Well, after staring down the home time dilemma, I blinked. After making my delivery this morning, I was talking with one of my colleagues who was unloaded right ahead of me. She asked if I had received a pre-plan. No, I hadn't. Neither had she. Then I mentioned that I was in limbo regarding whether or not I should request time off today or try to grab another load first. Then she asked if I had listened to the latest recorded message from our CEO. Truth be told, I almost never listen to those messages. They've always seemed like a bunch of empty sloganeering and rah rah nonsense to me, but apparently sometimes they contain important news. (I also appear to have missed one explaining the 401(k) situation.) My coworker told me that they have changed the home time policy. So I called and listened.
It used to be that, if you weren't headed home with a load within five days of sending the request, you would get a paid deadhead on day six. Now the 5/6 has been changed to 7/8. As a convoluted and meaningless tradeoff, we now get to request home time after being out for 7 days instead of 10. Oh joy. The thing that sucks about it isn't that they can take up to a week. It's that they're still going to try to get us home as soon as possible. Sometimes that means one day, sometimes it means seven. I wouldn't give a damn if they took a week to get me home every time, as long as I knew that they would take at least four days. Having to account for such a wide window and being so close to home pretty much sucks balls.
So I got on the board at #5. I was thinking that I would just roll the dice and see what happened. Then after a while I had only moved up to #4. I blinked. Missing Wednesday's festivities would be one thing, but missing next weekend's football and tailgating is non-negotiable. I sent in my request and accepted that I just might have to eat a few extra non-earning days as part of the deal. I'm feeling pretty burned out anyway. Whatever dude.
And the morning became the afternoon. And I was still #4. And my Tigers lost their third game out of four against the Jays. And I was still #4. And my pool entry in the Masters is in pretty decent shape after the first day. And I was still #4. Somewhere during the day people started leaving. We had all parked in the lot of a vacant warehouse across from the consignee after getting unloaded this morning. One after another, the three trucks remaining ahead of me were gone. I was up to #1 on the board, requested home. And here I sit, #1 on the board and requested home. Bummer.
I found a gas station with a SubWay right down the street, so at least I got a delicious Italian BMT with double meat to keep me going. As far as we know, I never saw the sign that said no semi trucks were allowed in their parking lot. Maybe tomorrow will bring some good news on the driving front. We'll see.
With lots of time to kill, I think I did manage to stumble across a video that explains the female gender in four short minutes. Now I understand completely... or something.
It used to be that, if you weren't headed home with a load within five days of sending the request, you would get a paid deadhead on day six. Now the 5/6 has been changed to 7/8. As a convoluted and meaningless tradeoff, we now get to request home time after being out for 7 days instead of 10. Oh joy. The thing that sucks about it isn't that they can take up to a week. It's that they're still going to try to get us home as soon as possible. Sometimes that means one day, sometimes it means seven. I wouldn't give a damn if they took a week to get me home every time, as long as I knew that they would take at least four days. Having to account for such a wide window and being so close to home pretty much sucks balls.
So I got on the board at #5. I was thinking that I would just roll the dice and see what happened. Then after a while I had only moved up to #4. I blinked. Missing Wednesday's festivities would be one thing, but missing next weekend's football and tailgating is non-negotiable. I sent in my request and accepted that I just might have to eat a few extra non-earning days as part of the deal. I'm feeling pretty burned out anyway. Whatever dude.
And the morning became the afternoon. And I was still #4. And my Tigers lost their third game out of four against the Jays. And I was still #4. And my pool entry in the Masters is in pretty decent shape after the first day. And I was still #4. Somewhere during the day people started leaving. We had all parked in the lot of a vacant warehouse across from the consignee after getting unloaded this morning. One after another, the three trucks remaining ahead of me were gone. I was up to #1 on the board, requested home. And here I sit, #1 on the board and requested home. Bummer.
I found a gas station with a SubWay right down the street, so at least I got a delicious Italian BMT with double meat to keep me going. As far as we know, I never saw the sign that said no semi trucks were allowed in their parking lot. Maybe tomorrow will bring some good news on the driving front. We'll see.
With lots of time to kill, I think I did manage to stumble across a video that explains the female gender in four short minutes. Now I understand completely... or something.
Ouch! So that's where my 1st wife moved to.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that any of them have ever cost me £50,000, but I could make a case that the chick in that clip has an element of every woman that I've ever known. Some more than others, but you know...
ReplyDelete