7/2/08

Well, I think I managed to sleep for a few hours last night, so I guess that's a start. I still don't see why we can't have a few beers before bedtime out here. If I'm shut down and the law says that I can't move for ten hours, who in the hell would I be hurting? I would sleep a lot better at night. I can tell you that much.

The morning's drive was pretty ho-hum. After crossing western Wisconsin for the third time in as many days, I suddenly feel the urge to eat curds of cheese as I stay at a gigantic lodge with an indoor water park, or something like that. Illinois was good and shitty for a while until I broke free of the construction, but overall not too terrible.

It got to be somewhere around 5pm as I approached Bloomington when the planner people chalked up another victory. Three trips since I left home and three pre-plans. This one was especially useful, since I'll be empty in the morning and there really doesn't appear to be a place to park near my customer. Now that I know where I'll be picking up next, I can head straight there once I get unloaded. Beauty. I have to cruise up to the southwestern suburbs of Chicago and grab a load headed for Texas. That will knock this week over 3,000 miles, plus holiday pay. So yeah, pretty decent week.

The only bad thing that the holiday appears to have done is kick back my delivery date in Texas to Tuesday morning. That means I'll have tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to cover something around 1,250 miles (including the deadhead). I guess I'll have some layover pay coming, but that's a pretty slow weekend in any case. The load looks like the type that would have been delivered on Monday, but whenever businesses close for a day they tend to get behind for a while. I don't know. Whatever. I'll be empty on Tuesday morning, so next week shouldn't be hurt too badly.

I called my bank this morning, expecting my safety bonus for the second quarter to have posted within the last couple of days. Nope. Just one more thing that CFI did better than ConWay I guess. It seems that anything involving money going from them to me takes longer than it used to. For example, the bonus period in question ended on May 31st. It used to be that the money would hit my bank account on the 28th of the following month (June in this case). Then, for the first period this year, it was the 30th of the following month (March in that case). Now it's July 2nd and the money is still not in my account.

So I guess this is how I would summarize things under the ConWay umbrella... Base pay - always right, always on time. Reimbursements - timing may vary, but usually pretty reasonable. Stop off pay - occasionally requires a reminder message, but usually paid immediately. UPS pay - no, they aren't able to handle that one at all. Detention - maybe, if you're lucky. Layover - sooner or later, but keep track and send a few reminders just in case. (And now) Safety bonus - I guess they'll get to it eventually.

Anyway, I have something like thirty miles to run before 4am local time, then it's off to pick up the Texas load. Depending on how much sleep I get tonight, tomorrow may or may not involve much driving after that.

UPDATE: I have to edit to add that I'm a dummy, as if we didn't already know that. Apparently my safety bonus was added into last week's paycheck. Amid all of the festivities at home, I never bothered to check my stub on the ConWay website. Safety bonuses had always been a seperate pay event, but not this time. So ignore that part about the safety bonus being late. Okay then, as you were...