the same.  Then, when I got home from work a little while ago, I definitely called her to give her the birthday wish in voice.  I then went on to post a happy birthday to her on my fb wall as well.

What was strange?  The fact that I was the only one that actually called her today.  Everyone else, including my brothers, had texted her. I understand acquaintances doing it via text or Facebook. I get people that met each on Facebook doing that on Facebook, of course.  But people that you have known all your life?  Or your own family? Seemed rather strange to me.  I guess in this day and age you count your blessings to get it in the form of printed words than nothing at all.

Even my son sent a text.  Does that take the place of an actual phone call from your own family?  Am I off base here? I'm really just asking.

IMO, strange times we are living in. Not just because of this, this is just another factor.

Meanwhile I was stuck behind 3 cars going 60 in a 70 zone for several miles before I decided to pass on the right.  Well, turns out the car in the front was a form of law enforcement, no idea which, just had a small ensignia on the side and......the dude turned on his lights and gave me the siren job.  I figured I was busted and oh well.  Guess he had better things to do. I never passed him, not after he did all of that. I was coming up on him when he did all of that.  I backed off, he turned all of that stuff off and I guess decided to let it go.

Okay, well on to the real deal. I made a legitimate excuse to leave work this afternoon to go for the interview. I was engaged in that this morning.  So I got the approval from the manager and then found out that the lady that is going to do the interview is going to a funeral tonight.  In fact, there right now.  One of the drivers that she has worked with for years passed away and she was going to give her condolences.  Kudos to her on that.  And good thing i called this morning, otherwise, I would have gotten the time off for nothing and then would have really had to figure out how to get to this interview, the next day, tomorrow actually.

_____________

Some serious looking at reviews on this company.  Not in the division I am looking at going into, but in the gas industry division.  In fact, the gas hauling industry in general. Not really as good as I thought it might be.  Or is it?  Just depends where you are looking, but I was looking at reviews for the gas haulers on this specific company and I didn't see a lot of good stuff on there.

Is the gas hauling industry what I thought it was?
Perhaps not.  Appears the chemical hauling industry is much more lucrative, but, it's not really local.
What now.  Go in for the interview tomorrow. This is the company's chemical sector, has nothing to do with gasoline.  I've gotten this far with this company, the pay is definitely excellent.  I can't even think about complaining about it.  This particular type of job is available to people that live close to the plant that manufactures all of these chemicals, namely: Eastman Kodak.

Anyway, I'm going to go to that interview tomorrow. If a job is offered, I am now at the 90% chances of taking it, where as before reading all this other stuff I was at 100%.  The reason for the downgrade is simple.  It doesn't appear that transferring to the gas division is a viable alternative in the future.  the near 80k per year pay with this division, is, however, quite compelling.

Anyway, I started feeling bad today, like lung congestion and feeling ill at work. It started shortly before I went to the hour long lunch break junk. Which, today, I was glad to take. Got in my car, drove a quarter mile down the road to my favorite, huge but low-lying tree and slept for 45 minutes. I felt better after that, but not great.

Well, it's almost 9 pm and I decided earlier I was going to go to bed early tonight.

This is likely to get repetitive over other posts I have put up in the last week or so, so probably not worth reading. I just need to get this out of my system, sometimes writing about things helps me do that.

Well, first off the dryer quit working.  Pressing the start button, however, I noticed it didn't move either way. Like,  those push button switches are spring loaded so it should move in and pop back up once you let go.  Figured that problem out pretty quick, the switch is broken. Ordered a new one but still figured out how to turn the machine on without it.  I'm not recommending the tenants here do that, though, if they aren't careful they will electrocute themselves.

When facing such dilemmas, tho, and know you really don't have the finances to go out and buy a new one excepting putting it on credit, that instantly becomes a scary thought. "Hey Ben, the dryer quit working".  Gag, I'm thinking, how much is this going to cost?  I went to work immediately on that and it didn't take long to figure it out.  New switch ordered via the internet, grand total: $17.53 including shipping.  Wipe the sweat off my brow and hope nothing else goes wrong.

Well, we do have a rat problem and I"m sick of it.  One of the tenants is allergic to cats or I would have gotten a couple of them a while ago.  As it stands, I may just go ahead and get a cat for outdoors.  Feed it, give it a cat style home to live in and hope it sticks around - and does it's job.  But at this point, it's time to call in an exterminator.  We've caught probably 15 rats but it's never-ending. They breed quickly and their offspring love the couches and recliner and wherever they can find to nest.  Just before they damage wiring or whatever other damage rats can do, I'm calling in the professionals.  Yup, it's going to cost, yup I"m going to have to put it on a a credit card, but this is one of those things you just can't let ride forever.

Which brings me back to my job search. Tomorrow, a job interview at a place that I have now determined I really want to work at. On the road a lot? Yes.  Money? Yes.  Pay off bills? Yes.  The training is $21.00 per hour.  Far greater than anything I have ever seen anywhere else.  Common is $500 per week of training, which is ridiculous and unrealistic, but, if it's a good company otherwise, you eat it and deal with it. Not so here.  I dunno, but I have a lot of vacation hours that will help me float through several weeks of paylessness.  Depending on how long that takes to get paid out.

Whatever. If I get that job, I have no qualms paying with credit cards until I get some serious finances in. I hope not, but it's a possibility I am willing to deal with - and then pay all that junk back down.

Well, it's Sunday night.  A wonderful day of the same ole s*** tomorrow at work. Actually, it should be drive a vehicle to Monroe to get the semi, which should be fixed.  Unless they do, for some reason, send someone else.  I dunno, but if they send me, that eats up half the day.  I plaster a fake smile on my face at work and act all upbeat.  It's all acting on my part.  I'll not give them a reason to get rid of me, if such were the case, for "bad attitude". I keep much of my thoughts to myself. I have determined, however, that if necessary, I will take option two to go work for and though it's a "lessor" job in many ways, it's plenty more money than what I'm making now.  Just no real room for advancement.  I have always wanted to do tanker jobs and the second job is not a tanker job.

Posting this and on to a new one.

My situation:
I have a solid job offer of about $500 per week more than I am currently making. This job entails hauling paper rolls from Grenada, Mississippi to Lufkin, Texas.  It's a small, family owned company.  I can get home a couple of times per week from what I'm looking at on a map and intended time it takes to do a round trip.  It's 40 cents per mile, expected about 3,000 miles per week.  There is no guarantee of pay raise, but it's still a lot more than I'm currently making. I believe they said they don't do weekend work.

So, I'm home fairly often. Which is a good thing, but I don't get ahead on bills that fast.

The second job I am almost sure to take if it is offered to me.  I have passed the corporate headquarters background checks - which is a significant portion of getting hired on at any trucking company.  I was calling them when they called me yesterday, actually. I hadn't heard from them and I wanted to see where the process was. It was really strange that the urge hit me to call them and they were, in fact, calling me at that very point.  I don't necessarily call that a "sign", lol.  But who knows.

Anyway, this job pays .51 cents per mile, around 3,000 miles per week, work your way up to .56 per mile over time.  You don't really get much better pay as a company driver than that.  Especially considering you are pretty much looking at stable, constant work.  This is hauling nasty, dreadful chemicals that are used in products you use on a daily basis, but get exposed to them? You're pretty much instantly dead.  I've had a driving career devoid of any serious accidents and none of them my fault.  In such accidents and if I had been hauling a tanker, the tanker would never have been in danger of rupturing.

The con to this job is 3 days out at a time.  And when you get back, you get a day off - maybe- but if they have something urgent that needs to go out, you're back to back runs.  She named off many of the places the run to.  Some of them definitely a ways off, even up to Canada if you have a passport - yes I have a passport and yes I would gladly take one of those runs! - others as close as Houston, which is a day trip there and back, offloading the chemical included.

The chemicals are loaded onto the truck at Eastman - Kodak in Longview, Texas.  about 30 miles from here.  Loaded drive down, empty drive back, paid the same both ways.  The plus side to this job is the money, obviously.  At 3,000 miles per week, that's almost 80 grand per year.  Realistically probably in the low 70's.  Which is quite fine by me.  This pays off my credit card debt in short order.  6 to 8 months I could have most cards paid to zero balance.  I could get 5k back in my savings account and a could k back in my savings account, just as it was before this manager came along and decided to do away with my OT.  Oh, and I don't load or unload chemicals. That is all done by the plants you are delivering to. They have their own teams of people doing that. No objections.  Some of these chemicals are serious stuff.

I could see myself doing a job like this for a  year, maybe two and then asking for a transfer to the gas delivery division where I would just be doing local work.  Yes, I'd get sick of being on the road, but no, I wouldn't get sick of the money, the goal of getting out of debt or the idea of getting a newer vehicle and paying cash for it, or putting a hefty down payment on one and having low monthly payments.  The appeal to this job is that there is a way out: transfer out of it to a different division. Even if not, tanker experience will land me a job at a gas hauling company and home nightly scenario.

Any way about it, I'm going to have to make some sacrifices to get out of this s-hole I am working at now.  I'm beyond tired of it, I'm very much beyond these pathetic paychecks.  The other experienced driver is also looking for a new job and others in the organization are also looking to get out of there.
The only ones that are probably not looking to get out of there are the salesmen. They are making too much money to walk away from it.  How this manager gets away with the behavior he does without anyone of "importance" turning him in?  They want their jobs.  They don't care about this dude because the money over rules any objections.  You have to get to the more blue collar positions or semi white collar to get anywhere.

Anyway, I have an interview on Monday with this company I want to drive for.  I spoke with the lady on the phone for about 30 minutes.  Seemed like a good conversation, trying to make a good first impression.  I'm going to leave work early and get the 60 mile drive over there - my work is much farther away from there than where I live, and hope that I get the job. If not, I"m taking off on Wednesday for Mississippi for orientation, if not this coming week definitely the next.  The only factor that would change my mind is if another company finally called me that I have applied at offering a more appealing work schedule - meaning home more often.

I've pretty much come to accept that the way out of where I"m at is to spend some time on the road.  Driving a late model Peterbilt and sleeping in it will be ok.  I'll get used to that lifestyle again, I probably won't like it much, but I have to make a move and I'm getting too old to wait too much longer.  I want a good chunk of change in my 401k by the time I retire and that sure ain't happening where I"m at now.

And, along the lines of paying down credit card debit, I just applied for yet another credit card a little while ago. It was instantly approved and I went ahead and made an immediate request to transfer the credit line limit that they are giving me from my Capital One card to that one.  That was also approved. It's interest free for 18 months. That is the appeal.  Every dime I pay goes straight to principle.  It was only a $35 fee to do that so definitely worth it.  It will bring my monthly payment down on my Capital One card as well.  Credit Karma has actually helped me quite a bit in this endeavor.  The cards that they said I have a "good" approval chance for, I've been approved for.  This will also cause my credit score to go up yet again. It will take a hit at first and then it will go up because my percentage of credit usage will go down.

But, the late mortgage payments from before I did a refinance on my home loan are going to take a while to fall off and that is what is really affecting my credit score.

Fingerhut, however, is messing with my credit score and I am going to ask them to stop giving me "temporary" credit line increases. It helps my score initially, but then they take it away and that hits it.  I don't want their temporary increase. They are just trying to lure me to spend thousands of dollars with them and that isn't happening - ever. Not with Fingerhut. It helped me get my score out of the hole but now? I'm ready to dump them if they won't stop this temp crap.  I've had a balance with them in the past upwards of $800 bucks, it's down to $100 right now and I have no plans of buying anything from them.

Anyway, it's Saturday. I got my butt out of here, went over to Lowe's, got some small engine carb cleaner, some fresh 40:1 2 stroke gas, some weedeater line.  Pull the weedeater out of storage, sprayed the cleaner into the carb, let it sit in there a while, turned it up side down.  Drained the old fuel out of the tank over the fire pit then put fresh fuel in it, fired right up after the second try.  Got the front done - which was over running the curbs with grass.  I was very glad it fired up and worked.  I don't have to buy another weedeater.  I do need a blower, for I am tired of the trees endless dropping on to the ground and having to sweep it up. Other than good exercise, it's a waste of my time.  A bower would get the job done in a fraction of the time spent.

Anyway, I'm going to get out there and rake the yard - once again.  Sweep the concrete - maybe but probably tomorrow.

There are other things going on, but I don't feel like writing anymore right now.

I slept like crap last night. Woke up around 3 am and was never able to get back to sleep. Which made for a very long day at work today.  The only thing that really saved me is that I had a very long drive in the semi, of which I was thankful for.  The jobsite -in  a very small town you have never heard of out in the of the sticks - is this giant plant they are building to process stripped trees into particle board.  They are spending millions and millions of dollars on this place. Where are they going to get the help to run this place?  Apparently a lot of automation, but I'm telling you, if that town even has a 3,000 population I would be surprised.

I was there and hour and a half. So, by the time I got back to the yard, it was time to go home.  In fact, the manager had already sent the other drivers home and it was 4:30.  This is the state of affairs there and it's not going to change, at least not with this dude managing the place.  I was thinking about this all day long today on the verge of potentially starting over somewhere else. I will  miss the idea of having 200 vacation hours.  That's a tough one to swallow.

Anyway, they called today, wanting me to take a drug test.  They had to get a list of places from some company since they aren't locally based here.  Be kinda strange driving for a company in a "lane" that will never have me seeing any management.  I didn't say it would be bad, just different lol.  Well, they wanted me to us a urgent care place in town where I live, which I said fine.  However, when I got there, the place was filled with people in the waiting room.  I decided to go ahead and wait and get this over with.

So, I give them all the info they want. I'm there an hour waiting, I was so tired I nodded out in the chair.  I finally got called to a side window behind a closed door and am told that they don't do drug tests after 4:30.  Well, why didn't you tell me that when I came to the window? I've been here waiting for an hour.  I was trying to find the chain of command so I could switch it to me, but I can't find the chain of command. Fancy that, they can't even find the information that they input into their system.  I wasn't real happy, mostly because they had held me there that long for nothing. Well, sir, you can come back before 4:30 tomorrow.  No, ma'am, I'm at work, thanks.  And walked out.

Came home, wrote the dude at the company an email of what happened, leave it up to them to fix this.

The other thing that was put on me today was this idea of the home owner's friends moving a travel trailer over here and living here in that thing.  I dunno, I said to her, I'll have to ask everyone here what they think. Well, they don't care, come to find out, in face,the lady finds it an exceptional opportunity to cook for ever more people.  Okay, well, then she, my friend that owns the house, wanted me to name the price.  Huh?  Okaaaaaay.  Well, what's lot rent going in this area plus utilities?  We discussed this for quite a while and finally came up with a figure.  I said, but if you want to go lower, I have no problem with it.

Nope, she says, you are running the house, you are dealing with the bills and everything there. So, she texts them with my offer and the lady said sounds great.  But have to discuss it with the dude when she got home from work.  Well, I know these people.  I dunno what they would be like to live with but they are pretty cool to party with lol.

Enough. I'm bone tired. Going to bed 2 hours early tonight. If I wake up at 3 again, at least I'll have some sleep to bank on.

As always, weekends fly by and then you are faced with going to work again Monday morning. In this case, Tuesday morning since a 3 day weekend for the Holiday. Today, we are eating for dinner something called a Cowboy Steak. A huge Ribeye steak, over 2-1/2 pounds, the likes I have never seen before.  Had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast and probably not going to eat anything for the rest of the day so I can try and eat as much of that honker as possible.

Likely going outside and mowing lawns to work up a better appetite as well.  In fact I have no choice since the front lawn has grown several inches since I last mowed it.  I'm waiting for fall to get here so I can plant winter grass - rye - again.  It grows easily and looks beautiful.  The fact that I did that last winter, though, helped the St. Augustine's cover some bald areas on the lawn.  We determined that the lawn has grubs and soon, they should be coming out I believe, so that I can kill them suckers and move on with getting the front lawn looking nice.  The back lawn, however, a completely different story.  Almost impossible to get it looking nice with dogs trampling it all day long.  No clue what to do about that.  There is some grass, but their running areas are nothing but dirt.

Doesn't look too good.  Guess I'll do some research and see what the experts have to say about it.  But if they say get rid of the dogs, well, that's not a happening event.  At least the front lawn looks decent tho.  It's a huge expanse to mow with a push mower.  I got the push mower on purpose to get the exercise, but I've thought about that decision, lol, and possibly not the greatest.  2 weeks ago, I was huffing and puffing badly by the time I got done with the front and back lawns.  I mean, like, sit down for a half an hour and rest type of heat exhaustion.

Okay, well anyway.  I was talking with my friends that own the house.  She wants to do home schooling to become a medical encoder so she can work from home and help with the income. They are barely making it on his income.  She said because of her low income it would only cost her $50 per month.  But, they can't even afford that.  So, I offered to pay for it if I get this new job, it would put her on the fast track to making some decent money and getting them out of Georgia.  You know I can't take that from you Ben.  Well, actually yes you can.  You can pay me back later.  Of course, I have to get one of these jobs first.  I'm very hopeful, but not counting my chickens before they hatch scenario.  I can say I have it when - I actually have it.

But, the trucking industry has seen revival and now the shortages of qualified drivers are starting to show.  There are a dozen truck driver training schools in the 100 mile radius of where I live, one of them a mile away, and they are full of students.  I guess that's a good sign, but honestly?  At some point, they are going to come up with these driverless trucks and then what?  That may be years down the road, but I do believe it is coming at some point.  Hence one of the reasons I have been considering attempting to learn a trade.  Just don't have the money for the schooling at the moment.  Not to mention I would like to get out of trucking.  I'm tired of it.  I suppose alot of that has to do with my current job, perhaps a new job without the bs overlord management I am currently experiencing might help me revive my love for driving.  Dunno.  The real reason I'm switching is money, tho.  If this jerkoff would give me a good wage, i would stay there and put up with his bs.

The shit should hit the fan this week as the requests for background history hits corporate - I have been giving prospective employers corporate number since they don't have managers giving out recommendations or lack there of any more - for obvious reason.  Which I don't care, but once that starts again, I really need a job to get out of there because I doubt things are going to go well for me when he finds out.

Meanwhile, I have also started considering another venture.  Previous ventures haven't gone too far, but that won't stop me from trying again.  This time, modeling after a person in Phoenix that has a side business where she goes to yard sales and buys mostly clothing and resells the stuff on Ebay.  I know how she is doing this since my tenants are the ones helping her.  She pays them a wage to deal with the clothing including washing and drying it, hanging it up to take pics and then packaging it for shipping. This is nothing I would want to do on my own, but the lady living here is definitely not getting much income from the government, she has a disability and yes it's a real disability, but she could certainly do this to not only earn some money but also to refocus her on something other than just living in this house.

I haven't brought up the proposition to her yet since I am not in the place to do anything like that.  Not until/if/when I start getting much bigger paychecks.  I have credit card debt I want to pay down as well.  That trip to California was not cheap.  Not by my perspective of it anyway. Airfare round trip, driving to the airport, paying for parking, Uber trips in California, the hotel?  Around $1,500 put on the credit card. I could have brought some of the expenses down but mom was there and I didn't want to have her go it alone. She had decided on this particular hotel that was more expensive than others I had found in the area, but instead of arguing about it, I just went ahead and booked a room there too.  It was a nice room and a nice stay, not going to complain about that, at all, but now I have to pay for it.  Not something I would ordinarily have done - put a trip like that on a credit card - but if I wanted to be a part of my son's wedding? I had no choice.

The funny thing that has happened is Capitalone decided to increase my line of credit another 3 grand.  That brought the percentage of use down and increased my credit score by 10 points the next month.  I still have a lot of credit available on that particular card, but I'm in favor of living within whatever income I take in.  Credit cards are for emergencies and even then I hate to use them, but in this case, I am glad I have them.  I was looking over my credit score today, the 35 past due house payments - yep that's how bad it got - are still affecting my score and probably will for a couple of years I suppose.  I think after a year my score will go up if I make the payments on time, but for the full effect of it to wear off will likely be much longer than that.

Anyway, the idea of an Ebay store is lurking in the back of my mind if I can get help to do it.  I'm not going to work a full time job and then come home and bear the brunt of the responsibility for it.

As for my son, he sounds like he's doing well.  He has going through some trials and tribulations already in his new marriage, tho not with his wife. Just the ardors of trying to acquire furniture and get an apartment set up into livable condition.   I probably wouldn't have moved into such a pricey place as what he has done, but, I'm not living his life and I said nothing to him about it excepting one small comment before he did anything that the place he was referring to was higher end apartments.  Who am I to question how he spends his money? I'm not.  Just dear ole' dad.  I am going to preach the message of starting to save for retirement though.  Even 2% to start out with is better than nothing.

Speaking of retirement, my 401k account is up 11.56 percent over the last 9 months. That is quite good.  I'm hovering around 50k right now, not so great.  Nothing I can do but keep pressing on and putting as much aside for retirement as I can.  It's taken forever to get it back up to any amount since I got divorced in 2005.  Yes that's a long time ago but I started 401k at zero at that point.  Considering my income I am not going to beat myself up too badly.  I am going to beat myself up, however, for waiting this long to get the heck out of that current place and go find greener pastures.  Excepting my mortgage, I would like to get completely out of debt.  I also desperately need a newer vehicle. Note i said newer, not new.  I'm very much against going into debt on a car, but at some point, I'm going to have to do something. I have the Jeep as a backup right now since it's actually working, but that is older as well.  My car is year model 2004.  I've been driving it for around 9 years now.  I'm quite tired of the thing considering the interior is falling apart.  I don't need a new car, but I do want a newer model vehicle, preferably a pickup.

There's a lot I could do with substantially increased income is all I can say.  It would be a while before I could take a vacation, I've come to terms with that.  That is the reason I kept hanging on at my current place.  If I had stayed until January of next year, my vacation hours would go up another 40 per year to 200. It's the reason I don't want to burn my bridges there. Perhaps after these other people leave, upper management will get a clue - yes he's running the business well but he's treating the people like piles of dog crap.  The business won't run without people to run it.......  They count drivers as expendables, even if we've been there forever.  They simply don't care.  Losing the people that write up the bids, tickets and do all the computer work? Completely different story.   Anyway, I'm going to try and leave on good terms without taking jabs at the end, just say thank you for having me there, if you ever decide you want to up my pay, please give me a call, I would definitely considering coming back.

I also never leave out the possibility of moving back to Phoenix.  Don't want to, at all, but if it happened, I'm at high confidence level that my old GM would hire me if there is a position available.

Well, it's late morning. I guess I best get mowing attire on and go out and get this lawn mowing junk over with.

Well. I'm 233 miles north of Houston, so there is a bit of unnerving going on around here.  People have relatives, family and friends that live down there.  We are hearing reports of getting 7 to 9 inches of rain, starting tomorrow.  Though that's a lot, it's nothing like what Houston has been getting. I spoke with a contractor on Friday - just before all this hell was unleashed - telling me about his wife and son that live down there.  I was like, what what are you doing here?  Aren't you going to go get them?
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Started that 2 days ago, got distracted.

I have other things to talk about now, well the hurricane is still relevant.  I saw probably 100 airboats on the Interstate today, 5 marsh monsters and a LOT of vehicles with "vehicle disaster" or other verbiage on the side of their trucks and trailers.  I mean, it was incredible.

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Ugh, I get started on a post and get distracted.  Anyway, hot on the trail of 3 jobs, all very excellent pay. Those lowest one is a 20 grand per year increase in pay.  All of this is hazmat related, of which I went and got that endorsement not too terribly long ago for this specific purpose: find a new job.  When I saw my checking account yesterday and the level it was at, it only motivated me even more to get the heck out of the place I am at now and get myself into a place that pays much more and doesn't, hopefully, have an abusive manager.

I am torn between 3 jobs.  Not that I have specific offers from any of them - they are all doing their federally required background checks.  They all sound good, one of the stands out because it's a national company, but, that doesn't necessarily mean they are the best.  Another is a family owned company with newer equipment and they claim they treat every employee like family.  Excellent pay at that place, btw and home most every night and weekends off.  So that is a huge plus.  The other lus - Keenan Advantage Group - is a huge company with 11 different "sub companies" I guess I would call it.  They have OTR, regional and local work. I applied there at least a year ago, probably longer, but the local jobs aren't available.

What I was told they do have, however, is a regional position based out of a town about 25 miles from here that has you out for 3 night and home 1.  It is also excellent pay.  The other is out a few days at a time. I'm leaning towards the family company simply because the owner of the company called me, the recruiter has been in constant contact with me either by phone or email.  I sent them the 15 page application today via fax.  Yup, 15 pages.  This is the state of affairs today with federal regulations in the trucking industry.  Even more new stuff they are required to ask for had been added since the last time I went through all of this applying at numerous places.

Oh, Keenan called and I did sent them what they needed but haven't heard from them in several days. Not that that means they aren't interested, large companies deal with potential employees differently, well accustomed to that.  Definitely not a deal breaker, but it would be nice to hear from them. I called them yesterday, got on the train of do this and that to speak to who you want to and then, when the person finally answered, the call was dropped.  I didn't call back again, just have too much going on, but I'm definitely excited about the prospect of earning pay that will put me into a position of doing the things I want to do.  I would really like to help out my son in his first year of marriage with things that they need.  My dad did that with me and I would like to carry that tradition on.

I'm really thinking though that this family oriented place is going to hire me, or offer a job position anyway, if all the background stuff is to their liking. Which I don't see any reason why it wouldn't, but you never know.  I don't count my chickens before the egg hatches, it isn't real until I'm there, working for them - or whoever.  I also got a call from a person today wanting me to come for an interview for "heavy haul".  He was very limited on the background of the company, wanted me to come in for an interview instead of talking about it on the phone.

Oh, the other was Baker Hughes. Another large company. I had a call from someone there yesterday. Hilarious, the lady was funny as heck. We hit it right off. Whether that actually amounts to anything or not, who knows.  I'm not ruling much of anything out.  I want out of the place I am at so badly that much of any decent pay offer and getting me home every day or every few days will work for me.

So, this is all on hold til' next week since it's a holiday weekend.  My "excuses", however, are done.  My 2 trips dad related and my trip to California for my son's wedding are done.  The situation with hours at work has only gotten worse and not going to change. One of the inside salesmen is definitely leaving. The other is mum, but the one that is leaving says he is moving on as well.  One of those screw this company moments in time where I hope the aftermath is enough for corporate to take notice.

And then, we have the situation in Houston.  We got some rain from it, but it didn't hit us near as bad as the weather forecasters had first predicted.  In fact, it was just a bit of rain like any other rain.  But the tragedy going on down there is unreal.  So sad the situation down there.

Well, a new job is really the focus of my life right now, that and a new church.

Warning. This is a bit of language in this post.  Sorry, but not really.  I've had enough of a certain situation that has been irking me for a long time now.

So, I was told on Friday that "I don't believe in asking for raises".  I was also told that I need to do something to make myself stand out to even think about getting one.  Well, darn, I bust my ass every day, I whatever they ask without complaining. I show up to work early.  I take the initiative to do things that aren't asked of me.

This dude had a conversation with the GM who apparently okay'ed a pay raise, but then my manager decided he was going to hold it up and informed me that "we're paying a decent wage'. The HELL you are.  It's about $2.50 per hour lower than much of anything else in the area and even more for certain types of work.

So, I have put in a LOT of applications this weekend.  I had to call on potential employer and tell him I can't take the job.  Not because I don't want to, but because I made a promise to the home owners to take care of this place while they are gone and I can't do that if I'm gone 30 days at a time.  The real plus to this job was 4 or 5 months of being home, not working at all.  Getting paid the same wage as when I'm not out there. I mean seriously.  Sure, you pay the price being out so long, but 4 or 5 months off?  Getting paid?  Paid hotel every night? No double bunking?  $49 per day per diem on top of base pay?  Seriously, I could deal with that.  I would just miss my Dane incredibly, though. That would be a major draw back.

So, that job isn't exactly gone, he asked me to please call him if the situation ever changes. I said yes, when the homeowners move back here.  But that could be a long time from now.  My challenge has been to find local jobs that pay what I want and hopefully no night driving junk.  Or if it is night driving, it's not driving the entire time.  If I have a position where I"m in an out of the truck, I could probably deal with a night job much better. Still, it messes with your sleep cycle and I already have enough issues with that.

I spent 6 hours filling out apps yesterday, going to see if I can find anything else available after getting done with this post.  I'm coming down off of a month and a half of a lot of traveling.  Some of it was a high, some of it was pretty sad, but I can't say I didn't like the traveling.  Went into debt for the wedding trip though.  I need to find a job where I can get my bank savings account back up, my checking account way back up and not be near zeroes, which is a very recent thing, like in the last few weeks. Now, I am crunching numbers.  Writing down the entire budget. I'm half way done with that. Expenditures versus income.  I haven't done that in quite a while because I haven't had to. Bills got paid, 401k getting it's share, savings account getting it's share and still money left over to play, do whatever I want.

The real solution is to just get out of his hell hole I am in with this abusive manager and get out of there.  I'm done with it.  Benefits be damned, working for an @$$hole isn't worth it. I've gone well out of my way and beyond much of anything I would normally do to simply accommodate for this dude, but I've had enough. After that meeting, where before he said he was going to go to bat for me to get a raise, to now, changing his whole tune? SCREW that shit.  Sorry for that language.  Not good excuse, I've just allowed myself to be walked all over and used as a doormat.  Any reasonable offer I get to get out of there, if that occurs, and keeps me local, I'm taking. If that doesn't work, I'll talk to the homeowners about talking a regional job where I'm home on weekends.  That still has me home enough to deal with stuff if anything arises.

I can definitely get a regional job, pretty sure anywhere. There are LOTS of them out there. The only ones I would consider is home weekends, every weekend.  I'm holding out for now for I have put in a large number of applications and there are more I can apply for.  I have been trying to find the fracking industry stuff, but everything I have found so far is out a week at a time at the least, most of them want you out for 21 days minimum.  Just not interested in that, at all.

This is my entire focus right now, find a new job.  I said before that I was waiting until after Caleb's wedding. What an awesome time that was! One for the memory books.  It was one of the best times I have ever had, anywhere, really.  It was so cool seeing old friends and meeting some of Caleb's friends that I have seen and occasionally commented with on Facebook.  I mean, if that could be done all over, I would be all for it!  But those are once in a lifetime type of events, that one just happened to click perfectly at every turn. So fun! Even mom was having a blast. For 80 something plus years old, she did damn well in stamina and enjoying the moment. Really, I was so happy. I am also glad my brothers did not show up. That would have been hell.

My middle brother got into it with mom on Mother's day - 3-1/2 months ago, hasn't spoken to her since.  How do you dis/shit on your own mother on Mother's Day?  I despise him now.  It was bad enough the crap he pulled on me, or writing off dad to the point he hadn't spoken to him in a decade and a half, but mom? Mom is cool, she doesn't start shit, she takes a neutral position on everything, she tried to maintain the peace, but my middle brother is an asshole, there is no other way to put it.  He is pure, unadulterated asshole.  Jerkoff to the nth degree.  Stuck up little - person to put it nicely.  Arrogant, egotistical, thinks he's the cat's meow. He's an idiot. A moron of the worst kind.

He has isolated himself and he can live with it.

I started going back to church a month ago. I had stopped going because the church I was going to was just plain too far away.  This one is 5 minutes away, the preaching is totally in alignment with what my views of the Bible are, the people are nice and friendly, the worship service is good.  I know, I don't much sound like a person going to church after the language above, I offer no apologies.  I have my breaking points and that is one of them. The bible teaches us to respect out father and mother. My middle brother does none of that.

Well, anyway, I am hopeful to hear back from one - or hopefully several - of these companies this coming week.  I won't be let down if they don't. I'll keep punching out applications at a fervent pace until something connects.  I am very determined.  I'll switch to regional search if I have to, but I am getting the bleep out of the place I am at now.  I refuse to work for a person that treats his employees the way he does. 2 drivers, 2 inside salesmen and me looking for a new job.  Does that say anything?  It's not just me. Plus the dude that left a few months ago.

So what else is there? Umm, full work week coming up. Tho this week was too. I've just had a lot of time off lately.  Next weekend will be a 3 day weekend for Labor Day.  I'll take that.

Anyway, posting this one before I get distracted and don't post it for a week lol.

Well, here we are, home.
Not really the biggest downer ever.  Just the s*** that occurred when I came back here in the house.  I notice now that entry as a draft, maybe I will post it - maybe not worth it.

That was a situation that occurred in the house here and is an entire entry in itself.
The real thing of interest for me was coming back to work and seeing the manager coming down on all kinds of people at different levels getting reamed. Yes, about petty stuff. Please.  I steered clear of it, though I heard a lot of it.  In other words, yes, I was there, and yes, I said nothing. I was no part of it, yet it was astounding to see this man riding people that give their all to doing whatever he says to do.

Humans make mistakes, he has no grace or mercy for that.  It's perfection, perfection, perfection.  He proclaimed that "we are on the top now", comparing us to other stores in the region. Yes, we may very well be, but at what cost to the human experience?  To living a life of peace, including at the workplace? He's threatened to get rid of certain people if they don't step up their game. Maybe that is warranted, but he's also riding people that strive for excellence.  I saw an inside salesman come into the showroom the other day and instantly knew by the look on his face.  I asked him if everything was ok? He put his hand up to the top of his forehead and gestured.  In other words, the shit has gotten deep, he's getting fed up.

The other inside salesman is looking for a new job.  They both might be, in reality, I dunno about the other dude, I haven't asked him and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't tell me if he was. It would come back on him if the manager found out. The outside salesman have it too good there, they are making too much money. The manager isn't really over them, in fact he isn't their manager at all, but he can and does make life hell for them .

But, this coming in to work two days in a row and walking in on this stuff was astounding the. Day 2 was worse, actually. He was riding 3 people.  The 2 inside salesmen and the warehouse "manager".  The warehouse manager was in a foul mood for the rest of the day after that. I didn't ask what the manager was chewing them out for, I heard some of it, I've heard it over and over.  Just getting shitty over minor things that he should be able to talk to people about without acting like a total ass.

The warehouse manager is close to retirement.  The 2 inside salesmen have a lot of years left in front of them.  If I were in my 20's or even 30's, I would be going back to school, learning something that is for the modern world - namely automation - and getting degrees in relevant fields.  My desire to go back to school has always been stifled by the exorbitant amount of money they want to go.  I would love to learn something different and get into a completely different line of work.  But, education is the key nowadays.  Oh well. My only concern with my field is how long will I be able to pass the medical exam?  Or even, will the field become automated in itself?  They are talking about driverless cars and trucks, it's coming sooner or later.

Well going to post  this one even though unfinished. Appears I haven't posted in a while lol.