I'm baaaaaack!!!!!!!!

Should be coming across 40 in a day or so; I'll keep you posted on where I end up. I'm gonna see if I can sit outside the Wal-Mart DC in Casa Grande--looks like I can do that. Otherwise there's a Petro nearby.

 

Yeah, now all trucks have inverters and fridges. I remember when only team trucks had them too. Someone figured out that a happy and comfortable driver is more productive. Used to only be L/O and O/O trucks allowed to have pets also; now any company driver can have one (within the guidelines).

 

I was pretty upset last week, but that was me forgetting my own advice--that a big corporation doesn't care about you enough to hurt you or help you. It's up to you to learn the system and make your way within those boundaries. There is generally some latitude. Stay within the boundaries, you can do fine. Cross them, you're done. To the corporation you're a data point. You have to find your significance/meaning/fulfillment/validation as a human being someplace else. This is your job.

Many people don't want to deal with that and work at smaller companies, which I COMPLETELY understand. Celadon just happens to have what we need for now. They aren't evil. They're just big and indifferent.

Mind you, I have no illusions that I'll ever get rich working for these guys. The folks who said smaller companies pay better than the megas were not wrong.

 

Payroll called me a little while ago and apologized for the mixup on my direct deposit; it is fixed now and my next check will be deposited to my checking account. Dispatch messaged me and informed me the breakdown pay policy has changed and they no longer pay if you're broken down in your home of record (which I was). Dispatch also went to bat for me and argued that if he didn't know about this change how was I supposed to, and they eventually relented and I'm getting the breakdown pay on my next check with the understanding that next time I'm in shop status in Indy there is no breakdown pay.

That's a stupid ### rule. Breakdown is breakdown. The pay is supposed to reduce the impact of lost revenue, not pay for a room which I have trouble getting anyway.

 

I figured as much. Devils advocate: Drivers would abuse the system and go home for days on end, collecting breakdown pay for a truck that had cleared the shop the first night. This from dispatch. I'm sure the same happens at other companies. When you're a company with over 5,000 trucks, you probably start to play to the lowest common denominator rather than scrutinize every case individually. As for the residence thing, well, I'll just have to deal with it. Eventually The Hot Chick will move back out of the truck. Until then, I guess we're inconvenienced.