Hot again. I was going to remove the air conditioner from my bedroom window this weekend. It's Labor Day, summer's over, right? I've already missed some beautiful sleeping weather where I had to have the AC on low, or the fan going just to give the air a semblance of freshness because I couldn't open the window. But it's hot again. Exactly why I left the job undone.
It has been lovely lately. I've been enjoying the mornings especially, when I wake up and the temps are cool (I've pulled out a long sleeve shirt) and the humidity low. Autumn is definitely on it's way; I've even seen some early color in the leaves, and the flocking of birds. I miss the geese back at Electrolux, but I'm sure they're doing fine.
There's no such thing as a pond at the warehouse that I work out of now. A mudhole yes, even after the scant rain that we've had. I never knew that I had it so good. I used to hook to one trailer and drag that around to several stops. Now I have to hook to a new trailer at every stop I visit. It's a lot of work. I don't have to move the appliances around anymore, but once I'd learned the technique that wasn't really so hard. I counted it as exercise and I suppose I should do the same about climbing in and out of the tractor and dollying the landing gear up and down all the time.
The people are OK; no, they're good. I like my new Fleet Manager better than my last, by far. I always thought that he was slimy, but harmless; just dong the best he could with less than a full deck. Now that he's screwed up my vacation pay so badly I have to wonder if he's really that dumb, or is he actually malicious? I'm going to enlist his help to try and at least salvage what I'm due. We'll see if he steps up.
All in all the new job seems a loss. The first paycheck, sans erroneous vacation inflation seems good so it may even out. It'll certainly improve once I learn the peculiarities of the different customers and can get in and out more quickly. It's already getting better in that respect.
Overall, though, it's more work. It's only seven miles further than my last job but the quality of those miles (traffic) increases both the travel time and the fuel mileage. That will ease too, once the construction at the junction of IN 37 and I 465 is completed. I think it's do-able.
I had a fairly early day once, where I didn't have to rush home so that I could arrive at bedtime if I wanted eight hours sleep and still needed to both relax and eat (and they admonish us not to eat just before bed!). I stopped at the liquor store on the way and bought a six pack (shh, don't tell anyone) and jumped off the four lane onto Old 37 through the forest so that I could begin my relaxation earlier.
Can you believe it, the road was closed for some more of that drainage work they were doing awhile ago, only this time they didn't even bother to put up a sign!? I thought about taking Brummets Creek back over to 37 but Farr Road was before that. I couldn't recall the way, but I did remember that if you made a wrong turn it was a fur piece so I brandished my smart phone and looked at the map. It was a way awesome drive but I still ended up making a wrong turn and had to backtrack to Old 37. I'd been hoping that I could go out on the bicycle, something I used to do after work in the old days, but these "mountain" roads are dangerous in the twilight.
Still, it seemed to me that if I got the route down it really wouldn't be much longer to cut across country than to go up the highway. It would certainly be much more beautiful. But I dismissed the idea; I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to explore the back route in the daytime again, let alone ride my bike after work.
See how wrong you can be? I not only got to explore the cross country route again (oops, I missed Miller road and had to go up Shiloh) but got home in time to take a bike ride before the twilight, but after rush hour. I'm pretty sure that is a rare occurrence.
I get the feeling that my new boss is testing me, trying to decide where I fit in on the work spectrum. I'll have some intensely hard days, and then a really easy one. Like a true Taoist I embrace them all equally. I don't know what to tell the dude. I'm a hard worker, and will only call in the Calvary in desperation, and desperately need to make money. On the other hand I need time to release the pressure valves, so I'll take either.
