"Yes, that's because I don't have any of the necessary information with me. I'm not at home at the moment. I'm actually at orientation for [redacted]."
"Not going so well or have you decided not to apply with us afterall?"
"The former."
"Do you know when you should expect to be back home?"
"Hopefully by the end of this week at the absolute latest."
"Well, I'll note that you're away from home for your OTR training and will complete the application process when you return. Once you do so, we'll be able to set you up with a phone interview."
"That would be fine. I look forward to it. Will that be with you or someone else?"
"It will be with me. You're in my hiring region."
"Excellent. I'd hate to think all this rapport would go to waste."
"Noted. Can I ask what made you decide to apply with us?"
"Only if I can tell you something entirely absurd but true."
"Alright."
"Orange has always been my favorite color."
"Are you serious?"
"Absolutely. You must admit that the color of your fleet is incredibly eye-catching. That's what caught my attention initially. Couple that with all the ad spots on XM radio and I thought I better take a look at what you have to offer."
"That's unusual. I don't think anyone has ever given that reason before."
"Well, I'm probably unusual myself. More than probably to be honest."
"Obviously."
I'm not at all impressed with my experience thus far with my current employer. The training process has been entirely laughable. That would be bad enough without all the damn lies.
Oh, yes. These mother truckers lied. They lied alot. They lied about everything. They continue to lie, too. They smile and lie directly to my face.
Now I know how people feel when I do it. The difference is clear, however. When I do that, it's usually because I don't fucking like you or give a damn how you feel or react. More often than not, it's a reflex and a direct result of being asking an entirely stupid question in the first place. Or, again, I just don't fucking like you. That's your fault, by the way. You should probably work on that if you happen to be one of those people. You're probably not if you're reading this, though. I must admit that I'm incredibly evasive as a standard of practice. I'm a fairly mysterious and secretive individual. I don't like to share, either. Blogging being the obvious exception to those rules. Anyway, enough diverting.
Those mother truckers lie. I don't owe them a damn thing. I feel no allegiance, loyalty, or obligation to these people. I actually feel nothing at all except for relief that I'll be free of them soon - although not soon enough.
Here's the plan:
1. Jump on a truck tomorrow morning with a driver taking a load to Michigan. He will divert his course only about 100 miles to drop me off at the terminal near my house. I will then check in with the terminal manager, find my truck somewhere on the lot, use the key I have already been given to gain access to said truck, perform a complete vehicle inspection on the truck to assess what maintenance must be performed and what physical damage pre-exists to avoid later being held responsible and asked to pay for repairs, fax that inspection back to this terminal, fill out a work order for any maintenance necessary, call my sister, and get a ride home.
2. Complete my online application. It's not for an OTR position. It's actually for a dedicated run. That might actually be better for me, anyway. 6 days out/2 days home is a much better trade off than 1 day at home for every 7 days out. Also, I'm not wild about having to team up with some random person for six months and only make half the pay rate I was originally quoted when I applied. Liars.
3. Complete my phone interview.
4. Enjoy my home time and wait for a call back.
5. Decide what to do from there. Although, if they call, I already know what I'm going to do. I'd be doing it right now if they weren't going to insist on taking all the proper steps.
I've done alot of research during my (now) 7 days of orientation. My current employer has a lot of bad reviews from previous employees. I've also spoken to some current employees at the terminal who are apparently just two short words from being previous employees themselves. "I quit" is the polite version of that scenario. This new company... haven't really found anyone who has anything terrible to say about them. Also, their training program is amazing. They use freaking simulators to put trainees into dangerous, crazy situations without putting them or anyone else into danger. Also, their in-cab technology is actually this generation: gps (trucker friendly version which avoids routing under low clearance over-passes and other dangerous scenarios like that), wireless internet, electronic logging, blahblahblah. Yeah, it's awesome. Their paid orientation pays $200 more than my current orientation. They also offer tuition reimbursement which I'll need when I fail to honor my year of service contract with my current employer. Signing bonus, too, which will help me recover from being unemployed forever and making barely enough money to survive on during my extensive training and orientation process.
Why am I doing this? Why the hell wouldn't I?
This hasn't all been a waste. I did obtain my CDL through a school I wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise but now can through completely different methods. I also got to drive all over this country for five weeks without having to pay for fuel and got paid (extremely poorly) to do so. I will never forget my time with Mickey. I will also never forget to stay as far away from Texas as possible in August. It was an experience, just not the experience I wanted. If things had been different... Well, who cares? It was exactly what it was.
Now it's over. Nearly over, anyway.
I would be sleeping right now, but I'm not allowed to drive at all while riding along with this driver headed to Michigan. Which means I get to spend roughly 36 hours in the sleeper berth of the truck while he drives the thousand miles to take me home. Due to hours of service restrictions, it will take him that long to drive it himself. So, I'll be sleeping alot. I probably won't sleep for two days once I finally get home. I don't mind not driving, though. I wouldn't necessarily want some other random trucker - much less a completely new one straight out of orientation - driving my truck. I can get away with that because I'm talking about myself.
I just realized that in two days I'll be back in a place where everyone won't be refering to me as a yankee. I barely remember what that's like now. I was the only one in orientation. I thought I might have a week off from all the yankee jokes here. I was seriously wrong about that.
"Where are you from? You have an accent."
"No, I don't."
"Yeah, you sure do. New Jersey or New York is my guess. Boston, maybe."
"Those are my choices? Really? I don't think so."
"Your attitude says a little different."
"What are you even talking about? Oh, ok. I see. I'm from Ohio. We have corn and the rock and roll hall of fame. It's probably the least bitchy of the northern states, trust me. It's like Iowa only... we have music. I don't know. We're nice people and we don't have accents."
"Well... I'll have to take your word for that, yankee."
"There it is. Awesome. I knew that was coming. I'm going to get that tattooed somewhere."
Everybody's got jokes, too. They insisted I must have some southerner jokes. I seriously don't and I told them that. They didn't believe that either. I honestly don't really spend a whole lot of my time thinking about what's down here. That's not me being a snob, either. Which, I am sometimes. I've just never been south before this. I hadn't expected all the hostility. I didn't have any hostility toward any of the southern states previous to this. I still don't. I'm greatly annoyed by them now. I've learned to speak as little as possible to not make a complete spectacle of myself while I'm down here. It's not always possible, but it definitely helps when it is.
Gut en haben! Speaking of which, I got trouble for that as well. I was filling out the information for my insurance beneficiary. Naturally, I chose my sister. The woman who was in charge of ensuring we filled out all of our paperwork correctly stopped in front of me and pointed at the blank I had just filled in.
"Is that German?"
"Yes, it is."
"Aha. It all makes sense now. Ok, then."
"Wait... What... Nevermind. I don't... I don't even want to know."
"I knew he had an accent." chimed the guy who thought I was from Boston.
"I really don't. I just want to go home."
Almost there. What a long road it has been to simply end up back where I started and a little worse for the wear. But, I do have a plan for that.
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