COVENANT -- From a wife's perspective

OK! OK! I hear ya!

Latest update on my life---

Team Redcoat is STILL in the hotel. **Supposedly** the truck is fixed but they wanted to keep it overnight to make sure it starts in the morning. <wink wink> Redcoat said they never had any trouble with getting it started. It was keeping the thing RUNNING that was the problem. He says it's probably just a smoke screen meaning it's still not really fixed.

Their DM wanted the guys to check out of their hotel and stay the night in the truck....in 7 degree weather. They said %$## that and put another night on the credit card. They'll ask for reimbursement later.

Redcoat says their next challenge will be to find a trailer.....

On the home front, I start a new roll of film for Air Photo tomorrow. I'm now in Huntsville so hopefully sales will be a little better up here.

I've also started studying to be a medical transcriptionist. I've taken tests on the first two units and made 100 on each of them. So far so good on that.

Got the fireplace fixed in the motor home and it works like a champ. The people at Suncoast RV in Calera, AL rewired it with heavier gage wire and more heavy duty spade clamps. Then they heat shrunk the connections to make sure they wouldn't work loose. That should do the trick.

Finally, I got some bad news today concerning my mom. Went with her to the doctor today and he told us that she has squamous cell carcinoma in her lymph gland. In the last two weeks it has spread from her neck to her shoulder and in the last couple days another lump has come up behind her ear. That plus the goose egg-sized knot on her neck. She had been getting treated for the last couple years for all her skin cancers getting them cut out and burned off. But I think when she went for the chemo for her lymphoma it lowered her resistance to the squamous cell and it invaded her lymph node and now it's too late to do much about it. They are going to start another chemo and radiation regimine but we both know that it is just going to prolong the inevitable. The doctor said it is advanced and it is aggressive. He pretty much had no words of encouragement. Thursday I go back with her to see her chemo doctor. We have a good rapport with him and I think after digesting this news for a couple days she will be ready for me to ask him the hard questions on how much treatment and how much time left.

This is a lot to deal with. It sure would be nice if Covenant could find a way to make sure Team Redcoat get some good runs once the truck gets running again. On top of everything else, there hasn't been much $$$ coming in for the past couple weeks.

Stay tuned....

 

Latest update....

First, thanks everybody for all the well wishes. We went back to the oncologist today and they are going to start treatment next week. He wouldn't say how long she has as it's very difficult to guess that since it depends on how well the treatment goes for her. But she definitely needs to get started soon because the cancer is starting to push on her throat. Her voice has already changed and the more it grows, the more it pushes on her windpipe. So hopefully the radiation/chemo will shrink it to a manageable size. The doctor agreed that the treatment is really just buying her a little more time but so far she's not in any extreme pain and so is taking everything in stride and will try to do her treatment with a positive attitude.

Team Redcoat has finally gotten their truck back and repowered a trailer (did I get that phrase right?). They drove 500 miles or so to Amazon.com in Pennsylvania. The load was a high security load....i.e. it was a load of empty plastic boxes that they use to put people's orders in.

Next on their agenda is to go to the nearest Pilot to get a shower. I listened to Redcoat complain for at least 10 minutes straight but, truthfully, he had every right to moan. It boggles my mind how these shippers and receivers don't make available any kind of facilities for the drivers. It REALLY REALLY bothers Redcoat how the drivers are forced to speak to people through tiny slits in the wall and how they are not allowed into the building to relieve themselves. He said never in a million years would drivers get treated that way in the UK.

He said they sat for three hours waiting to be unloaded and there was nowhere to go to the restroom. When they dropped the trailer, they were only allowed to pull six feet forward so that meant having to work around the back of the tractor to do whatever they had to do with the trailer. He called it more of the driver harassment program. And then to top it all off, he ended up eating half done hamburger helper (minus the meat of course) because the inverter blew a fuse. So his pasta was half cooked and his meal wasn't even hot enough to melt the butter. After he finished eating, he had to wash the cooker out using the snow outside because he wasn't allowed inside the building. So he was not having a good day.

He said there's something in their truck that shuts off all power to the cab within a few minutes of the engine being turned off so that annoys him too.

It's too bad somebody can't invent a way to cook a meal that doesn't use AC or DC or LP. And it's REALLY too bad that drivers are forced to have to scrounge just to get a decent meal. It seems that with all the preaching about road safety the companies do, they would take the time to outfit the trucks with something to make sure their drivers could at least get some kind of hot meal for nourishment. If the expediter companies can figure it out, why can't the OTR companies do the same??????

MCR was saying in another thread that he was going to send a letter to the media about the conditions that drivers are forced to endure just to do their job. A letter won't come close to describing what you all have to put up with. What he really needs to do is find a high-level reporter with a big audience and have that person go on the road with him for two weeks so they can experience first hand how it feels to be treated like pond scum. The prisons treat convicted felons better than these companies treat their drivers. Even prisoners get a warm bed, a hot meal, and somewhere to relieve themselves when the need arises which is way more than I can say our trucker workforce gets.

It wouldn't be so bad if the pay made up for the poor treatment but for .15 per, it just adds to the insult. The amount of work Covenant drivers do for zero compensation is just amazing. This company has figured out more ways to not pay their employees -- no wait -- to get their employees to pay THEM for the priviledge of working there that they have elevated it to an art form. Any other company looking for ways to cut corners should look no further than the Covenant business model as it is a stellar piece of hocus pocus for driver torture disguised as astute policy.

<getting off my soapbox now>

Stay tuned.

 

Hey MCR glad you are rolling steady again. I wonder if enough truckers were willing to go to the bathroom publicly in Amazon's lot if they'd break down and put a port-a-potty out there. It's a shame that these shippers and receivers can't even afford truckers some common human decency.

Will mention to Redcoat about the sterno idea. I knew about that but had never used it before and so wasn't sure about fumes, etc. He knew about the shutoff deal and wan't trying to use the cooker with the engine off. He just mentioned that because it was just another annoying thing on top of everything else. They also know how to beat the idle thingy. The trainer Redcoat teamed with just before Christmas showed him how to get around that. Truthfully, THAT dude is the trainer Redcoat should have had from the very beginning. Not the moron he had the first couple weeks and not silly britches he had after that.

Team Redcoat is on their way to (I think) Lackawanna, NY. I probably misspelled that. Too lazy to look it up. He was shocked that they actually got a load as he felt for sure they'd have to sit all weekend. His teammate took the info off the QC and so he's not sure exactly where they are going yet. Will let y'all know when I find out. Does it seem as if freight is actually starting to pick up? I know I've seen a few more Covenant trucks on the interstates during my trips to Mississippi and back.

And that's about it for today.