I Think I See Light...

What I'm owed:

Ok friday, saturday, and yesterday I made a project of getting some part of the 2,600 my old company owes me. I called at 9:30, then: I was told they had to wait for Junior to get there. Then I was told that he was on the phone and they hadn't had a chance to ask him yet. I was told this five or six more times, then was told that Junior was gone for the day.

Now yesterday was different. Brian told me they were waiting for a big cash transfer. Until he was gone for the day and I was told to call back this morning.

This morning Brian said the transfer went through, but he has to ask Junior how much of it I can get. First and second time, Junior wasn't there yet. Now Junior is there, but Brian hadn't had a chance to talk to him. HERE WE GO AGAIN.

I emailed Randy, who does their hiring and compliance stuff and is a trucker himself. I asked him to print the email out and put it on Junior's desk.

It's obviously a shell-game, but I'm pretty sure Randy will do that for me. Brian kind of confirmed it by telling me that he was alone at dispatch today, so it would "be awhile". That meant it would be never. Junior will be on the phone or in a meeting all day, until finally he has gone home, and I'm out in the cold again--and all the money that was deposited will be gone.

Herbie needs a new wiring harness, plus an air valve blew out. They have to order it from Memphis. They'll get it done tomorrow afternoon sometime and the estimate is a little under 2 grand...which is 600 bucks less than what I should HAVE NOW, DAMMIT!

Courtney and Corina (or Korina--not sure) have been very cool about this, and will cover it as an advance if I'm not able to get some of the money I've been owed for over three months. It's infuriating.

I'll have no problem paying it back quickly once I'm running, though. The reason I see light is the fact that I'd been planning to replace the harness anyway. Herbie's got over 740,000 miles on him, and I've taken excellent care of him so he's in great shape. The problem is, there's not much you can do about wiring. It WILL corrode, and 700,000 miles is about where the problems start.

This is why I was "fixed", and then broke again. It wasn't the same connection. The corrosion is generally uniform. You see the condition of one connection, and you have a good idea of what the rest look like.

I see light because with a new harness, it's my major preventive maintenance issue knocked out for the life of Herbie, and should be Mister reliable again.

I got lucky on the air leak too: My gas-operated fifth-wheel jaws were failing to work, etc. and that's why: the line burst while they were working on it. For some reason, when compressed air failed to open the jaws, it locked up, and it took a lot of grappling and shifting to get out from under a trailer.

Courtney sort of shocked me by calling me saturday and asking if I was okay for money. In this business, dispatchers don't do that. They want to know about the equipment and stuff, but if you need help personally, you need to call them. Anyway, that was very cool.

I suspect that she may have read this or something--which would also shock me. I mean, my own brothers never read it.

Anyway, they've gone out of my way to tell me not to worry about the money, and that I'm not "going anywhere".

It's still just rediculously assenine that I HAVE TO get advances from them when...

The hell with it.