6/21/16 Is the beginning of my Schneider career!!!

I've probably never said this before but I hate recap. Even though I had 3 horrible first days out, I'm running out of hours. I've got 15 hours left for today and tomorrow, then I'll only recap 7.5 Wed and Thur and 9 for Friday to hopefully be home. I got 2 days of 600 mile runs and I just couldn't find a way to hold back. The one I'm on today was another 600 mile run and I was pretty much forced to scale back. I guess I could have knocked them out and maybe had a reset in the same time. Oh well. Didn't think it that through I guess. Just came to me as I was typing.

Stayed at the Mardi Gras Casino in WV last night. I shut down at 3:30. I was planning on staying at the Pilot the exit before. If there's a Casino near where I'm shutting down, you can bet (see what I did there) I'll be there. 3 reasons to this thinking for me are, parking is usually wide open, the food is usually pretty great for a decent price and I love to gamble. I've been playing poker for 20 some years. Way before it became popular and eventually died back down again. A buddy I grew up with plays on the pro circuit. We had a group of 10 guys that used to play basketball together in my high school days. This guy owns 2 of those guys houses, funded a buddy of mine in a business venture that's actually taken off pretty well and paid off another guys student loans. Pretty stand up guy for not feeling sorry about taking all your money in a card game lol. Anyway, last night I pulled $120 from the savings account pocketed 20 for some food and hit the felt. 4 straight hours of hovering a little above the hundred I went in with but mostly below. Players were pretty tight at the table. Until about 3 hours in when it got real loose. Couple people left and more came in. These 2 really just loosened up the pots like crazy. I think the biggest pot prior may had been 100. 30 min in and I'm seeing a 600 pot. My mouth begins to water much like those 600 mile runs. I grab a couple pots where I'm at 200 or so in chips. Then I go to work. I'm trying to target this loose guy and it's hard because of position. I get caught bluffing a couple times on purpose. Then I win a big hand to the guy right beside me. He's rebought 2 times in the 5 hours but just won a monster pot to get all his money back from this other guy. I consider it a win and decide I'm up $300 I'm about to leave. The next hand is dealt as I'm still stacking my chips. KJ diamonds. 1-2 NL I raise to 10. Everyone folds but my target. He raises me to 60. I call. Flop comes A 5 6 of diamonds. I've got the nut flush. I'm slow playing this bad boy. Guy raises to 100. I debate a bit and call. Turn is no help J of spades. I bet 50 and Guy goes all in. He has 800 or so in chips. Clearly no hands beats me. I snap call. I'm elated. I EVEN turned my hand and said nut flush which I never do. Just a rub in. Like flipping the bat in baseball or standing over the guy you just rocked in football. But I had won. Less the actual game or pot or even money. The mental "I'm going to get this guy" game. That no one but me knew about at the table. He looks at his cards and doesn't flip them. The dealer puts the next card down. 3 of diamonds. Or guy looks one more time as if he had no idea what he was holding. Almost mucks them. Then says "wait, straight flush" as if he didn't even know of the only possibility for him to win was that one card left. He turns over his 2 4 of diamonds and sure enough. He wins. Wow. Biggest, worst, most defeating game I'd ever lost. No matter the game. As long as we're not talking scrabble against my dictionary for a wife. I'm defeated. I walk downstairs and call her on the phone. I was going to get something small to eat but I was mortified. She talked me into it. I'm waiting for the food and talking to her and she asked if they did comps for poker. Reminded me of the card I got here for $20 slot play. I only played slots once before. Another free play thing. Lost. Not my game. I swipe the card. Push the button. ONCE. It rings. And rings. And rings. As if it was going off for 5 min. My wife asks what's going on. I said I didn't know. The lady next to me said her friend just left there and didn't win anything. I said I don't want it to stop but is there a faster way for it to get done? Lol I won $300. The poker gods hated on me for the day. The slot gods made it right. I cashed out and hit my food. Laughed with my wife on the phone to the truck. Crazy.

 

Back tracking a bit back to last Friday. I lost my virginity to the north. Going up, no problem. I got there and went through their process of scaling then they sent me to another building down the street. Simple instructions. Back into either dock 3 or 5 and give the guy these papers and he'll unload you. Dock 3 had a trailer in it 5 was open. All dock doors closed. I look all over for "the guy" with no luck. Can't even find a door. I walk all around the building. Finally there's a door behind a trailer I didn't see. I hit the button on the call box. Nothing. I bang on the door. Nothing. Then I see a small button. I hit it and it rings loudly so I can hear it. Nothing. I go to the docks. Bang on those doors. Nothing. So I call the number on the paperwork. He says guy is at lunch from 12-1. It's 11:30. Ok fine I'll wait. I figure I've got an hour or so to kill, I'll walk to some food. Closest is 1/2 mile away. No problem, 15 there, 15 back and I'll eat then. As I'm getting ready to leave another truck pulls up. Asks me how long I've been there and so on. He says he's not going to wait. I say I'm going to walk to get some food. He tells me "you don't walk in Camden. I'm from Camden and I don't walk in Camden." These types of things are never a way that I think. But I will agree that there were many things that stood out as shady in the area. I wait it out. The guy shows up shortly after. I get unloaded and leave. I pick up another load close by relaying to Carlisle PA. This is where it gets crappy. I have 3:45 left on my 14 and 100 non hwy miles to go. I look for an alternate route that is quicker on an app I have. 160 miles and more tolls. Crap. I can make it. And I did. But barely. 8 min left when I pull up to the intercom. 9pm on a Friday night. I'm sure the kitchen is closed. Ticked that it took almost 4 hours to drive 100 miles. I'm never coming back up here again I say. Then, the kitchen is open. Sweet. Trying to decide on some food. Cook asks me if I want a steak. Eh, what cut? Tbone or strip. Ummm yeah. Sign me up. It was a good ending to a messed up day. Heck week. Some dude talks my ear off till 11:30. I had to be rude and cut him off on his story. I don't think it would have ever stopped. Get a blog I say!!! I got to fire up the Espar that night. Woke up it was 38°out. Slept like a baby set at 65°. The next day I back track to Maryland. Then leave to Ohio. Let me start this by saying I don't have an eye for art. I think it is great. Impressive. Just not moved much by it. Mostly just don't understand it. I've never looked at the trees turning colors and been moved. Then I drove down I68. WOW. It was just starting to change on some trees. But the red and oranges were mesmerizing. It was like staring at the coals at the bottom of a camp fire. Crazy. Ok. I'm ok with the northeast now. I don't mind it at all. Steak and trees. What else does a man need.

Nothing eventful over the weekend really. I had a drop today and right before I got there my next assignment popped up. Deadhead 211 miles. Huh? I call in they say it's right. Ok. I leave with my empty at a nearby truck stop. I go through and route plan and notice it has an assigned trailer number. I look on crossroads and it has defects. Trailer frame and support misc. Vague. I call SEM. I've never had an issue calling before. Everyone's always been nice. That has to end sometime and that sometime was today. It started off nice. I asked her how her day was. So one and so forth. Then I explain that I'm going to be picking up this trailer and it says trailer frame blah blah blah. She says she can't do anything about it and that I'll have to check it out when I get there. I pause and say "ummm I don't understand". She basically repeats go there and look at it when I do my pretrip and call them if something is wrong. Then with out pause or anything she adds into this spoken sentence with an attitude "have a nice day goodbye". "WHOA WHOA WHOA WAIT A SECOND" I got even more snotty back. "It's to my understanding that a driver made an order that there is a defect. You mean to tell me that yall don't do anything about it when we put that in? What's the freaking point?" She tries saying something else like it's only a level 5 and they don't check into it unless it's a level 9 or something to that extent. I gave up and said "ok, either we need to start over and both drop the attitude or you need to let me speak to your manager, this is ridiculous". No hold on, no hesitation, she puts meet on hold. I get another lady. And I said "I'm going to start from the beginning and please bare with me because I don't understand what is going on". We talk about it a little more in depth. It still doesn't make sense to me completely. On a company level. Not the actual way they say it is. I guess the driver put no comments to what is wrong. This basically gives it no priority and knocks it down to a level in which they allow the shipper to load the trailer. So they say. They don't know if it is a rolling defect or a non rolling defect. Basically. I've got a solution. Make a rolling/non rolling defect button. Now, in all due respect to them, the driver was lazy and didn't put any comment. All that is known is a generic curb side frame defect. But why is there not better technology that can allow for better reporting? I've got an idea!!! Send the driver a message? Call them? Something? Blind leading the blind. Gotta love it....

 

Picked up this load 2 days ago. I'm still on it or under it, whatever the correct lingo is. It has solidified what little faith I had left in this company. I told them that I wouldn't be able to deliver till today. When they sent it to me. When I picked it up I had made decent time. Running off of recap. So my original call in to double check the deadhead of 221 miles I was told to call back when I got to pick up for more accurate ETA. So I did and saw they had changed the original delivery time from an absolute impossible one to a more realistic one. It would have required me to get up at 2am. No problem. I'd have about an hour left. If I made good time. Too close for me. I told my DBL that I could make it but I'd only be able to do so if they had overnight parking. She said she'd check. I went to sleep to try and get adjusted to waking up early. Of course I wake up to no info on parking. So, I wait till 8am till she gets in making delivery impossible, or I drive my way in and hope when I get close she'll have an answer. I stop an hour out. Text. No answer. Call and I'm on hold for 20 min. Finally it's putting me close to delivery window. I hang up and figure I'll just go with it. But also, I hit some construction traffic and I'm a little off on time remaining. I'll be about 30 min left instead of the original hour. I get down the road and get a text. No overnight parking but they said there is parking down the road. Not falling for that crap. I text back, reschedule appt for tomorrow, that's not going to work. I could have stayed at that truck stop. Now I have to find the next closest which was 11 miles off of route. Just seemed like a waste to me. So I get there and get parked. Send another message asking for new appt. Couple hours goes by. Nothing. I ask again. I get "just get there at 0200". I read that at the time as that was the appt. Not really paying attention to the wording. I get here at 0200 and the place is closed. Not open till 0700. Wtf. I go in to workflow and check the hours and they say 0700-1600. I should have known to double check. Not that it is right half the time. I picked up this load from a company with a different name. Wasn't sure if it was the right place. I asked and they said they hadn't gone by that name in over 5 years lol. I've called a handful of numbers listed on there and many have been for different companies.

I'm about to tap out. I was offered a job a couple months back, but I didn't want to hop around. Nor make it look like I was. I've tried to wait this out. But this unorganized bunch of clowns has gotten me to my breaking point. Should I be offering a 2 weeks notice? If I do will they actually honor it? Or should I just line up this other thing concrete first?

 

Welp.... I finally did it. I locked myself out of my truck. In the dark. Rain. I had been internally #####ing about my truck being dirty and needing rain. Well I got it. But just sprinkles. Just enough to turn the caked dirt to caked mud. So I had to slide and reach through it all to get my spare key I had zip tied to the truck.

Got another thing ticking me off while we're on the subject of things ticking me off. I've been seeing these signs in all these small towns of a school bus exploding. The government and their outrageous terrorist fear tactics.


I've had enough. I say 2 presidents this election. Both Trump and Clinton. They're both psychopaths. Just knock em out with one term together. As hard as I try I can't quit hearing about them. I had a funny thought though. I passed ak house in the country that had a few Clinton signs. Then the next house had a few Trump signs. Not another house for miles. First I wondered if a sign ever worked. Has someone passed one and thought, "huh, Trump. Guess I'll vote for him after all". Or just voted for the last sign they saw? "I can't remember who I was going to vote for? Oh I saw that Clinton sign before I came in". Then I thought about the relationship of those 2 farmers that lived next door to each other. Think they secretly piss each other's crops at night? Only people in town living on these huge farms literally 100 ft from each other's house. What if one had a daughter and one a son? Roughly the same age. Could you imagine if they got hooked up? The parents would hate it. I live in a divided family. I told my grandmother I'm not voting. She's a staunch Democrat. Hillary is a God to her. Always has been. She hung up on me cause I said I'm not voting. And hasn't talked to me since. I tried to explain that my vote didn't count. I live in a red state. A large majority red state. My vote either way wouldn't matter. I'm what I think every American should be. Not Republican. Not Democrat. I have views from each side that I believe in. None strong enough to say either party is never wrong. And my views change. Everyone's should. Constantly. Even if it did matter, voting for either one of these tools is against my belief. I just can't do it.

 

I've almost always have novels for posts. They may be annoying to some. Funny to others. This update will be shorter. A lot more has happened than I will post but basically on an emotional whim (unlike suggested) I put my 2 weeks in Thursday. Sick of the unorganized mess that goes on. Since then I have retracted it. Well, not really. I technically told them I would give them 2 weeks to clean up the itemized messes. After they asked what they could do to change my mind. I said if my conditions were met and I saw a change I would let them know at the end of the 2 weeks what I plan to do. They weren't unreasonable. Really only what I was promised initially. I've talked to another company and I've got a job if I want it. Honestly, it was the first one I initially wanted when I graduated. But they didn't have an extra truck. They're small. About 40 trucks. One of my instructors went to work there and he loves it. So we'll see what happens.