10/6/10

Yep. That's 89 hash marks. Assuming that I counted correctly (not a guarantee), I've been a Quickway employee for 89 days. This means that, at the conclusion of tomorrow, I'll be a real-life Teamster. And I'll get there on a day when I'm not working. That's kinda funny now that I think about it. 

Since there's no graduated pay scale, meaning that we start at full pay from Day One, the biggest difference for me will be that I'm now eligible for the monthly bonus.  An extra two cents per mile and a dollar per stop, in addition to the standard pay that we already receive, are paid at the end of each month.  A quick ballpark estimate puts that at around $200-250 per month in beer money.  Now if only I actually drank enough beer to enjoy it...

Other odds and end stuff comes into play as well.  401(k), health coverage, disability, personal days, paid holidays, etc.  Heh, maybe it's about time for me to start calling in sick on weekends.  Yeah, probably not.

Today's run was supposed to be quick and easy.  I had an afternoon pull and three stops in Toledo, then back to the dairy.  That's almost how it went.  Almost.  As I was doing my pre-trip inspection, I found that my loaded trailer had a big gouge in the side of one of its tires.  Then I noticed that the rim was bent, right next to the big gouge.  Lieutenant Columbo would conclude that someone ran over something at a fairly high rate of speed, fucked up the tire and the rim, dropped off the trailer without doing a post-trip inspection, filled out a false DVIR form saying that he did a post-trip inspection, and went home.

Unlike the last time that one of these peckerheads pulled this shit, the mechanics were still at the terminal today.  I pulled my trailer down the street, got a new tire, and then headed on my way.  We'll see how the pay situation works out with respect to the half hour that I waited for the repair.  The dispatcher gave me a detention number, meaning that I'll get my nine bucks or whatever it is for the half hour.  The catch is that my load pay was more than nine bucks below the daily minimum.  I was getting bumped up to $140 for a $127 run.  My guess is that the detention pay will mean that I'll now get bumped from $136 to $140.  This would mean that the half hour is just lost time for me.

Oh well.  Still a pretty easy day of work overall.  Toledo is under major construction, so my driving hours were a bit longer than I had anticipated.  From the first store to the second, the distance was three miles.  It took a half hour.  From the second store to the third, the distance was six miles.  Another half hour.  Sheesh.  The milk deliveries themselves went pretty smoothly, notwithstanding that I encountered the biggest asshole dairy guy in the Midwest at my first store.  (I haven't been to every store in the Midwest, so this is speculation on my part, but I think it's a pretty safe bet.)  As I left that store, I recalled something that one of the guys told me on my first training run.  "There's this one guy in Toledo..."  Yeah, I met that guy today.

I had a lengthy workout on the agenda for tonight, so I headed straight over to the gym and got after it.  Fun times.  Fun times.  Given the way that the last day and a half have unfolded, it's safe to say that I'm looking forward to getting a good night's sleep in my own bed pretty soon here.  Bonne nuit.