I'm not one of those people who sits around and wishes America was more like Europe, but I am suddenly a big fan of Lithuania for some reason. (Kudos to you if you were previously aware that Lithuania is a member of the EU. I would have guessed otherwise.)
I started work at 1pm today, so it looked like I would get a chance to catch the second half of tonight's football game. I fully expected my Irish to lose again, but I was gonna watch anyway. (Man bites dog. They won.) As I drove over to the dairy to pick up my trailer, I got a call from the dispatcher. Of course. Some dude called in sick and I caught a second run. The whole 'sick call' routine has slowed down considerably as of late. In what I'm sure is completely unrelated news, things haven't been all that busy lately so the mid-seniority guys aren't making quite as much money. (The senior guys are still getting two loads on most days.) It's funny how that works, eh? Make a bunch of cash early in the week and you get sick on the weekend. Make less money and you manage to stay healthy all the way through. Weird.
Anyhow, the second run that I picked up was a quick one-stop deal down to Dundee. It took me exactly two hours round-trip and added $89 to my day's pay, so I had no complaints. For that matter, the first run wasn't bad either. One stop in Midland, two in Saginaw, and one in Livonia on the way back to the dairy. Aside from the fact that I had to wait for a bread truck at two of the stops (~15-20 minutes each time) everything was pretty flawless. But of course the two runs took just long enough to prevent any football watching.
My pull time for tomorrow is noon, so I've decided against a late workout tonight. I'm feeling a bit sore and run down as it is, so this was probably as good a night as any to give it a rest. Working out until 2:30am or so would mean that I wouldn't manage to fall asleep until probably 5am. I like to leave home an hour before my pull time and I had a few little things to do at home, so you can do the math from there. We'll get back at it tomorrow. Maybe I'll back into a second run and make some extra money again. I'm gonna need a few bucks in the bank if I wanna get to Lithuania, dontcha know.
The kids are back in school. Milk will slow down till the second week in November. It will be gang busters from then till the first of the year. Jan and Feb will suck because mom is still shocked by just how much she spent on Christmas. Mar,Apr and May will normal except for Easter week. Once school let's out it should pick up quite a bit. More than you needed to know but that is generally how it goes in grocery retail.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation certainly provides more depth to what I've heard from the guys in the office.
ReplyDeleteI was observing that I've only had one load for the past few Sundays. (Sunday previously had tended to be a $300 day). I definitely wasn't complaining. Personally, I prefer a lighter work load and I can afford to earn a little less, but I think the boss guy thought I was disappointed or something.
He gave me a similar rundown regarding the slow and busy times of the year. "Busy as hell in a few weeks" was the initial projection.
I appreciate the additional insight.