Underemployment

 

I was standing outside shooting the breeze with Jimmy, the yard switcher. We were laughing about...that is I was bitching about the changes that have come down recently in my job. Al pulled up and climbed out of his truck. As he approached I said to Jimmy, “Al might be feeling the same way right about now.” Right on cue Al shakes his head and says, “Fuck this shit.” Jimmy laughed.

Jimmy can laugh at his leisure, the changes don’t effect him, only us “professional drivers.” I’d been complaining about the drop in pay; asking us to work our asses off dropping trailers hither and yon, and risk our lives in a big truck for around ten bucks an hour. Al, though cocked his head toward the building and said, “This guy,” clearly meaning Sam, the corporate honcho running things lately. “He drank a whole bunch of that JB Hunt Koolaid!” Al has a point.

There, I’ve said it, I’ve named the Company. Early on in my blogging career I disguised who I drove for. I described life from a drivers perspective, with practices and exploits that while responsible didn’t exactly fit with corporate policy. JB is so anal retentive I wouldn’t put it past them to pay people to scour the internet looking for their name. Oh, but they wouldn’t want to pay someone when they could simply have a spider do the leg work, now would they? Do I sound bitter?

I’d been stressing over the situation since the word about the changes came down over New Years, but haven’t done much to find another job. I mean, after a grueling 10 to 14 hour day, with an hour commute each way who has the energy? And on the weekend it’s recovery mode. The truth is I’m not optimistic about finding anything close to home that will pay a living wage, and home is where I want to be. So, I’ve been depressed.

“Promise me you won’t quit your job until you have another one,” my friend fairly pleaded with me. “I can’t do that,” I said, although it was my every intention to secure something else before I did quit. “I was already questioning if this job was worth the toll it’s taking on me before. If the money isn’t enough to make it worth my while, I mean, if I can’t afford the petrol to get to work then what’s the point?” KC fears for me, I know.

Living in denial I’d failed to calculate exactly what my pay would be. I simply accepted the phrase “hundreds of dollars a week” that my coworkers were bandying about and shuffled on in my haze. Then the changes took effect and I was forced to look at the reality of it. “I can’t do this anymore!” I’d scream into the night, then take a deep breath and soldier on. Then it hit me... ”I have a class A commercial driver’s license. I can quit this account without quitting my job!” So I did, I turned in my two weeks notice. What a relief! I felt so much better, instantly. It had to be the right decision.

I'm probably going to have to go back out on the road. Hopefully I'll find something that get's me home weekends, at least. The blog will change once again from Recurring Nightmare back to The (Ultra)Reluctant Trucker. I could keep working for JB Hunt; then again...

 

New Year's Dissolution

 

Happy New Year everybody!

Resolutions? Sort of yes and no. I don't do New Year's resolutions. I know how they generally turn out so I just reorient myself to the points of the compass and walk on.

I did kind of have a resolution made for me. It came the week between Xmas and New Years, at work. The best Fleet Manager in the world had recently quit. The guy he trained to take over, Jeremy, actually looked like he might be OK, but he was only there for a week before corporate sent him somewhere else and we were being managed by Sam, long distance from Cleveland. Sam was being trained by the manager of the same account up in the Northeast Ohio region. My fellow drivers who have been around know the trainer. They say he's an asshole.

Forgive me, I've already given far more detail than I meant to. I was just painting the backdrop.

So I get a message over the satellite saying that a couple of corporate guys would be in the office one afternoon and they wanted to meet with us individually. Cutting to the point: they're cutting our pay, fairly drastically, by thousands of dollars a year. A re-negotiated contract. There are guys who've been working this account for fifteen years. I found out today they haven't gotten a raise in five years, yet the workload has increased. As for me, I've been questioning whether the degree of commitment necessary to commute to this job is worth it. I know that I won't find anything local that will pay as much, but now I won't be making as much anyway, so I resolve to look for another job. Happy New Year!

It's almost a theme. Up at the Dollar General Distribution Center in Marion we've never had to stop at the gate. We just put on our four ways and eased through. If both of the inbound lanes were occupied then we could use the "express lane" on the outside. We stopped on the way out and that was enough. The other evening I noticed that the folks in the guard shack were paying a lot more attention than usual as I went by. On the way out one of the guys said, "You didn't stop at the gate!" like he was mad. "I, I didn't think I had to," I rejoined. The guy winked and the woman running the shift said, "Just slow down enough so we can get the numbers off your truck. New policy. They keep thinking of ways to make us do more work."

I thought I was joking when I said, "Well you're obviously overpaid."

"Ha!" she retorted, "They've taken care of that, they've cut our wages."

Wait a minute. I thought the Dollar Stores were the big beneficiaries of the Great Recession. I thought they were doing bang up business with everyone looking for a bargain. Lord knows we can't get up there often enough to collect all the pallets left over after they've stocked the merchandise that came in on them.

I'm reminded of what Catherine Crier said in that book I read, Patriot Acts. To paraphrase; "The 'job creators' won't make jobs out of the goodness of thier hearts if there's no demand, no matter how much money they have. They're beholden to the bottom line. Capitalism isn't immoral, it's amoral." Too bad they think short term.

Look at the job market. Cut the wages. Maximize the profits.

But I can't leave you with that, it's my first post of the new year. During the "W" years I used to say, "The world is in worse shape than I've ever seen it." [then I'd say, "Good job Bush!"] It's hard to say whether it's actually worse now or not. It ain't good, that's for sure, although the technology is fantastic.

Speaking of technology here's something to cheer you up: I recently learned that the new GM (genetically modified) "RoundUp® ready" crops have spurred such an over use of herbicide that we not only have run off, but herbicide resistant weeds, leading to the new wave of GM crops that are tolerant to defoliants; read Agent Orange. They are already in widespread panic! Where's Rachael Carson when you need her?

"...Leonard Brezhnev...It's the End of the World as we Know it..."

Yes folks, it's the end of Western Civilization, long predicted and even, dare I say, long anticipated. But we come out of it as one tribe, regardless of your skin color, your sexual preference or your spiritual beliefs. It really couldn't happen any other way. I once mused, wondering if this was the plan for every planet capable of producing and empowering intelligence: fossil fuels for them to use, then abuse. Still, there's no guarantee that there will be "a remnant," a surviving community here on Earth, what with all of the undoubtedly trillions of experiments spread throughout this sublime Universe, and in the end maybe none of them survive (those sound like fighting words). I hope we do. I want to be a part of it, but it doesn't ultimately matter, It's All Good.

Happy New Year!