Swift - Starting the New Year training with Swift 1/7/13 - A long read...

The odds are based on Doc's description of the smell of mold there IS mold in the room. That is NOTHING to be trifled with. Serious health hazard. If anything, Doc would be correct to call the health department. No hotel or motel should be allowed to rent rooms that have obvious wet carpets, mold, or mildew.

But cheer up, it could be bedbugs...

... or are there bedbugs? Bwahahahahahaha!!!

 

I'm thinking about it but I'm not sure if he was right about the way I came across. I don't feel like I had attitude although I was complaining about my truck and the whole shop thing. He just didn't seem understanding of the situation at all. He said something to me like "I don't even know you, I've never met you, but you seem to have a serious attitude. That is not going to get anyone to work with you, having that attitude". Not sure who this new guy is but I am happy he is not my DM. I can already see that I couldn't work with him. This guy Xavier and my DM at my terminal I feel understand the frustrations we go through. They have always been sympathetic and understanding.

The first two nights weren't bad here. The very first night the people next door to me were loud but it wasn't too much of an issue. Second night was quiet. Both times rooms were clean and decent. This room is a different story.

I'm debating telling Phoenix about the experience but I'm reluctant after shaking the guy's hand and just accepting the room ultimately. I guess I can let Driver's Services know and see what happens.

I got the feeling in this situation with this manager that he was over-exercising his right to trespass anyone off the property for any reason. I know they can ask anyone to leave. I remember him saying something about it when he threatened to call the police. I had asked how he would ask me to leave for complaining about my room and he said he didn't need a reason to ask me to leave. He just didn't want me there. That was when I felt defeated because there might be some truth in that.

haha, no I haven't read Kafka. Maybe I will have to, we might be living in some kind of parallel universe.

haha, there might be. The first night I thought I felt itchy but I wasn't sure if it was just in my head. Most likely. At least I'm hoping. I did wake up and look for bites and didn't see any so most likely it was my imagination getting the best of me.

I'm not sure if it was mold but it could be. I don't see any on the walls but I'm wondering it the smell was from the wet carpets. That could be getting moldy from just sitting and being wet. I brought some sneaker spray so I've just been spraying that into the intake on the air conditioner to kill the smell.

 

I laughed so hard at that I farted.

 

And to clarify, on the Newark story, I did get back into that apartment. When I left I drove down the shore to my family's house. Once there I called my ex up and basically did whatever I had to to get back into that apartment. I begged and pleaded, reminding her that I was in my last year of school there, that I needed to be close by to attend and that I had my job up there. I asked if she would allow me back up there, just for a week so I could find another apartment.

She conceded finally and I drove back up the next day, missing work that day and some classes. She went and lived with a friend that she had worked with, while I was to look for an apartment. This was her lesbian/bisexual phase, as I found out later. But that's a whole different story.

Once she was out, the next day I was approached by this worm of a crack fiend who I was somewhat acquainted with in my building. His "street name" was Faheem but his real name is Collie. Like the dog. I had relayed to Faheem about what had happened and he confided in me that Erin, my girlfriend at that time, had been cheating on me. When I would leave on the weekends to go down the shore, I would ask every weekend for Erin to join me. Her family was down there as well as mine. Every weekend it was the same thing. No, she would stay up there in Newark. I never understood it at the time. But I didn't really question it much. She would make it sound like she would just hand out in the apartment, sleep in and watch tv. So I went to the shore every weekend.

When I got back into my apartment she was already gone. She went to this girlfriends house. Faheem approached me and told me that every weekend, at least those weekends when I left and went down the shore, that this guy would come up to my apartment. She would meet him down by the street and escort him upstairs. This was Anthony, a guy from UPS that worked in her building when she still worked at UPS, prior to her quitting and being unemployed. She was cheating on me and on this occasion when it seemed that she was overreacting by calling the police and having me gone from the apartment, she actually wanted me gone so she wouldn't get caught cheating with Anthony. At one time all three of us worked at UPS, her and I in different buildings of the Metro Jersey UPS. She later quit for unknown reasons. I had no idea how she planned on paying for that apartment as she had no job but that was why she wanted me gone.

It all made sense at this point.

When I first moved into these projects I made friends with all of the staff. We had private, unarmed security at the doors and we had armed housing police that would patrol the grounds. And the staff inside the office consisted of a couple of women. Whenever I would venture out to the Great Wall chinese restaurant or to Burger King I would ask the girls in the office and the security guards and housing police whether they wanted me to pick something up for them. Sometimes they wanted something, sometimes they didn't. But I offered and I was in good with them. When this whole thing went down, the next day when I was back in my building I went down to the office staff and explained what happened. I explained about putting Erin's name on the lease so she could earn good credit, that the deposit for the apartment was mine, that I paid all the rent every month. I told them what Faheem had relayed to me about her cheating. Despite Faheem being a crackhead, literally, he was somewhat believable if for no other reason that he was just plain stupid and had an uncanny ability to be truthful despite all his other social disfunction. With that, she removed Erin off the lease and made me the primary leasor. Probably not legal. Probably not legitimate, but so it was.

With my name safely on the lease as the primary tenant, I called her and told her to come get her #### out. Oh, and I knew about Anthony. I paid him a visit in his building the next day while he was on the line.

 

This particular sneaker spray is the good stuff from the dollar store or Dollar General. Chuck full of strong chemicals it usually makes me choke a little when I use it on my shoes inside my truck. I'm thinking it's got to kill whatever is causing the stench in here.

 

You have every right to complain to the corporate office. That manager was in the wrong, and he knew it, which is why he came and played nice after he calmed down. Most likely, he has a problem with his housekeepers and he is not following through. My sister is a manager at a budget hotel, and she will personally clean anything you complain about if she cannot get you in a different room. And when she knows one of her staff members is doing a poor job, she will inspect their rooms and clean them before she fires them. I don't care how "menial" someone feels their job is, if they are not doing it correctly, they shouldn't have it. That manager is at much at fault for your filthy room as his staff and his attitude that you were the problem is why that room was so disgusting.

 

I'm still thinking about it. As weird as it sounds I feel uneasy about it a little after he came in and somewhat apologized, if you want to call it that. And I shook his hand and told him it was ok and that I was having a bad day. Something about shaking the guys hand, saying it's ok then going back and ratting him out has me uncomfortable. I think at this time I'm just going to let it go. I'll let someone else do the complaining and, if there's a problem, it will come up again and will have to be addressed.

Unfortunately I'm back in the motel again tonight. No weird smell but there are wet spots on this carpet too. Different room. So I'm thinking that maybe the housecleaning staff is just cleaning up spots? I'm not sure. Weird that the spot is close to where the wet spot was in the other room, kind of near the tv. Not the exact same spot but nearby. As I checked in tonight of course the same guy had to be the one working the desk. What I had hoped to avoid. He was pleasant and I just asked how he was doing tonight and made a joke about being back. I'm going to keep quiet tonight and just keep my fingers crossed that this will be the last night I have to spend here in Phoenix.

 

I am beyond frustrated today. I'm just trying to relax a little in the room.

I'm back at the hotel. I waited on my truck today, last thing they did was that Qualcomm update. Did a load of laundry at the Phoenix terminal (really Phoenix? only 4 washers and 3 working dryers for this many drivers?!?!). While I was in there I bumped into my 2nd trainer from when I started. That was just about 2 years ago and I haven't seen him since then. What a small world to see him again.

This trainer was the one that picked me up in Laredo. That situation didn't work out and we didn't part ways under the best terms. But time passes and wounds scab up and heal. I was actually kind of happy to see him. We talked about Guatemala, his home country, and my visit there recently. Pretty cool little visit of about an hour before we parted ways again. Probably the highlight of my day second to talking to my mom and finding out that she is feeling ok.

I got the truck out of the shop and was waiting on a load. Finally got one, a high value tcall pickup that was tcalling again in Albuquerque. I did my pretrip, got some soap stains on my truck from the truck wash and I was on my way. Not long into some rush hour Phoenix traffic my A/C starts blowing warm again. And it stayed that way. Temp outside, according to my phone, was 75. Temp in the truck according to that thermometer was 86 degrees. Sitting in traffic at that temperature and I was getting sleepy and aggravated that I just spend more than 3 days here for pretty much nothing. Unless you want to count the QC update that resulted in my QC reminding me, for a short time, that I was exceeding the posted speed limit. Thanks QC. I had enough. Twenty minutes into sitting in the traffic, mostly keeping in the low range of gears, I couldn't take it. I turned the truck around and went back to the Phoenix terminal.

Dropped my high value trailer, took off my lock, bobtailed back to lane 14 at the shop for prequel and I was told that it wouldn't come back into the shop for 3-4 hours and it would be another 6-8 to fix it. I asked the guy, looked like someone in charge, what they didn't fix while the truck was in the shop for the A/C. What did they miss? He mumbled something about a recall on the A/C (which I had heard about a couple of days ago and mentioned to the shop). Reverse the process I did earlier today - Rand McNally GPS removed, satellite radio removed, expensive knife and dashcam removed, clothes packed again, CPAP packed, tablet and computer packed and I was shuffling back across the lot to t-call it in a line of about 9 people. Caught the shuttle just in time and I'm back at the same hotel.

It's starting to feel like one of those old black and white Twilight Zone episodes or possibly even Jim Carrey in the Truman Show. I just can't escape. Now my next worry is getting a load to get me out of here tomorrow (if the truck is fixed again) and running through the weekend. Forever bronze.

 

Frankly I don't understand why you aren't using this down time to fill out job applications