145.58 ÷ 6.5 = 22.3969 ; 22.3969 > 20
Set an objective on Friday and achieve it on Saturday. That's what I'm talking about! Nevermind the fact that I have a ball-busting schedule for Sunday and I'm probably gonna crash and burn during one of my five stops. As far as tonight goes, I'm getting a little more efficient and that ain't half bad. Tonight's run paid $145.58, in case you weren't fully up to speed on the equation above. I started my pre-trip inspection at 5:45pm and finished my post-trip inspection at 12:15am. Three and a half hours of driving and three hours of Line 4 time. There's still a lot of room for improvement, without question, but it's something of a relief to have gone to work and completed a shift in something resembling the amount of time that it would take the more experienced guys. (And I do mean "guys." No gals driving out of the Livonia terminal. Sue us. Err... on second thought, no, don't sue us. It's an employee-owned company, after all.)
On a related note, I've seen a few new faces around the terminal over the past couple of days. By 'new faces' I don't mean simply people that I hadn't met. I mean people who have been newly hired. Either business is still picking up or they've had to replace a couple of people. As I've probably already told you folks once or twice, this milk man routine is pretty freaking hard. It wouldn't surprise me if a couple of the other guys who started recently have washed out. In any event, it would seem that one particular knucklehead is no longer at the bottom of the seniority list. Is it time for me to demand higher wages or threaten to strike yet? I wonder...
Tomorrow brings a two-stop run to Saginaw, followed by a three-stop run to the Toledo area. My first pull is scheduled at noon so, depending on how everything goes, I may even manage to finish my day before midnight and start my off day (Monday). That would be pretty groovy, but I won't count my chickens before they hatch.
I've been reminded lately that regular people have to deal with things like grocery shopping, buying gas for their cars, driving to work, and all of that other nonsense. I never kept any food in my truck while I was on the road and I only bought gas whenever I was home, obviously. My drive to work took about ten minutes, once every month or two. This tedious little routine of fifteen minutes here and ten minutes there can add up after a while. It's all starting to come back to me...
This reintegration into society is gonna be a long and steady struggle, it would appear.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
7/23/10
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to vote for Republicans, given my recent entry into the "brotherhood." I also don't live in Tennessee. If I were allowed though, and if I lived there, I'm thinking that this guy might have been worth a look.
Planting vegetation on every vacant lot and selling it to cover expenses - now there's some 'outside the box' thinking for you.
The last 24 hours in my neck of the woods have been fairly interesting. I was having some queso flameado and a cold Dos Equis at El Zocalo after the game yesterday when my dispatcher called to give me the rundown for today's work - a three-stop run to the Toledo area followed by a four-stop run in the Detroit suburbs. Seven stops in one night? Baptism by fire. Dude.
I managed to stay up nice and late last night in anticipation of what looked to be an all-nighter tonight. Stay up late - sleep late - work late. That's the strategy. So I was still in bed around noon today when my phone rang.
I saw that it was work calling and I was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but I went ahead and picked it up instead. My terminal manager was calling to apologize for the fact that today was my first payday with the company and I had no paycheck. Some sort of paperwork snafu or something. He said that the payroll department had calculated my net pay and such, so they could issue me an EFS check for the after-tax amount. My earnings for last week were pretty solid, so I'm sure that my paycheck is more than a few hundred bucks. For this reason, I chose Plan B and just told them to tack my pay onto next week's check. I don't feel like going to a truck stop and paying a fee to cash a check, then waiting while they try to round up enough money. I have no idea if banks cash those things, but I really don't need to find out. I'll just feel like a high roller when I get paid double next Friday.
My phone rang again after another 45 minutes or so. This time it was the dispatcher, calling to give me the so-called bad news. The board had been shuffled a little and I was only pulling one run today instead of the two that I had previously been given. No worries on my end, obviously. I really wasn't digging the thought of seven stops in one night, especially since my six stops last Friday took all of fourteen hours. My new assignment with its three stops sounded a hell of a lot better.
The schedule was also a little better. Instead of leaving the dairy at 5:30pm, my new load was set to pull at 4:45pm. I also got to spend some time beforehand doing shuttle work. There were four empty trailers at our terminal, where they had been in the shop for repairs. I hauled them over to the dairy, where they'll be loaded with milk and put back into the rotation. I get five dollars for each trailer that I shuttle around the corner. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks.
It turns out that the Detroit area got whalloped by some pretty rough weather tonight. There's something to be said for timing though, as I was on my way to Flint before the storm moved in. I could see dark skies behind me as I made my way up US-23, but I never did encounter any bad weather myself. I did, however, encounter a bit of difficulty. The pallet jack at the Kroger on the southwestern side of Flint was one of the ancient models. It worked for the most part, but the throttle had a tendency to stick in the 'on' position. I was not aware of this in advance. So... first pallet of the night, backing out of my trailer on a pretty steep decline, pallet jack starts to run away out of control, I try to stop it... crash, bang, boom. Awesome start to the night, eh?
Only one milk jug lost its cap and spilled, so the mishap wasn't terribly tragic. It took a little time to get the pallet restacked, but I still got out of there within an hour of my arrival. All in all, good enough. My second stop was in Owosso. I was there for an hour as well, but during that time I made the delivery and also got the milk for my final stop rotated to the back of my trailer. Again, good enough.
I hit the loading dock in Northville at 10:30pm, ready to unload my last few pallets of milk and call it a day. Not so fast, my friend. Nobody in the entire store had a key to remove the padlock that keeps the dock doors from opening. Nobody. I got to sit around for a half hour while the dairy manager drove from his house to the store. Once he opened the door for me, I got the milk unloaded in short order and went on my way.
Even with the mishap in Flint and the delay in Northville, I was able to wrap up my shift by midnight tonight. Since I'm still rather tentative when it comes to the unloading (for good reason, apparently), I think that $20 per hour should be a pretty good baseline for a while here. I'd like to get the hours down more and the money up more eventually, but I have to start somewhere. I managed $19.27 per hour tonight. Without burning that half hour sitting in Northville, I would have been over $20.00. Slowly but surely, we see signs of improvement. Slowly but surely.
Tomorrow evening will bring one run with three stops in the Lansing area. Assuming that nothing else pops up I'm anticipating that it should take me about as long as tonight's run took. I really shouldn't be assuming anything of the sort, but I think I need to start setting some targets so I can objectively measure whether or not I'm improving.
As for now, I'm gonna have a little taste of delicious life-prolonging medicine and then hit the sack. Goodnight.
Planting vegetation on every vacant lot and selling it to cover expenses - now there's some 'outside the box' thinking for you.
The last 24 hours in my neck of the woods have been fairly interesting. I was having some queso flameado and a cold Dos Equis at El Zocalo after the game yesterday when my dispatcher called to give me the rundown for today's work - a three-stop run to the Toledo area followed by a four-stop run in the Detroit suburbs. Seven stops in one night? Baptism by fire. Dude.
I managed to stay up nice and late last night in anticipation of what looked to be an all-nighter tonight. Stay up late - sleep late - work late. That's the strategy. So I was still in bed around noon today when my phone rang.
I saw that it was work calling and I was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but I went ahead and picked it up instead. My terminal manager was calling to apologize for the fact that today was my first payday with the company and I had no paycheck. Some sort of paperwork snafu or something. He said that the payroll department had calculated my net pay and such, so they could issue me an EFS check for the after-tax amount. My earnings for last week were pretty solid, so I'm sure that my paycheck is more than a few hundred bucks. For this reason, I chose Plan B and just told them to tack my pay onto next week's check. I don't feel like going to a truck stop and paying a fee to cash a check, then waiting while they try to round up enough money. I have no idea if banks cash those things, but I really don't need to find out. I'll just feel like a high roller when I get paid double next Friday.
My phone rang again after another 45 minutes or so. This time it was the dispatcher, calling to give me the so-called bad news. The board had been shuffled a little and I was only pulling one run today instead of the two that I had previously been given. No worries on my end, obviously. I really wasn't digging the thought of seven stops in one night, especially since my six stops last Friday took all of fourteen hours. My new assignment with its three stops sounded a hell of a lot better.
The schedule was also a little better. Instead of leaving the dairy at 5:30pm, my new load was set to pull at 4:45pm. I also got to spend some time beforehand doing shuttle work. There were four empty trailers at our terminal, where they had been in the shop for repairs. I hauled them over to the dairy, where they'll be loaded with milk and put back into the rotation. I get five dollars for each trailer that I shuttle around the corner. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks.
It turns out that the Detroit area got whalloped by some pretty rough weather tonight. There's something to be said for timing though, as I was on my way to Flint before the storm moved in. I could see dark skies behind me as I made my way up US-23, but I never did encounter any bad weather myself. I did, however, encounter a bit of difficulty. The pallet jack at the Kroger on the southwestern side of Flint was one of the ancient models. It worked for the most part, but the throttle had a tendency to stick in the 'on' position. I was not aware of this in advance. So... first pallet of the night, backing out of my trailer on a pretty steep decline, pallet jack starts to run away out of control, I try to stop it... crash, bang, boom. Awesome start to the night, eh?
Only one milk jug lost its cap and spilled, so the mishap wasn't terribly tragic. It took a little time to get the pallet restacked, but I still got out of there within an hour of my arrival. All in all, good enough. My second stop was in Owosso. I was there for an hour as well, but during that time I made the delivery and also got the milk for my final stop rotated to the back of my trailer. Again, good enough.
I hit the loading dock in Northville at 10:30pm, ready to unload my last few pallets of milk and call it a day. Not so fast, my friend. Nobody in the entire store had a key to remove the padlock that keeps the dock doors from opening. Nobody. I got to sit around for a half hour while the dairy manager drove from his house to the store. Once he opened the door for me, I got the milk unloaded in short order and went on my way.
Even with the mishap in Flint and the delay in Northville, I was able to wrap up my shift by midnight tonight. Since I'm still rather tentative when it comes to the unloading (for good reason, apparently), I think that $20 per hour should be a pretty good baseline for a while here. I'd like to get the hours down more and the money up more eventually, but I have to start somewhere. I managed $19.27 per hour tonight. Without burning that half hour sitting in Northville, I would have been over $20.00. Slowly but surely, we see signs of improvement. Slowly but surely.
Tomorrow evening will bring one run with three stops in the Lansing area. Assuming that nothing else pops up I'm anticipating that it should take me about as long as tonight's run took. I really shouldn't be assuming anything of the sort, but I think I need to start setting some targets so I can objectively measure whether or not I'm improving.
As for now, I'm gonna have a little taste of delicious life-prolonging medicine and then hit the sack. Goodnight.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
7/22/10
Strike three, mofos. Nothing would sound better on my first official day off than a ballgame in Detroit. And the Tigers pulled off the victory. Beauty. I took seven photos in anticipation of the moment pictured above. You people had better appreciate my efforts.
It's no secret that I'm not a workaholic, but even an industrious person would need some down time every now and then. I've been going at it pretty hard recently so I was more than happy to sleep nice and late this morning. Then, after realizing that the Tigers had an afternoon shindig scheduled with the Blue Jays, it was time to head downtown. My first game attended this year also happened to be my first victory attended this year, so all was right with the world.
After a post-game dinner with my mother and my youngest brother, I took some time to visit with an old friend. Even if we assume that he wasn't actually happy to see me, he did manage to make me feel as though I had been missed during my last stint on the road. Then it was back home, where I needed to stay up nice and late if it was possible to do so. Tomorrow's first pull is scheduled for 5:30pm. That one's a three-stop load which will be followed by a four-stop load on the overnight shift. I was at the ballgame when I got the call from my dispatcher, so I haven't checked on the pay yet, but it sounds like tomorrow should be nice and profitable here at Fenian Godfather Inc. We just need to make sure that I get enough sleep before I head out to the dairy. I think it should work out okay. We shall see.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
7/21/10
You know what's annoying to me? Ear wax. That shit is just relentless. That's not really what I meant to say though. It just popped into my head. The actual annoying topic for today is groupthink. If you have a radio (or television, I assume), then you've heard of this Sherrod chick. The civilized world is largely on the brink of financial collapse and this is what is on our minds. Stupid.
I'm not just talking about the general tendency of our media to beat a given topic into the ground though. I'm talking about the pre-ordained reactions from people of all stripes. Step 1 - observe something, Step 2 - consult your usual sources, Step 3 - react the same way as everybody else who is on "your side." Stupid.
So Breitbart posts this video and everyone gets all fired up because the black chick said that she didn't want to help the white guy. I don't watch television, but I did hear commentary on damned near every radio station from Nashville to Detroit. Conservatives cheered gleefully about the black racism on display. Liberals rationalized extensively, then reversed course and praised that Vilsack dude for reacting quickly.
Nobody even bothered to take the entire situation into consideration. The NAACP had just called these Tea Party people a bunch of racists. Breitbart seems to be a big fan of the Tea Party crowd. So what would this video really show, from his perspective? Do you really think he was going for the "here's a black racist so suck it" angle? Come on. Why would anybody, including Andrew Breitbart, give a shit about Shirley Sherrod? Maybe it's just me, but I never even gave a second thought to the notion that some unknown broad didn't want to help some unknown dude with some unknown thing. That story could have taken place between any combination of people from any combination of races. There's no story there. I thought that the crowd reaction was the real topic of conversation. She stuck it to whitey and then this holier-than-thou NAACP audience nodded and cheered. That's what I thought the point was supposed to be. "You love to call people racists but you should look in the mirror, you bunch of hypocrites."
Then, just like McCain whacking Phil Gramm for noting (correctly, in my opinion) that we've become a nation of whiners, the Obama gang had to whack this chick. Why? Because of a thirty second soundbite? What was her work history that qualified her for whatever job she held in the first place? Was that work history somehow erased by a blog posting that wasn't even really about her? More groupthink. "Oh shit, what will Limbaugh say? We had better get ahead of this!" Stupid.
I need to confess something now. I once gave a guy a $950 price quote for advisory services when his situation probably warranted about $700. Why? 'Cause he seemed like a dick and I didn't want him to hire me. I forgot to mention that he was a black guy. Should Quickway ask me to resign now? Idiots.
So today I headed to work and checked in at the Country Fresh dairy on Plymouth. My run to Grand Rapids was ready and waiting. Beauty. I flipped on the radio and hit 'scan,' then listened for a clear signal. (I'm missing the XM already. I ain't gonna lie to you.) Each time I would get a station, I would hear someone talking about this Sherrod broad. I already had concluded that everyone had jumped on the same wrongheaded bandwagon when the video broke, so today's groupthink narrative pissed me off even more.
Today's story, from Fox News to NPR, was that this poor lady had been taken out of context and the whole world owed her an apology. You had Glenn Beck warning people about context. You had Robert Gibbs lecturing people about the need for all of the facts. You had the NPR people praising her honesty. You had the right-wing crowd criticizing Obama's haste. You had the left-wing crowd blaming Fox News (even though she already had resigned before they even ran the story). Damned groupthink.
The supposedly exculpatory part of the tape involved phrases like "his own kind" and other shit of that nature. To my mind, this stuff was far more racist than her initially reported acknowledgement that she didn't really feel like helping the white guy in the first place. His own kind? Are you shitting me? Invert the color spectrum and see what happens when anybody utters that phrase. This was two steps above and beyond 'those people,' for Christ's sake. What if I had sent that prospective client out of my office and referred him for financial advice from "his own kind"? That's the kind of phrase that puts a permanent end to a career. Yet, since people were embarrassed by jumping to the groupthink conclusion yesterday, they had to rebound to the groupthink counter-conclusion today. Stupid.
If your coming of age story about racism is that you learned about class warfare along the way, but you still harbor your racist views, then it's a shitty story. And I don't care how many news updates try to steer the groupthink otherwise.
By the time I got back to Livonia with the empty trailer from my drop/hook in Grand Rapids, it was getting to be about time for a ballgame. Thankfully, something to get Ms. Sherrod off the radio. I dropped my empty at the Country Fresh dairy and then scooted over to the Michigan Dairy to grab my loaded trailer of milk for tonight. The trip out to Jackson was nice and easy, as was my delivery there. I took advantage of the fairly level loading dock and moved all of the empty cases to the nose of my trailer, leaving me in good shape for a quick and easy unloading in South Lyon. With all of the milk at the rear of the trailer, things were looking pretty nice indeed.
The drive from Jackson to South Lyon was a tricky one in terms of routing. I wound up taking M-14 to US-23 and then continuing down some farm road. Since there wasn't any scenery to check out in the dark, I would simply have to fake it. Now that's acting, Jerry! My unloading there was as simple as anticipated, then it was time to head home.
According to our dispatcher, he's trying to arrange it so that I'll have Mondays and Thursdays off from now on. (I'll have the option of extra work but, for now, we're sticking with what was scheduled.) Every time I've mentioned this to anyone, I've heard that it sucks not to have consecutive days off. (Preconceptions and groupthink, together at last.) Not surprisingly, I disagree. I like the idea of taking Thursdays off, then charging through the weekend (our busy time). I'll be tired by Monday, just in time for another day off. Then Tuesday and Wednesday are a little on the easier side, before it's time to take Thursday off again and get ready for another weekend. Pretty ideal setup as far as I'm concerned, with the notable exception that I probably won't be watching a lot of college football this year.
I'm not just talking about the general tendency of our media to beat a given topic into the ground though. I'm talking about the pre-ordained reactions from people of all stripes. Step 1 - observe something, Step 2 - consult your usual sources, Step 3 - react the same way as everybody else who is on "your side." Stupid.
So Breitbart posts this video and everyone gets all fired up because the black chick said that she didn't want to help the white guy. I don't watch television, but I did hear commentary on damned near every radio station from Nashville to Detroit. Conservatives cheered gleefully about the black racism on display. Liberals rationalized extensively, then reversed course and praised that Vilsack dude for reacting quickly.
Nobody even bothered to take the entire situation into consideration. The NAACP had just called these Tea Party people a bunch of racists. Breitbart seems to be a big fan of the Tea Party crowd. So what would this video really show, from his perspective? Do you really think he was going for the "here's a black racist so suck it" angle? Come on. Why would anybody, including Andrew Breitbart, give a shit about Shirley Sherrod? Maybe it's just me, but I never even gave a second thought to the notion that some unknown broad didn't want to help some unknown dude with some unknown thing. That story could have taken place between any combination of people from any combination of races. There's no story there. I thought that the crowd reaction was the real topic of conversation. She stuck it to whitey and then this holier-than-thou NAACP audience nodded and cheered. That's what I thought the point was supposed to be. "You love to call people racists but you should look in the mirror, you bunch of hypocrites."
Then, just like McCain whacking Phil Gramm for noting (correctly, in my opinion) that we've become a nation of whiners, the Obama gang had to whack this chick. Why? Because of a thirty second soundbite? What was her work history that qualified her for whatever job she held in the first place? Was that work history somehow erased by a blog posting that wasn't even really about her? More groupthink. "Oh shit, what will Limbaugh say? We had better get ahead of this!" Stupid.
I need to confess something now. I once gave a guy a $950 price quote for advisory services when his situation probably warranted about $700. Why? 'Cause he seemed like a dick and I didn't want him to hire me. I forgot to mention that he was a black guy. Should Quickway ask me to resign now? Idiots.
So today I headed to work and checked in at the Country Fresh dairy on Plymouth. My run to Grand Rapids was ready and waiting. Beauty. I flipped on the radio and hit 'scan,' then listened for a clear signal. (I'm missing the XM already. I ain't gonna lie to you.) Each time I would get a station, I would hear someone talking about this Sherrod broad. I already had concluded that everyone had jumped on the same wrongheaded bandwagon when the video broke, so today's groupthink narrative pissed me off even more.
Today's story, from Fox News to NPR, was that this poor lady had been taken out of context and the whole world owed her an apology. You had Glenn Beck warning people about context. You had Robert Gibbs lecturing people about the need for all of the facts. You had the NPR people praising her honesty. You had the right-wing crowd criticizing Obama's haste. You had the left-wing crowd blaming Fox News (even though she already had resigned before they even ran the story). Damned groupthink.
The supposedly exculpatory part of the tape involved phrases like "his own kind" and other shit of that nature. To my mind, this stuff was far more racist than her initially reported acknowledgement that she didn't really feel like helping the white guy in the first place. His own kind? Are you shitting me? Invert the color spectrum and see what happens when anybody utters that phrase. This was two steps above and beyond 'those people,' for Christ's sake. What if I had sent that prospective client out of my office and referred him for financial advice from "his own kind"? That's the kind of phrase that puts a permanent end to a career. Yet, since people were embarrassed by jumping to the groupthink conclusion yesterday, they had to rebound to the groupthink counter-conclusion today. Stupid.
If your coming of age story about racism is that you learned about class warfare along the way, but you still harbor your racist views, then it's a shitty story. And I don't care how many news updates try to steer the groupthink otherwise.
By the time I got back to Livonia with the empty trailer from my drop/hook in Grand Rapids, it was getting to be about time for a ballgame. Thankfully, something to get Ms. Sherrod off the radio. I dropped my empty at the Country Fresh dairy and then scooted over to the Michigan Dairy to grab my loaded trailer of milk for tonight. The trip out to Jackson was nice and easy, as was my delivery there. I took advantage of the fairly level loading dock and moved all of the empty cases to the nose of my trailer, leaving me in good shape for a quick and easy unloading in South Lyon. With all of the milk at the rear of the trailer, things were looking pretty nice indeed.
The drive from Jackson to South Lyon was a tricky one in terms of routing. I wound up taking M-14 to US-23 and then continuing down some farm road. Since there wasn't any scenery to check out in the dark, I would simply have to fake it. Now that's acting, Jerry! My unloading there was as simple as anticipated, then it was time to head home.
According to our dispatcher, he's trying to arrange it so that I'll have Mondays and Thursdays off from now on. (I'll have the option of extra work but, for now, we're sticking with what was scheduled.) Every time I've mentioned this to anyone, I've heard that it sucks not to have consecutive days off. (Preconceptions and groupthink, together at last.) Not surprisingly, I disagree. I like the idea of taking Thursdays off, then charging through the weekend (our busy time). I'll be tired by Monday, just in time for another day off. Then Tuesday and Wednesday are a little on the easier side, before it's time to take Thursday off again and get ready for another weekend. Pretty ideal setup as far as I'm concerned, with the notable exception that I probably won't be watching a lot of college football this year.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
7/20/10
Tonight we get to continue our chat about preconceived views on things. My first solo run last week took me to Howell, Lansing, and Holt. My stop in Howell was quick and easy. Then the stop in Lansing was about all I could handle without completely losing my mind. The stock room was overcrowded so there was no room to maneuver the pallets. The kids who were supposed to put away the milk were a couple of shitheads who weren't making things any easier. The pallets of empty cases were in a storage trailer sitting well below dock level. I wasn't aware of some of the intricacies of the work, so I managed to tip over a pallet of empties as I tried to pull it out of the storage trailer. Then, after restacking the whole thing, I dumped it again as I wheeled it into my own trailer. I had pulled the few pallets for the Holt stop out of the trailer so that I could put the empties in the nose, leaving the milk on the tailgate and ready to unload at the final stop. By the time I finally got all of the empties loaded, I breathed a sigh of relief. All I had to do was put a few pallets of milk back into my trailer and then leave that Godforsaken Kroger behind. Then I tipped a full pallet of milk. For realsies.
'Don't cry over spilled milk,' they say. (Of course you knew that I would work a dumb milk cliché into one of these posts before too much longer. Just be glad that I'm not taking credit for illegitimate children all over the country yet.) Anyhow, I had to restack that pallet of milk, after already having restacked the one pallet of empties - twice. Then I drove over to Holt and made my final delivery. The loading dock was a real mofo to access, even with a 48' trailer. Then the stock room was even more cluttered than the one in Lansing had been. I managed to get the job done though. Exasperated, sweaty, and exhausted, I drove back to Livonia, wondering what I had gotten myself into.
Hey, guess who got to go to Lansing and Holt tonight! Yeah. Given what I just wrote above, I'll bet you can guess how I was feeling about this assignment. Not exactly grinning from ear to ear as I drove to work.
A couple of things were different this time around, each making life a whole lot better for me than it was on that miserable Tuesday last week. First was that there was no stop in Howell. Even though the Howell stop had been an easy one, there is a benefit to only having two deliveries. If I drop off four pallets at my first stop, the expectation is that I'll take four pallets of empties with me. This means that, once I reach the next stop, I have to find a place to set aside those four pallets of empties in order to get to the milk. Then after Stop #2, if I want to flip the milk to the back and set up for the third stop, I have even more work to do since I have those four pallets of empties hanging around. Condensed version of this paragraph - two stops are WAY easier than three.
The second difference was that I had to go to Holt first and Lansing second this time around. I got to back into that tough dock in Holt before the sun went down. Blindside docking is never a whole lot of fun, but it does help when you can see what's around you. I also got to do the rearranging of the pallets in Holt and set up for a final drop in Lansing, rather than the other way around. The loading dock in Holt sits almost perfectly level with our trailers, so it's far less risky to move pallets in and out. Whenever the trailer is higher or lower than the dock, there's a greater chance that I'll be... ahem... crying over spilled milk.
No such problems tonight. The stock room was even cleared out a little bit, so I had room to do what I needed to do. I'm still not quick by any measure. It took me a little over an hour to unload Holt's ten pallets, make room for ten pallets of empties, and then reload everything with the milk for Lansing at the rear of the trailer. This is a significant improvement though, compared to a week ago.
Next it was time to tackle that damned Lansing store. Funny thing though - it was a piece of cake. The guy who works in the stock room late at night is a much better worker than the kids from last week had been (earlier in the evening). As was the case in Holt, tonight brought a much cleaner stock room and much more space in which to maneuever. For my part, I did a much better job of moving both the loaded pallets and the empty ones around. Speed is still not my strong suit, but I have improved a little in terms of managing the inherent instability of the stacked crates. Overall I would say that the stop in Lansing tonight was one of the easier ones that I've made so far.
Preconceptions be damned. Maybe it's time for me to take a second look at high taxes and super-efficient government bureaucrats or something. Heh.
In a twist that I suspect is only going to reinforce one man's preconceived view of things, I passed my comrade from the Tennessee trip as I was taking my trailer of empties back to the dairy at the end of my shift. He's running overnight to Tennessee again. Hopefully he learned enough from his prior trip down there. It's a simple enough route and all, but he really was relying on me for everything that first time around. I don't think it's a huge stretch to guess that he won't be overjoyed about the $1,040+ that he'll make in the first four days of this week. He seemed to be a little more aware of his upcoming eleven hours on the road when I spoke with him. Therefore...
Final conclusion - I'm the more open-minded one. Heh.
I have a Grand Rapids drop/hook turn tomorrow afternoon, followed by a milk run to Jackson and South Lyon. That drop/hook run is nice and easy, two stops are better than three when it comes to milk runs, and $270 is a pretty solid day's pay in any event, so my preconceived notion about tomorrow is a pretty positive one. We'll see...
'Don't cry over spilled milk,' they say. (Of course you knew that I would work a dumb milk cliché into one of these posts before too much longer. Just be glad that I'm not taking credit for illegitimate children all over the country yet.) Anyhow, I had to restack that pallet of milk, after already having restacked the one pallet of empties - twice. Then I drove over to Holt and made my final delivery. The loading dock was a real mofo to access, even with a 48' trailer. Then the stock room was even more cluttered than the one in Lansing had been. I managed to get the job done though. Exasperated, sweaty, and exhausted, I drove back to Livonia, wondering what I had gotten myself into.
Hey, guess who got to go to Lansing and Holt tonight! Yeah. Given what I just wrote above, I'll bet you can guess how I was feeling about this assignment. Not exactly grinning from ear to ear as I drove to work.
A couple of things were different this time around, each making life a whole lot better for me than it was on that miserable Tuesday last week. First was that there was no stop in Howell. Even though the Howell stop had been an easy one, there is a benefit to only having two deliveries. If I drop off four pallets at my first stop, the expectation is that I'll take four pallets of empties with me. This means that, once I reach the next stop, I have to find a place to set aside those four pallets of empties in order to get to the milk. Then after Stop #2, if I want to flip the milk to the back and set up for the third stop, I have even more work to do since I have those four pallets of empties hanging around. Condensed version of this paragraph - two stops are WAY easier than three.
The second difference was that I had to go to Holt first and Lansing second this time around. I got to back into that tough dock in Holt before the sun went down. Blindside docking is never a whole lot of fun, but it does help when you can see what's around you. I also got to do the rearranging of the pallets in Holt and set up for a final drop in Lansing, rather than the other way around. The loading dock in Holt sits almost perfectly level with our trailers, so it's far less risky to move pallets in and out. Whenever the trailer is higher or lower than the dock, there's a greater chance that I'll be... ahem... crying over spilled milk.
No such problems tonight. The stock room was even cleared out a little bit, so I had room to do what I needed to do. I'm still not quick by any measure. It took me a little over an hour to unload Holt's ten pallets, make room for ten pallets of empties, and then reload everything with the milk for Lansing at the rear of the trailer. This is a significant improvement though, compared to a week ago.
Next it was time to tackle that damned Lansing store. Funny thing though - it was a piece of cake. The guy who works in the stock room late at night is a much better worker than the kids from last week had been (earlier in the evening). As was the case in Holt, tonight brought a much cleaner stock room and much more space in which to maneuever. For my part, I did a much better job of moving both the loaded pallets and the empty ones around. Speed is still not my strong suit, but I have improved a little in terms of managing the inherent instability of the stacked crates. Overall I would say that the stop in Lansing tonight was one of the easier ones that I've made so far.
Preconceptions be damned. Maybe it's time for me to take a second look at high taxes and super-efficient government bureaucrats or something. Heh.
In a twist that I suspect is only going to reinforce one man's preconceived view of things, I passed my comrade from the Tennessee trip as I was taking my trailer of empties back to the dairy at the end of my shift. He's running overnight to Tennessee again. Hopefully he learned enough from his prior trip down there. It's a simple enough route and all, but he really was relying on me for everything that first time around. I don't think it's a huge stretch to guess that he won't be overjoyed about the $1,040+ that he'll make in the first four days of this week. He seemed to be a little more aware of his upcoming eleven hours on the road when I spoke with him. Therefore...
Final conclusion - I'm the more open-minded one. Heh.
I have a Grand Rapids drop/hook turn tomorrow afternoon, followed by a milk run to Jackson and South Lyon. That drop/hook run is nice and easy, two stops are better than three when it comes to milk runs, and $270 is a pretty solid day's pay in any event, so my preconceived notion about tomorrow is a pretty positive one. We'll see...
Monday, July 19, 2010
7/19/10
My major in college was Political Science. (Shocker, I know.) My minor was Mathematics. This apparently random combination existed for a reason, believe it or not. Politics, to me, is the most subjective topic in the world. Where political beliefs are held, one man can believe that President Bush orchestrated the terrorist attacks in 2001 while his neighbor can believe that President Obama's parents planted a phony birth announcement in the Honolulu newspapers in 1961. (Then there are people like Alex Jones who probably believe in both hypotheses, as well as a thousand others.) This dynamic, and the vast array of real-life consequences that it carries, has been intriguing to me since the time I got a bad grade on a paper that I wrote in elementary school, merely because the teacher disagreed with the opinion that I expressed. (It was an English assignment. The grammar was supposed to be the focus.)
Math is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Even in the theoretical fields where there may be some present disagreement, everyone knows that one competing theory will be proven correct and the other will be proven wrong. On the settled end of the deal, two plus two will never equal five. The square root of nine will never be four. A curve with two values on the Y axis for a given value on the X axis will never meet the definition of a function. These are facts. There is no room for interpretation. Compare this to the competing views on taxation in relation to economic growth and you'll see the dichotomy that I found so compelling.
Today we focus on the subjective. To my mind, subjectivity is merely a way of expressing the ways that each of us has been influenced. Whether it was by practice, by active (theoretical) learning, or by passive (environmental) learning, each of us has established a framework of views against which our future experiences will be judged.
Get to the point, you say? Fine.
I left Michigan on Sunday night with a load of empty milk crates. After a breakfast break in Kentucky, I arrived at the dairy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Monday morning. I dropped my trailer full of milk crates and hooked to an empty trailer, then headed back northward. I got into Kentucky before my hours ran out. After ten hours in a company-paid hotel room, I resumed my trip to Michigan and arrived in Livonia before the sun came up on Tuesday. (We all know that this equals Monday night in my little world, right?) My assessment of the trip for which I was paid $523.92 - awesome. Another guy made the same run with me. He would disagree completely with my assessment. He hated the trip from start to finish.
It was the same trip for each of us. Same payload, same route, same schedule, etc. Our different viewpoints can not, in any way, be based on objective factors. To me, it was nineteen hours of holding a steering wheel, listening to the radio, and having no weight in the wagon. To him, it was two super-long driving shifts, a day away from his wife, and an intimidating route that he had never traveled. I was wishing that I could make that trip two or three times a week. He was wishing that he would never have to make it again.
That's interesting enough, but I think it continues a little further. Since my prior experience involved similar work, I didn't pay much attention to the schedule. I was pretty jazzed about the 20% pay hike. Since his prior experience involved a daily shuttle run to Grand Rapids and back, the schedule was overwhelming for him. '11 on - 10 off - 9 on' was more driving in a short time than he had ever done. Since my prior experience involved varying payloads and varying terrain, I thought that it was awesome to set the cruise control and relax as I rode through the hills. Since his prior experience involved a relatively flat route along I-96, he was full of tension with each hill and curve that we encountered.
You can take this A-B thing as far as you would like to go. The upshot is that my only experience had been OTR and my colleague's only experience had been local. If I had to guess, I'd say that he won't last another two weeks at Quickway, even though it's a local job. The work is demanding and the breaks are not much longer than the federal minimum. It's a shame too because he's a good guy and I can see that he wants to do well. He simply has been conditioned to perceive truck driving in a certain way and that way isn't going to happen here. I've been conditioned to see it in a different way and, given my minimal expectations of the world around me, I'm never shocked when things are a little worse. In this case things were a little better, but...
Time for bed now. More milk to haul on my Tuesday night shift.
Math is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Even in the theoretical fields where there may be some present disagreement, everyone knows that one competing theory will be proven correct and the other will be proven wrong. On the settled end of the deal, two plus two will never equal five. The square root of nine will never be four. A curve with two values on the Y axis for a given value on the X axis will never meet the definition of a function. These are facts. There is no room for interpretation. Compare this to the competing views on taxation in relation to economic growth and you'll see the dichotomy that I found so compelling.
Today we focus on the subjective. To my mind, subjectivity is merely a way of expressing the ways that each of us has been influenced. Whether it was by practice, by active (theoretical) learning, or by passive (environmental) learning, each of us has established a framework of views against which our future experiences will be judged.
Get to the point, you say? Fine.
I left Michigan on Sunday night with a load of empty milk crates. After a breakfast break in Kentucky, I arrived at the dairy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Monday morning. I dropped my trailer full of milk crates and hooked to an empty trailer, then headed back northward. I got into Kentucky before my hours ran out. After ten hours in a company-paid hotel room, I resumed my trip to Michigan and arrived in Livonia before the sun came up on Tuesday. (We all know that this equals Monday night in my little world, right?) My assessment of the trip for which I was paid $523.92 - awesome. Another guy made the same run with me. He would disagree completely with my assessment. He hated the trip from start to finish.
It was the same trip for each of us. Same payload, same route, same schedule, etc. Our different viewpoints can not, in any way, be based on objective factors. To me, it was nineteen hours of holding a steering wheel, listening to the radio, and having no weight in the wagon. To him, it was two super-long driving shifts, a day away from his wife, and an intimidating route that he had never traveled. I was wishing that I could make that trip two or three times a week. He was wishing that he would never have to make it again.
That's interesting enough, but I think it continues a little further. Since my prior experience involved similar work, I didn't pay much attention to the schedule. I was pretty jazzed about the 20% pay hike. Since his prior experience involved a daily shuttle run to Grand Rapids and back, the schedule was overwhelming for him. '11 on - 10 off - 9 on' was more driving in a short time than he had ever done. Since my prior experience involved varying payloads and varying terrain, I thought that it was awesome to set the cruise control and relax as I rode through the hills. Since his prior experience involved a relatively flat route along I-96, he was full of tension with each hill and curve that we encountered.
You can take this A-B thing as far as you would like to go. The upshot is that my only experience had been OTR and my colleague's only experience had been local. If I had to guess, I'd say that he won't last another two weeks at Quickway, even though it's a local job. The work is demanding and the breaks are not much longer than the federal minimum. It's a shame too because he's a good guy and I can see that he wants to do well. He simply has been conditioned to perceive truck driving in a certain way and that way isn't going to happen here. I've been conditioned to see it in a different way and, given my minimal expectations of the world around me, I'm never shocked when things are a little worse. In this case things were a little better, but...
Time for bed now. More milk to haul on my Tuesday night shift.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
7/18/10
Since I have to leave Michigan at midnight tonight, I wanted to stay up as late as possible last night. This way I would sleep as late as possible today. I spent some time reading news headlines. I read a couple of magazines. I drank some beer. Anything to pass the time. As I grabbed the last cold one from my fridge, I saw that it was 1:30am. I sat down to resume my relaxation when my brain started to do some quick calculating. Either that beer was gonna have to be it for the night or I was gonna have to hit the road and replenish my supply. Last call in Michigan is 2am. I was sort of in-between. I hadn't drunk much, so I didn't really have much of a buzz, but I feared that I still would get tired after I stopped drinking. That's kinda how it works with me. On the other hand, if I had a full fridge and nothing better to do, I would probably start chugging them and then put myself to sleep anyhow.
I decided that I should probably head out, if for no other reason than to get off my couch for a bit. I put my last beer back in the fridge and then zipped over to the local Wal Mart to survey their offerings. After scanning the limited selection of cold beers in the cooler, I decided that I might as well toss a few loonies into that economy up north. With my case of Blue Light in hand I headed for the checkout lanes. One - ONE - self-checkout line was open. It had about ten people lined up, waiting to scan their items. That won't do. The next open lane had one lady with an overflowing shopping cart, followed by a guy with an even more overflowing shopping cart. The clock is ticking. That won't do either.
I went to the third and final open lane and stepped in behind a woman with a cart full of groceries, but nothing to compare with those carts in the earlier line. She took a look and saw my single solitary item, then offered to let me go ahead of her. I told her that, in a normal situation, I would politely decline her offer and wait my turn. This time though, given the circumstances, I was going to accept her generosity.
One more obstacle to go - a 400lb. (no exaggeration) dude was sitting on a bike in the checkout line. He wanted to buy the bike for $75. The price was $100. Arguments between the wannabe jumbo cyclist and the cashier were eating into my remaining ten minutes like termites in an old western saloon. Tick, tick, tick... Finally the cashier convinced the guy to give up his dream of being the next Lance Armstrong. $100 was just too much, it seems. So she rang up his other few items and told him the price. As in any case where I'm in a major hurry, of course the fella in font of me would have to take his sweet ass time digging out his money. Hurry up, man! I've got beer here!
I didn't even wait for him to drag his ass out of the way before I threw my purchase onto the counter. Get this thing scanned ASAP, sister. In the end...
I decided that I should probably head out, if for no other reason than to get off my couch for a bit. I put my last beer back in the fridge and then zipped over to the local Wal Mart to survey their offerings. After scanning the limited selection of cold beers in the cooler, I decided that I might as well toss a few loonies into that economy up north. With my case of Blue Light in hand I headed for the checkout lanes. One - ONE - self-checkout line was open. It had about ten people lined up, waiting to scan their items. That won't do. The next open lane had one lady with an overflowing shopping cart, followed by a guy with an even more overflowing shopping cart. The clock is ticking. That won't do either.
I went to the third and final open lane and stepped in behind a woman with a cart full of groceries, but nothing to compare with those carts in the earlier line. She took a look and saw my single solitary item, then offered to let me go ahead of her. I told her that, in a normal situation, I would politely decline her offer and wait my turn. This time though, given the circumstances, I was going to accept her generosity.
One more obstacle to go - a 400lb. (no exaggeration) dude was sitting on a bike in the checkout line. He wanted to buy the bike for $75. The price was $100. Arguments between the wannabe jumbo cyclist and the cashier were eating into my remaining ten minutes like termites in an old western saloon. Tick, tick, tick... Finally the cashier convinced the guy to give up his dream of being the next Lance Armstrong. $100 was just too much, it seems. So she rang up his other few items and told him the price. As in any case where I'm in a major hurry, of course the fella in font of me would have to take his sweet ass time digging out his money. Hurry up, man! I've got beer here!
I didn't even wait for him to drag his ass out of the way before I threw my purchase onto the counter. Get this thing scanned ASAP, sister. In the end...
Three minutes and seventeen seconds to spare. We have a winner.
The funny part is that, after I got back home and drank the one beer that had been in my fridge, I wound up going to bed anyway. I never even touched any of those beers from Wal Mart.
I managed to sleep, off and on at least, through most of this morning. I got a call from the weekend dispatcher this afternoon. He said that the normal procedure for these out of town runs is to send the driver out with an EFS check for $100. Then the driver cashes the check, pays his expenses, and submits the receipts for reimbursement. The EFS checks are locked in the terminal manager's office though, and he doesn't work on weekends. They needed to know if I wanted the terminal manager to drive to work and get a check, or if I could just pay my own expenses and then get reimbursed with my next paycheck. I can handle the expenses of a day or two on the road, so there was no need for the boss man to interrupt his weekend with his family on my account.
Apparently, in addition to the obviously required hotel room, they pay for my food when I'm out of town as well. The weekend dispatcher suggested that I try to eat somewhere nice and use the full allowance. That ain't such a bad deal then. I figure that it should take around ten or eleven hours to reach Murfreesboro, after which I'll have to take a ten hour break. If I wake in the evening, then I can get a nice dinner somewhere down there before heading out on whatever assignment brings me back to Michigan.
I'm hoping to catch a little nap pretty soon here, after which it will be time to pack a few supplies and head out for some real-life trucking again. An overnight run down to Tennessee shouldn't be too bad, but I'll probably catch Cincinnati and/or Louisville during the morning rush. If you see a day cab with no horsepower pulling a 48' reefer up the hills at around 30mph, be sure to wave.
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