R
RatRace
Guest
I show up for work this morning - there are only 2 of us running the store at this point as the company has downsized in terms of "staff reductions" dramatically. My boss isn't usually there til' long after I have opened up the store and get things rolling.
I'm thinking: Friday, yayyyyy, weekend's here. I get into our truck routing system and was pleasantly surprised to see several deliveries had been dumped in there for our store to do. I was in a good mood - weather is nice (for this area, at this time of year, that IS something), I'm still employed, life is good - well it is what you make of it, something people always say and something that definitely holds true.
My job is not just truck driving. It's everything that entails running a store. I find the orders, I route them, I pull the orders, palletize them, load them deliver them. I also do counter sales and warehousing - shipping/receiving; deal with inventory issues and a host of other things including reconciling cash and credit sales at the end of the day.
So, I print out the orders. Go to work with enthusiasm. I'm totally self-motivated, which is good considering nobody else is there at the time anyway. The first sign was the shrink-wrapping. I pulled the first order and was attempting to shrink-wrap it. We have a machine to do it - namely -the human body with fingers going into either end of the roll of shrink wrap, walking around in circles. The wrap is the wrong kind - the boss misordered and got the very thin thickness stuff, on accident. It just doesn't come off right, it's totally made for a machine. The roll kept messing up, no matter how I tried to use the roll. I got mad at the damned thing and threw it against a wall.
Lol, well, I never claimed perfection. Got out a "fresh" roll - which did the same friggin' thing. I just tolerated it and kept fixing it until I had the thing wrapped. Toted it out via forklift, put it on the flatbed, backed up. Apparently, I didn't have the forks low enough, the whole pallet came off, flipped over and landed upside down on the ground.
Grrrrrrrr. I ain't blamin' anyone, I'm just realizing that this day isn't going to go too well. I take it back to the shrink wrap station, fool with the roll of wrap again, get it done.
Next. I have to load up ductile iron pipe. It's basically a form of cast iron pipe but much heavier and stronger, coated on the inside with cement and totally coated all over with asphaltic coating. You drink tap water that comes through these pipes, if you do, indeed, drink tap water.
As normal, I fork up a load and roll them onto the boards - with huge blocks on either end of the boards to keep the pipe from coming off. You guessed it, one of the pipes rolled right over that block and onto the ground, damaging it.
The 7th circle of Monday's hell on a Friday beginning to emerge, I started wondering what's next, a friggin' cataclysmic accident on the freeway?
I decided to slow WAY down. I mean, at a pace that a turtle would think endearing. Things started to smooth out. I strapped the begegus out of the load, it ain't going nowhere if I have anything to say about it.
I drive less than a mile to my first delivery. It's a Walmart being transformed into a Super Walmart. I'm pulling the semi up next to the main entrance of the store - that's where they wanted to unload it. I get a lot of stares and glares from customers going into the store. What is THAT all about? Truck making too much noise for them? Didn't quite get that one. Get that unloaded and am about to drive through that huge area in front of their stores with all the lines for pedestrians to cross.
So, I stop. An older lady was walking a toddler and had stopped at the lines. She was looking at me, I had stopped. I ain't runnin' anyone over, go ahead and cross. She's on her knees, speaking into this toddler's ears. She's pointing at the truck and trying to get him to look. She then looks at me and waves me through. Well, with that scenario - I take it very slow through there. She waves at me, the little boy looks up and I was waving back at her at the same time.
A huge smile came over the little kid's face, the what I assume to be grandmother sees the smile and gets a big grin on her face. This kid is listening to the sound of the truck and the size of it. It was a nice distraction, really, to everything else that was going on.
Get to our main branch downtown to pick up more material for the deliveries I'm making. Work my @$$ off, but nothing "bad" happens.
Now I get to the pipe manufacturer. I have to pick up 2, 492 feet of pipe to deliver to a contractor that is mad because the pipe should have been there a long time ago. The pipe, turns out, was sitting in a yard in Texas and hadn't been shipped, even though the order was placed 2 and a half weeks ago.
2 trucks ahead of me, this place is notoriously slow to load. I got the paperwork in order at the truck counter, and then waited. I then find out the pipe lengths are 14 footers instead of 20 footers. I had my truck loaded in such a way to accomodate 20 footers.
Now, everything had to come off the truck in their yard to reload to accomodate for the 14 footers. When they were done with that, I get a phone call from a steaming hot mad salesman. He's pissed because I was "supposed" to have the load out there by 9:00 am.
He started his - crap - with me, but I shut it down. First off, Mr Salesman, nobody said anything about a 9:00 am deadline. Second, if they had, I would have flatly told them if I made it to the construction site by noon, consider themselves lucky.
Thirdly, it was not I that made such promises and the whole deal only came up this morning, you are acting like we knew about this a week ago.
Salesman goes on. They HAVE to have this pipe today because they are working this weekend - no pipe, no work. I understand his frustration, but I personally had nothing to do with this situation excepting the fact that I am the unlucky guy getting dumped with all this stuff since I'm the driver attempting to get everything and get it out there.
He then asks how long it's going to be before I get it out there. He states they are leaving in half an hour. I reply that in half an hour, I will be lucky to even be IN one of the loading stations they have set up, much less have everything unloaded, put the pipe on and then reload everything else.
Rhetoric and s***. I ended it. "I'll be happy to deliver this load as early as necessary tomorrow morning since they are leaving before I can get there today". There is no use fighting with people if you can come up with some kind of answer to resolve the situation. We do NOT work on weekends, but - before I came to work with this company, I worked weekends relentlessy. It was part of my lifestyle. I couldn't care less about 3 hours of work early on a Saturday morning, it won't ruin my weekend.
This, of course, changed the entire demeanor of the salesman. Oh, well let me make a phone call and I'll call you right back. The phone call exchange goes on for 20 plus minutes. Finally, the end of it? They would need me out there at the site at 4:00 am - the Superintendant would rather wait for me to come out today and he will unload the truck himself. I offered to be out there at 4:00am. No, he'll just wait.
Fast forward. I get home. A former tenant had come over to collect money owed to her by a current tenant. The situation got ugly and I come home to hear all 3 boys telling me the stuff that happened earlier this afternoon.
Well, I have a son, a friend of my son that has been living with me for 5 years, and another friend of my son that spends most of his time over here - and now that school is out, he hardly goes home. Okay, further, for the 3rd kid, "home" is grandma's house. Father is in jail, mother abandoned them long ago. Grandma is 82 years old and simply can't deal with 4 teenaged boys - that's how many she is trying to raise. She readily allows the oldest to come over here at any time, and at all times, to "visit". He sleeps here, eats here, everything else here. So, I have one son out of my own gene pool and 2 more I consider like sons out of other people's gene pools.
I am definitely wandering all over the place here, but, this is a blog and I am writing in it it for release at this point, if nothing else.
Anyway, current tenant involved in this altercation is at work, so I call the former tenant, of whom I am on very good terms with (not THAT way, c'mon folks!). She has asked this guy - my current tenant - to pay her back he $30 he has owed her for quite some time now. She decided to show up today because she knows today is his payday. He gave her $20 and said he couldn't afford the other $10. Actually, I can attest to that fact. But, he let this thing go on far too long.
That's my day. I got her past the stuff with him and we talked for quite a while about everything else. She is bored out of her mind and just likes to talk. I am not bored out of my mind, but I like to talk anyway. I do not need people around me at all times and I definitely do not need to have to talk constantly. I LOVE solitude - which is part of why trucking was something that allured to me when I got into it a long time ago. I spent years OTR and eventually got burnt out on it - I like solitude but I don't like solitude ONLY. I am not geared for that.
So, changing the subject, how was your day?
I'm thinking: Friday, yayyyyy, weekend's here. I get into our truck routing system and was pleasantly surprised to see several deliveries had been dumped in there for our store to do. I was in a good mood - weather is nice (for this area, at this time of year, that IS something), I'm still employed, life is good - well it is what you make of it, something people always say and something that definitely holds true.
My job is not just truck driving. It's everything that entails running a store. I find the orders, I route them, I pull the orders, palletize them, load them deliver them. I also do counter sales and warehousing - shipping/receiving; deal with inventory issues and a host of other things including reconciling cash and credit sales at the end of the day.
So, I print out the orders. Go to work with enthusiasm. I'm totally self-motivated, which is good considering nobody else is there at the time anyway. The first sign was the shrink-wrapping. I pulled the first order and was attempting to shrink-wrap it. We have a machine to do it - namely -the human body with fingers going into either end of the roll of shrink wrap, walking around in circles. The wrap is the wrong kind - the boss misordered and got the very thin thickness stuff, on accident. It just doesn't come off right, it's totally made for a machine. The roll kept messing up, no matter how I tried to use the roll. I got mad at the damned thing and threw it against a wall.
Lol, well, I never claimed perfection. Got out a "fresh" roll - which did the same friggin' thing. I just tolerated it and kept fixing it until I had the thing wrapped. Toted it out via forklift, put it on the flatbed, backed up. Apparently, I didn't have the forks low enough, the whole pallet came off, flipped over and landed upside down on the ground.
Grrrrrrrr. I ain't blamin' anyone, I'm just realizing that this day isn't going to go too well. I take it back to the shrink wrap station, fool with the roll of wrap again, get it done.
Next. I have to load up ductile iron pipe. It's basically a form of cast iron pipe but much heavier and stronger, coated on the inside with cement and totally coated all over with asphaltic coating. You drink tap water that comes through these pipes, if you do, indeed, drink tap water.
As normal, I fork up a load and roll them onto the boards - with huge blocks on either end of the boards to keep the pipe from coming off. You guessed it, one of the pipes rolled right over that block and onto the ground, damaging it.
The 7th circle of Monday's hell on a Friday beginning to emerge, I started wondering what's next, a friggin' cataclysmic accident on the freeway?
I decided to slow WAY down. I mean, at a pace that a turtle would think endearing. Things started to smooth out. I strapped the begegus out of the load, it ain't going nowhere if I have anything to say about it.
I drive less than a mile to my first delivery. It's a Walmart being transformed into a Super Walmart. I'm pulling the semi up next to the main entrance of the store - that's where they wanted to unload it. I get a lot of stares and glares from customers going into the store. What is THAT all about? Truck making too much noise for them? Didn't quite get that one. Get that unloaded and am about to drive through that huge area in front of their stores with all the lines for pedestrians to cross.
So, I stop. An older lady was walking a toddler and had stopped at the lines. She was looking at me, I had stopped. I ain't runnin' anyone over, go ahead and cross. She's on her knees, speaking into this toddler's ears. She's pointing at the truck and trying to get him to look. She then looks at me and waves me through. Well, with that scenario - I take it very slow through there. She waves at me, the little boy looks up and I was waving back at her at the same time.
A huge smile came over the little kid's face, the what I assume to be grandmother sees the smile and gets a big grin on her face. This kid is listening to the sound of the truck and the size of it. It was a nice distraction, really, to everything else that was going on.
Get to our main branch downtown to pick up more material for the deliveries I'm making. Work my @$$ off, but nothing "bad" happens.
Now I get to the pipe manufacturer. I have to pick up 2, 492 feet of pipe to deliver to a contractor that is mad because the pipe should have been there a long time ago. The pipe, turns out, was sitting in a yard in Texas and hadn't been shipped, even though the order was placed 2 and a half weeks ago.
2 trucks ahead of me, this place is notoriously slow to load. I got the paperwork in order at the truck counter, and then waited. I then find out the pipe lengths are 14 footers instead of 20 footers. I had my truck loaded in such a way to accomodate 20 footers.
Now, everything had to come off the truck in their yard to reload to accomodate for the 14 footers. When they were done with that, I get a phone call from a steaming hot mad salesman. He's pissed because I was "supposed" to have the load out there by 9:00 am.
He started his - crap - with me, but I shut it down. First off, Mr Salesman, nobody said anything about a 9:00 am deadline. Second, if they had, I would have flatly told them if I made it to the construction site by noon, consider themselves lucky.
Thirdly, it was not I that made such promises and the whole deal only came up this morning, you are acting like we knew about this a week ago.
Salesman goes on. They HAVE to have this pipe today because they are working this weekend - no pipe, no work. I understand his frustration, but I personally had nothing to do with this situation excepting the fact that I am the unlucky guy getting dumped with all this stuff since I'm the driver attempting to get everything and get it out there.
He then asks how long it's going to be before I get it out there. He states they are leaving in half an hour. I reply that in half an hour, I will be lucky to even be IN one of the loading stations they have set up, much less have everything unloaded, put the pipe on and then reload everything else.
Rhetoric and s***. I ended it. "I'll be happy to deliver this load as early as necessary tomorrow morning since they are leaving before I can get there today". There is no use fighting with people if you can come up with some kind of answer to resolve the situation. We do NOT work on weekends, but - before I came to work with this company, I worked weekends relentlessy. It was part of my lifestyle. I couldn't care less about 3 hours of work early on a Saturday morning, it won't ruin my weekend.
This, of course, changed the entire demeanor of the salesman. Oh, well let me make a phone call and I'll call you right back. The phone call exchange goes on for 20 plus minutes. Finally, the end of it? They would need me out there at the site at 4:00 am - the Superintendant would rather wait for me to come out today and he will unload the truck himself. I offered to be out there at 4:00am. No, he'll just wait.
Fast forward. I get home. A former tenant had come over to collect money owed to her by a current tenant. The situation got ugly and I come home to hear all 3 boys telling me the stuff that happened earlier this afternoon.
Well, I have a son, a friend of my son that has been living with me for 5 years, and another friend of my son that spends most of his time over here - and now that school is out, he hardly goes home. Okay, further, for the 3rd kid, "home" is grandma's house. Father is in jail, mother abandoned them long ago. Grandma is 82 years old and simply can't deal with 4 teenaged boys - that's how many she is trying to raise. She readily allows the oldest to come over here at any time, and at all times, to "visit". He sleeps here, eats here, everything else here. So, I have one son out of my own gene pool and 2 more I consider like sons out of other people's gene pools.
I am definitely wandering all over the place here, but, this is a blog and I am writing in it it for release at this point, if nothing else.
Anyway, current tenant involved in this altercation is at work, so I call the former tenant, of whom I am on very good terms with (not THAT way, c'mon folks!). She has asked this guy - my current tenant - to pay her back he $30 he has owed her for quite some time now. She decided to show up today because she knows today is his payday. He gave her $20 and said he couldn't afford the other $10. Actually, I can attest to that fact. But, he let this thing go on far too long.
That's my day. I got her past the stuff with him and we talked for quite a while about everything else. She is bored out of her mind and just likes to talk. I am not bored out of my mind, but I like to talk anyway. I do not need people around me at all times and I definitely do not need to have to talk constantly. I LOVE solitude - which is part of why trucking was something that allured to me when I got into it a long time ago. I spent years OTR and eventually got burnt out on it - I like solitude but I don't like solitude ONLY. I am not geared for that.
So, changing the subject, how was your day?
