Reality Is

Believe it or not, the rest of my harness was alledly delivered today, but of course the work wasn't done, so here I am again.

Big surprise: At 4 pm Ed at Jamestown tod me Junior was gone. I said "Oh--we're doing this again?" and Ed hollered that I should call "that bitch from hell" and hung up on me.

Ed's explosion didn't bother me--that's just Ed. It told me, however, that he himself was boiling over, because the intra-company cabal was STILL screwing everybody!

I did just what he suggseted, and called the bitch from hell. I told her that at noon tomorrow I was calling the attorney general and tha they were about to get investigated. (Ed might have made a mistake hanging up on me.)

Afterward, when Brian the desk guy at Philly Freightliner (which should be avoided at all costs) almost predictably informed me that my truck wouldn't be ready til tomorrow--I called Courtney.

While updating her and asking for more money (dammit), I also asked her: If she were stiffing her drivers, who would scare her. (She knows all about my situation. Since she's shelling out for all this, I'm sure she's kinda irked too). She conlulted her associate Corina, who I gather has some legal background. They'll get back to me.

Meanwhile, I can't trip over nickels on my way to dollars, and will focus on running all the loads I can get for them.

They can't get away with this. It's war now. But I can do what I need to on the internet and phone without losing one precious mile. I care less for the money now than I do about justice.

I emailed Randy and Brian--I don't know if my actions will help or hurt the good people at my former company, and I'm asking them to either tell me to back off, or to help me.

Since all along Junior could have at least approved some smaller payments, I think I'm being about as reasonable as I can. 100 drivers got stiffed. That's a class-action suit, aint it? What am I missing here?

DAMMIT

Now they say that MOST of my new engine wiring harness was delivered, but not all of it! And they can't find the rest of it! OK I got an 'o4 and it's a Mercedes I got that this harness isn't common anymore--but...now I got part of it but not all of it...

I've been aware that THEY have been out to destroy me ever since in some past life I did something real bad or something...but...are you KIDDING ME? Every freaking time I think it can't get worse it DOES!

The guy told me that if the "rest of" the harness doesn't show up in a second Fedex "overnight" shipment tomorrow, it could take up to another WEEEEEEKKKK to get the rest of it! They can't "find" it on the internet. They say it "doesn't exist, unless that's because it's in transit...but it did exist when we ordered it, but didn't show up with the rest of the harness"...

Nothing makes my blood boil more than a bunch of people kicking and stomping somebody after they've stopped moving. I mean, it's just so evil and sick. The cruelty is beyond my comprehension.

Goddammit get up off me you bastards!

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.

It Just Keeps Getting Better!

When I called this Dealership from my stranded truck on the turnpike, they told me they could look at my truck the next morning. When I woke up as they opened their gates and went in, I was told that they were swamped. All day they never got my truck in, and now the weekend boss has informed me that they will get to my truck monday morning.

I had to call my agent and tell her this. She sounded weary. That's just peachy.

I called my old company six times yesterday dogging them for money. They gave me Dee's number. Dee is the "bookkeeper" for the intra-company cabal which has to be committing a crime by withholding the money, and left two messages for her begging for the money I'm owed.

I can't do anything about the late load, but my blood is boiling about the fact that I'm personally on life-support and will have to take advances from the people who gave me my first load for them about five days ago to bail out the trailer and truck! I swore I'd never be in this situation again, I did everything right, and now here I am! THREE MONTHS I held out--how can you get burned with a 90-day pad plus 1800 bucks I've spent for repairs? Are you kidding me?

I can't stay in my truck. They lock it in at night. I have to stay here at the hotel. I found just enough for one more night in my corp. account--so now my monthly billables will come up "nsf"--50 in my personal account, and 150 on my comdata card which I'm supposed to use for fuel.

I need to talk to Junior. He's not the bad guy and is caught in the middle of this (they owe HIM money too!). I don't want to hurt him, and need to find out if going after them legally will harm him, Ed, or the other good people who work there. I know it's too small an amout for a lawsuit, but maybe the Ohio Attorney General or some commission would be interested in auditing them.

After another call to Dee, restating my desperate situation and plea, I called Brian at my former company. I said I knew who the bad guys were and had called them. I asked for anything I could get. Brian was obviously busy because I got the "uh-huh" parade as I spoke. No doubt my situation is common knowlege there, and in reality the fact that I'm not with them anymore has probably put me at the bottom of the pay-list.

He said I should call back after 11:00.

I don't know that I've ever been in such an outrageous situation before. Yeah--the truck thing could have happened at any time and is just sort of an act of God. But my agents shouldn't have to cramp their budget to PAY for it TOO when...

Well, I'm being redundant again, and apologize to anybody who might accidentally read this.

Now I take a shower and go visit Herbie. I've got a fridge in the room so I can take food out of my truck's fridge and at least not pay for food. Plus I think I've got some change lying around.

I'll pay for saturday night with my Corp. Card and put it on ice, withdraw 50 and 100 from the ATM. If my former company can squeeze out any money for me in a comcheck, I can sign that over to pay part of my repair or tow bills.

Dammit.

THEM

Happened again. On Jersey pike. Never break down on Jersey Turnpike. Towing restricted to certain contractors.

This time I had a load. Had to drop the trailer at the towing yard and get towed to a Freightliner in Philly. I was flat broke from the last time and had to get an 800.00 advance from Dispatch to bover the tow bill. Storage is 75.00/day. 400.00 of the tow bill was for the two from their yard to here: 14 miles, calculated by my truck-specific GPS router, which I took out of the truck and showed them. The boss's answer was to repeat "Four hundred".

Some people, when they know they've got you, take all they can get, and sleep like a baby. What a wonderful world this could be if we could weed them out. Put them on an island with others like them. Boy would THAT be a great reality show!!!

Freightliner can't look at it til this afternoon. I suggested an exorcist. I'll have to borrow more to cover repairs and bail out the trailer. THEY must have read my last blog and been dissatisfied with merely breaking me--I'm real hard to bum out.

Meanwhile I owe Road use taxes and am collecting toll bills. I call my former company daily and am daily told that they can't pay me any part of the TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED BUCKS they owe me.

I got one ray of hope this time. I smelled burning wires before the permafailure. It might have been another truck, but if it was mine, they'll find it quickly, and have a strong clue as to what caused it.

Oh...and I got a flat tire...one of the new expensive ones. It's intact, at least.

I found a few bucks left in one account and walked to this hotel. Dammit I sweated about two gallons, they don't have a shower, and lately people can't seem to stand looking at me. I think I look like a bad combination of rage and self-pity.

My agents aren't set up to subsidize drivers. They have a budget. This might be hurting them more than it does me, and I can't stand it.

I told the guy at Freightliner to make sure this wouldn't happen again. I'll wait til 2 pm and call my former company again. They'll tell me the same thing, and I'll do some arm-twisting and take what I can get. If/when I DO get a good chunk of what they owe me, at least I can repay some of what I'll owe the agent.

Otherwise, I already told them they could take half of my pay--probably more. I do need to cover those bills--and get two tires before too long, but I don't have other expenses. They seem to be able to keep me running--not many deadhead miles, nor much time between runs, so I should "get right" in a matter of weeks.

That's it. No Family Reunion, probably no Thanksgiving or Xmas. I'm running hard the rest of this year. What if I break down again? Beyond the bills, I have to be ready for stuff like this. I always was...til my former company stopped paying me and I "bled out"...dammit.

Herbie wasn't brain dead. The problem took a lot of exploratory surgery to locate, but was a butt connector. I didn't think Herbie had a butt, and am going nuts trying to figure out what it's connected to, but I didn't ask.

I checked my accounts and found a total of 890 bucks between them. The bill was 855. So I made it without having to ask my brand new company to advance me money right away.

I personally get irked with drivers who need money immediately ASAP each and every week. How can you stand living like that? I never cared if it took 2 or 3 weeks--just get it in the pipeline, and meanwhile I'll get the one before it, and I've got some saved.

But this time it's different. My comfort margin is all gone. I got food for awhile...

They got me a load out here to western NY pretty quick. It was short, heavy, and I think pays peanuts, but I understand they're just moving me, and I'll get my better loads. The two I missed because of Herbie's siezure were good ones.

My former company still has not paid me any of the 2600 they owe me.

THEM again.

The ECU is the electronic control unit (module), or Herbie's brain.

After finding my first load to Cambridge undeliverable, being directed to an intermediary warehouse to deliver my one pallet, and heading out for my pickup going to WV, the stalling came back with a vengeance, and finally shut me down for good.

I had had it pegged as a bad connection, but after resetting the computer and turning the key to "on", the check engine light remains on, and the screen says "ECU 12 8". It's telling me that after shut down and reset, and without the engine running, the ECU is malfunctioning.

Herbie is brain-dead.

THEY did this, of course. Waited until I finally got a new job with a great company, and was on my very first load to trigger this failure. Well, THEY were a little late, since I delivered that first load (preserving my perfect record...I mean perfect except for the time my clutch went out). (I have NEVER failed to deliver...except then. Even when I had other breakdowns, I managed to get it fixed or else limp down the home-stretch. Once I even had a towtruck go out if it's way to drop my trailer at the reciever the night before the appt. time.)

The tougher part is this: My former comany still owes me 2600 bucks and has still not paid me, and I won't have enough to cover the repairs!!!

I hate this. After being the thing that wouldn't go away and becoming a trucker, I've never needed help. I took care of my own problems, and made sure I had the money saved to cover it.

Now I might well have to ask for a big advance from Medallion. I THINK they'll do it, but this is a hell of a way to start a new gig: In the hole.

Well the towtruck driver just called--gotta get ready. At least the place I found is only 7 miles away.