Calex Express....My New Home!

Issue & Question #1.............This whole insurance circus is a joke. If little old me can go out and get health insurance on my own with an A rated company (Cigna), that offers a policy both cheaper ($300 less per month), and with more benefits (half the deductable, no co-insurance, dental), plus a lot of other positive benefits, why can't a company that has a much larger group then just me and the wife do the same?

Issue and Question #2..........We have procedures in place here at work in order to have a somewhat efficient system in place. One of them is payroll cut off. Paperwork must be scanned in, faxed in or handed in before noon on Monday's in order to pay on Friday's. I know this, in fact I've known about this since I went through orientation On August 4th, 2009. I've never once forgot this procedure. Friday was a complete and utter failure by a department or by someone in Pittston. We have a payroll company that notifies us via email when our payroll has been updated online for us to look at. It usually comes in on Wednesdays, sometimes on Thursday's. I was never notified. Can we say red light warning? On Friday morning while at the house I went online to check my bank account to see if my pay was there. I do this every Friday morning. It wasn't there. Numerous phone calls and messages to payroll went unreturned throughout the day. Finally, at 3:30 in the afternoon the fireworks started. To make a long story short, I was told that my 2 trip envelopes were handed in late. Really? I gave my paperwork to Tom Sunday night at the Petro up from the yard because I was sick and wasn't getting up early Monday just to hand it in. He had to get his physical so he was going in at 8am. It's 4 miles from the Petro to the terminal, if you leave at 8am, stop for a coffee at the donut shop at the corner where the terminal is, you should roll in to the yard at 8:15, upstairs at the window at 8:20 right? He was, he handed my 2 trip envelopes in along with his, he got paid and I didn't. I was told I missed the noon cut-off. Ok, I'm just a dumb truck driver, maybe I did. NOT! Now look, I happen to not live paycheck to paycheck, I had my last check on 12/28 and was on vacation bouncing around the Caribbean Ocean until 1/14. I've ran 1 1/2 round trips that were handed in by Tom on 1/21 that total 4100 miles plus stop off pay, plus I am now done with half of my next round for 1350 miles plus stop off pay. So in all I am owed 5450 miles and 7 extra stop offs, plus a few expenses that I laid out cash for, because God only knows I don't take any advances. In fact, the last advance I took was back in July coming back from California.

I was told by payroll, safety and the big cheese that I missed payroll but they will ok an advance. Thanks, I feel so much better now that I understand I missed payroll. Here's the issue I have with being owed a lot of money for work already completed, a company closing up shop and me then working for free, because as we all know, you then become a creditor that will go throught the legal process while the bankruptcy court figures everything out. Can we all say Arrow trucking? I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that this is the path Calex is taking, in fact I feel pretty good about the stability of the company. But as we have seen over the years, it can happen and has to the best of them.

It's the little things in the course of my job that mean more to me then anything else. Don't call me a liar and tell me I missed payroll, it's called accountability, someone in Pittston dropped the ball and wouldn't admit to it. That pisses me off. I'm very accountable in what I do, dealing with high priority freight, dealing with some of our top customers, dealing with the idiots on the road and doing my job without making mistakes, because we all know what happens when you or I make a mistake, it's called a preventable accident. Miss my payroll because someone dropped the ball? It's called accountability and there was not one person that said they made a mistake and take responsibility for it. I got hired to do a certain job, I do it, very good I might add, hell, I even started this blog almost four years ago and keep adding to it, which has given the company an advertising tool to promote working here, which they use. But like I've said and done over these last 4 years, I will always tell the truth, good and bad. Rant over, now on to more important things..................

I am sitting in Belle Glade waiting my turn to get my load of lettuce on. I need to deliver Monday morning in Jersey. Tom got here yesterday at 1pm and called me this morning to let me know he was just finished loading and was leaving. Great, 19 hours to load, can't wait to see how long this fiasco is going to take me. I need to stop off after loading to get a brand new hub oiler that the shop put on my trailer replaced. Seems it's leaking like a sive no matter how many times I tighten it. Be safe all, God Bless.

 

I know they do, in fact, I was talking to my wife just last week that I have never missed a pay day because of a mistake. I guess I was due. I'm not worried about not being paid, it will be there this coming Friday. I was given a comcheck for $500.00 by dispatch as per the big bossman, which I might add is more of a pain in the a..ss then it's worth. In fact, I wrote the check out and it's sitting on my desk at home. I'll take care of it when I get home next week. I guess my complaint has more to do about owning up to a mistake and not making it out to be something I did wrong. But, in the end, I'll carry on with the job at hand and rely on the fact that this was an honest mistake.

Here it is 7:30pm, been here since noon and still not loaded, or even at the dock yet. The later it gets, the closer to the house I'll be after loading. This load will be needed Tuesday morning just as bad as it was needed on Monday morning.

 

Double Post........Deleted. Tough with big fat fingers using an iphone.

 

I'm getting unloaded here in Florence NJ. I can't figure this place out, got here at 11am, backed right in, then started unloading me at 4:30. Oh well, it's not like I need to be anywhere special. I got both my reload to Florida for Wednesday and my reload back out from Belle Glade for next Saturday. I finally was loaded and rolling at 9pm Saturday night. I did spend a little time on the side of I-95 Sunday morning waiting on 2 new drive tire to be delivered. As you can see from the picture they weren't fixable. The funny thing about this was I just started my day 6 miles behind me, did my pretrip then left, 15 minutes later, boom. Then I finally got my new hub oiler replaced with another new hub oiler on the trailer. If that wasn't enough excitement I watched 4 wheelers all morning this morning slipping and sliding across all the bridges coming up 95 through Va, DC and Md because all the bridges were iced over. I felt like stopping to let some idiots know that the salt trucks dumping salt with the emergency lights flashing, no spray being kicked up from other vehicles and big trucks doing 30mph under the speed limit should have told them something. With all this excitement on one trip I still made my delivery on time.

Picture #1 Not fixable
Picture #2 Not Cool
Picture #3 Not again!