Monday - evening
Sitting in my hotel room, Hampton Inn, somewhere in Arkansas. Today was a long day. It wasn't going to be but I was asked to do something once I got the truck up here, got into the shop and was about to go sit in the driver's lounge for most of the day and play games and get on the laptop.
I popped my head into the office, said hello and then I was thrown the question that obviously they don't expect anyone to say no to: Will you do me a huge favor? My thoughts went directly towards them dumping me into some other truck and heading down to Lufkin to load, a long drive and something I definitely didn't want to do. It turned out to be something like that, excepting it was to take a truck from the yard, cruise over to Crossett, load and bring it back to the yard. Some other driver would take to somewhere in New Jersey.
The truck I was put in was infinitely nicer than the pile of junk I have been driving. It was explained that it was a lease purchase truck, the OO turned it in and moved on. In other words, no you can't have it, we'll keep you and the other drivers on our detail in junky equipment that breaks down often. Whatever. All I knew was? My truck would be completely fixed today, no ifs and or buts and if it goes into tomorrow, so beit, ya'll can get me a hotel.
I'm at the plant, pull up to the loading bay and sit there and wait before entering it so that one of the workers can guide me in. They're supposed to be spotters and watch for things. Things like smoke stacks being too tall to fit under the canopy. Yup. I was pulling in, slowly, and bam, kaplaaaam! BANG and I knew instantly that the stacks had hit the canopy. It didn't damage their canopy at all, the stacks his I- beams, solid, heavy metal. I spent hours there today, is how I'll just end that. I eventually got out of there after one of our mechanics came and hit the things with a sledgehammer lmao.
I got contacted later that yes the truck is done, but we are putting you up in a hotel tonight. I wouldn't have made it home with the hours I had available. And, they had more favors. Can you stay tomorrow and go load again at Crossett? Gag me with a spoon, I reluctantly agreed. The lady of the house was none to happy to hear I wasn't coming home, she doesn't feel particularly safe there alone at night. But, there is a giant dog that is very protective and there are plenty of firearms that she knows how to use.
Anyway, I get into the hotel room after going to Brookshire's for deli dinner and find that the thermostat isn't working, the battery is low. I was not happy, getting grumpy in fact, I'm very tired. I want to go to sleep early tonight and try to get a decent night's sleep. `I went back down, they wanted to call maintenance in. Ok, fine. The problem? Maintenance is on call, not at the property. I was getting a little unhappy but I bit my tongue. At the end of all of that nonsense, I was given another room. "Did you want to relax a little or are you ok waiting?". I want to relax, I have literally been going all day long.
Sunday, the kids with dad left for Arkansas and I decided to skip church. Just didn't feel like going after 10 straight days of working. I'll do this load tomorrow, which hopefully won't take more than 5 hours, go home and then I have Wednesday off, working Thursday and Friday, have the weekend off.
I'd go into more and I will edit this post if I feel like it later, but for now? This is enough.