7/16/10

I guess we have some catching up to do.  I haven't been saying much about the goings on here in Michigan.  I believe that, at last check, I was at home enjoying a lengthy vacation before heading back out for a long hot summer on the road.  There is plenty more to the story.

Nutshell version: Adios Con-way, hola Quickway.  (Setting all other factors aside, 'con' is bad and 'quick' is good, right?)

Extended version:

Shortly before I headed home at the end of June, I saw a job listing that piqued my interest.  It said that the drivers who worked at the Quickway terminal in Livonia earned $900-$1,300 per week, on average, with two days off.  Better than a kick in the balls, as we're prone to say.  Since my earnings at CTL were in a similar range, but I tended to work every day for weeks on end, it seemed that I ought to at least see if there was a discussion to be had.  Certainly not a slam dunk deal, since the flip side of the Con-way gig was that I was free to take time off for weeks on end whenever I felt like it.  And I also never knew what sort of experience tomorrow might bring, which was kinda cool.  I clicked the link on the Quickway job posting though.  It never hurts to find out.

Just before I got to Nogales, I got a call from the terminal manager for Quickway in Livonia.  He asked if I had ever filled out a paper application with them.  I had not.  He asked if I had ever been to the terminal.  I had not.  He asked how much I knew about the company.  Just what was in the job listing.  So I was invited to stop by and chat, then fill out a paper application if I thought the job might be good for me.  I told him that I wouldn't be home for a little while yet, but that I would be glad to stop by when I had the chance.

One day, while I was bored and had nothing better to do, I visited the terminal in Livonia.  After talking with the terminal manager and observing the activity around the office for a while, I was fairly impressed.  So I filled out an application.  No harm in doing that, right?  Might as well see if the company was inclined to make an offer.  I was always free to turn them down if I decided that the randomness of the open road would suit me better.

A subsequent conversation left me with a better understanding of what the job at Quickway would entail.  The drivers show up for work and pick up a truck.  Then they head over to a local dairy to retrieve a pre-loaded trailer full of milk.  The milk is delivered to Kroger stores in and around Michigan.  Each run has 1-5 stops (generally 2-3).  The driver unloads pallets of milk using an electric pallet jack, then loads pallets of empty milk cartons back into the trailer.  After the deliveries have been made, the trailer full of empty milk cartons is returned to the dairy.  Sometimes this is the end of the day and sometimes there's a second run. 

The benefits are quite a lot more generous than those at CTL, which is a factor when you're approaching your 34th birthday and not getting any younger.  And the nature of the freight (dairy) should do well enough during what I expect to be a wicked economic climate over the next year or two.  And the daily home time would allow me to get back in the gym on a regular basis and take better care of myself.  Those weight lifting sessions on urine-soaked truck stop parking lots can get a guy only so far.  Those were all very real factors to consider, but you know me better than that.  I tend to follow my instincts.  Since nobody relies on me for anything and I owe nothing to anybody, I have the luxury of being able to guess wrongly about various things and still come out okay in the end.  My instincts would be the overriding factor in whether or not I chose to make a move.

Around this time, I went up north to my parents' place and celebrated the holiday weekend.  Something else worth noting took place that weekend.  (No, I'm not talking about that fireworks display.)  I passed my four-year anniversary with CFI/CTL on Saturday, July 3rd.  With another anniversary comes another two weeks' worth of vacation pay.  Given the uncertainty concerning my job status (I was leaning about 60/40 toward Quickway at the time), I wanted to hurry up and collect my cash.  There was nobody in the payroll office on the following Monday though, and by Tuesday it was too late to catch the July 9th paycheck.  I would have to get paid on July 16th instead.

The next phase took place when I was asked to do a road test for Quickway.  Quite frankly, I assumed that I would fail it and the whole courtship would come to an end.  I can take my truck from Point A to Point B without issue, safely and efficiently.  I have no doubts about that.  When you flip the gear pattern upside down though, and put the mirrors in weird places, and make the truck handle differently, and put a window on the back of the cab (seeing that trailer over your shoulder as you make a turn will freak you out if you're not expecting it), and then, all the while, require me to do all of the shit that the handbooks say you're supposed to do, it gets a little more tricky.  I've always had to downshift when climbing mountains, for instance.  No worries.  I used the split gears on my 13-speed, shifted quickly, and continued on my way.  Approaching a red light though?  With a 10-speed?  Get the hell out of here.  Coasting time, baby.  I'll grab a gear when the time is right.

Alas, I passed my 40-mile road test (and the subsequent drug test).  Time to do some more serious thinking.  As I weighed the pros and cons, I would say that I was about 70/30 in favor of Quickway.  That whole 'boredom' aspect was still hanging over me though.  Could I really do the same thing over and over every day?  Wasn't that why I went on the road in the first place - for the change of scenery?  I was still on vacation for another couple of weeks, so I had some time to think it through.

The issue of timing also came into play.  I was due back at CTL on July 14th.  My vacation pay was set to arrive on July 16th.  The rapid escalation of the Quickway scenario was taking place during the first week of July.  On this blog, I've already noted the handful of times that the chuckleheads at CTL have screwed me out of a nickel here and a dime there. So I had my doubts regarding either their competence or their integrity, long before this whole escapade unfolded. Then what happens if I have $2,000 coming and I decide to turn in my keys?  My general conclusion was that I would likely have to walk away from my vacation pay if I took the new job.  It didn't seem likely to me that the CTL people would treat the money as something that I had earned, even if I were no longer in their employ.  The long-term picture was the one that mattered, so I would just have to take my medicine as part of the deal.

My next phone call from Quickway raised the stakes.  The people at Con-way were refusing to verify whether or not I had worked there for the past four years.  Since D.O.T. regulations require any new employer to know what I've been doing for the last ten years, this was a problem.  According to the Quickway recruiting gal, the conversations went something like this...

QW: Uh, hey, does this guy work there?
CTL: Dunno man, I'll get back to you.
QW: Uh, hey, you never got back to me yesterday.  How about that verification?
CTL: I said I'll get back to you.
QW: Another day older and... seriously, does he work there or not?
CTL: Get off my nuts.  I have thirty days to answer your request.

Thirty days, consequently, would be long enough to torpedo my chances of being offered the job.  So that's how it's gonna be, eh?  Guess how we react to this sort of shenanigans here at Fenian Godfather Inc.

That's how.  I went from leaning 70% toward accepting the new job if it was offered to being 100% dedicated to getting the new job.  My instincts told me - Fuck you, Con-way.  Two can play this game.  Now I was determined to get both the new job and the vacation pay.  I had worked the full year to earn the money, so I was entitled to it, but my trust in the CTL people had gone from minimal to less than zero.  I had no reason to believe that they would say, "Oh, you're quitting?  Well hey, enjoy that two grand, mmmkay."

First things first - get the job offer.  For one reason or another, I've kept every pay stub since I started at CFI.  Between that 4" stack of paper and my W-2 forms for the past four years, I was able to satisfy the concerns of the corporate people at Quickway.  (The next day I got a "thank you" postcard from the CEO of Con-way Truckload, in appreciation of my four years. Funny.)

Then all that was left was to get through the hiring process and figure out how to deal with the CTL side of things.  Normally a good swift 'kiss my ass' phone call would have been in order, but there was the issue of two weeks' pay hanging out there.  I've heard anecdotal tales of people having a less than pleasant experience leaving that company and I've also heard from people who left on good terms and everything went smoothly.  I had no idea what to expect in my case, but I was certain of one thing - I didn't trust them.  Based on the things that I mentioned earlier in this post, I had no reason to think that I would get my money if I did the right thing and told them that I was leaving.  So I decided to maintain radio silence.  As long as nobody knew anything, nobody would cancel my paycheck.

Obviously it has been established already that I got the job offer at Quickway.  My orientation was last Saturday, during which I stared at a computer screen and watched videos for six hours.  I went out with another driver on a training run on Sunday, then another on Monday.  On Tuesday, I got my keys and went to work.  Quickway indeed.  My one run on Tuesday was a tough one for me.  I'm not too handy with a pallet jack just yet, so the stops tend to take me over an hour.  Most of the guys knock them out in 30-45 minutes.  Part of the learning curve, I suppose.  On Wednesday I made a run to a dairy in Grand Rapids.  I dropped a loaded trailer out there and grabbed a trailer full of empty crates, then returned to Livonia.  Thursday brought two store runs, with three stops on the first and one on the second.  I was still slow, but there were signs of improvement to be sure.

I was scheduled to go on the board at CTL on Wednesday morning.  Instead I stayed in bed.  I got home from work in the middle of the night and turned off the ringer on my phone, so luckily I didn't have to hear either of the two calls from Joplin.  No-call, no-show.  It wasn't exactly a classy move on my part, but I sure as hell ain't apologizing.  Two thousand bucks is two thousand bucks, and they laid down the gauntlet with that employment verification business.  Screw 'em.  I awoke on Thursday afternoon to find another voicemail from my fleet manager in Joplin.  Something along the lines of - This is Day #2.  Let me know what's going on today or you're fired.  I maintained my silence for one more day, during which I assume that they actually did fire me.

After doing some grocery shopping in the early hours of this morning, I logged onto my bank account and saw that my money was there.  Beauty.  No need to play out the string any longer.  I headed over to the terminal and handed in my keys, my fuel card, and the rest of it.  I didn't have a picture ID though.  Apparently that was one of the things on the checklist.  I got an ID card when I started at CFI.  It expired a couple of years ago and the company isn't CFI anymore, so I threw it away.  Now we'll see if they try to use that as an excuse not to pay back my deposit for the equipment on the truck.  I wouldn't be surprised.  My boy Robert at the terminal came out and checked over the truck, then wished me luck in my new endeavors.  And that was that.

Tonight brought two more milk runs, each with three stops. Tough night. In addition to the fact that I'm not quick, apparently every jackass in the Kroger organization was working the late shift.  I was pushing the 14 hour limit by the time all was said and done, but I pulled it off.  I'm told that it gets easier with time.

So here we are.  I suppose that I'm technically still considered a truck driver, even though driving is only a portion of my work now.  And, just to drive me a little further out of the trucking mainstream, the trucks are automatics.  I had to use a manual transmission for that road test but they only have a couple of those hanging around.  I'm not on the regular schedule board yet, so I don't have a regular shift or regular days off.  We're just kinda winging it at this point.  I have Saturday off this week, so that's nice enough.  I'm probably required to become a Democrat pretty soon, based on my newly forced acquired membership in a certain organization. I'm still allowed to take my cheap shots though, so we'll say that it's gonna be me and Ms. Lee, pushing for a common agenda...




Heh.

I haven't given a lot of thought to the prospect of continuing this web log. I suppose I'll keep posting for at least a little while, if for no other reason than to give some people a chuckle as I go through the growing pains.