Transitions

First post of 2007! Woohooo!

Yeah, so the wife put the ol' kaibosh on me going back over the road. I wasn't thrilled about the idea, either. I mean, my family's needs obviously came first: the wife was at the point where
she wasn't able to work any more (verrry long story - not in this context, please), so me being away was really not an option. I didn't even call them to tell them I wasn't coming back (I felt kind of guilty about that, but oh well). I'm sure Manny would have been pissed.
So, what to do? Well, it meant having to find work locally, here in Chi-town. That in itself wasn't an easy proposition; it meant updating the ol' resume first. Then it was out pounding the pavement: looking through the classifieds, going on interviews, taking numerous drug tests and road tests (my fav!), dealing with know-it-all managers, blah, blah, blah. Some of my driving school buddies had locked on with a local beverage distributing company (big name), so I filled out an app., never got a call. Without much experience, I was pretty much dead in the water.
So, after weeks of this kind of activity, with no real results, I fortunately found this building supply distributor looking for a driver/warehouse worker. I took the job: I'd been out of work for almost a month, and the checks from the OTR company had stopped coming, ya know? So I went to work for these guys; most of the work was OK: the contractors would come up with their receipts, we'd pull the material (roofing shingles, siding, gutters, etc.) and help load it into their pickup. Just learning the different materials was the toughest part. As for the delivering, the trucks they had were all small (Mitsubishi, if I remember correctly) automatic transmission
straight trucks that were easy to drive. There were a couple of cube vans, and a "stake" truck.
We'd go bring the materials out to the job sites, usually new contruction of single-family homes or townhomes. Sometimes we'd have to go pick up supplies at a warehouse somewhere, or deliver or pick up materials from one of their other locations. It was pretty easy work. You'd have the usual frustrations of traffic, weather, etc. Some of the places they sent us to were way up in the north or west 'burbs, or out in Indiana, but at least the trucks were air-conditioned
(this is June '02 now) and had radios. I remember having a couple of fender-bender type accidents, at least one of which I drove away from, 'cause no one was around.
Then they decided to make me the roofing delivery "specialist" (ha!). The one truck with a manual transmission was a GMC "laddervator," basically a flatbed, 20-25ft or so, with a conveyor boom. We'd load the shingles ("squares") onto the flatbed, strap 'em down tight, then I'd take off in this 6-speed dinosaur to wherever they were doing the roofing job. Most buliding contractors are assholes to begin with, but roofers are a different breed altogether. I think you have to be a little insane to climb around 20 or more feet in the air in 90-degree heat from sunup to sundown. Anyway, I'd pull or back the truck up, swing the boom around to the roof, then start the conveyor when they were ready for me. I'd put the bundles of shingles on the conveyor belt, which had little nubs to hold the shigles in place, then off they'd go. You had to be careful not to load them on too quickly, else you'd piss off the guys taking 'em off up on the roof.
Most of the jobs were re-roofs, so they were single-family homes, which didn't require a whole lot of shingles.
There were a couple of incidents that made me "see the writing on the wall," and realize my time at this outfit was short. I don't remember the sequence, but one time I delivered to a house, and backed the truck up into the driveway just a little too far. I hit the gutter on the garage, denting it a cunt-hair. The contractor went fucking ballistic on me, calling me every name in the book, saying he told me to stop, and get it right or he'd kick my ass. I apologized, but later found out this guy was an ex-Marine or something, and had a really short fuse (ya think?). I tried not to let it bother me - I mean, the damage could have been fixed with one swipe of a paint brush, for Chrissakes - but it did, for a while. The other job that sticks out in my mind was an apartment building these guys were re-roofing. There were a shitload of shingles,
it was 90-plus that day, and it was mid-afternoon, all of which had me gasping for breath, getting light-headed, and nearly fainting. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath, get a drink, etc. Of course, the guys in the office, the sales guys that work with the contractors, always
found out about what happened, even before I returned to the base. How? They were all on the same Nextel network, of course. That "bleeep" sound has annoyed me ever since.
So, I realized I'd have to find something else. Again, update the resume, urine and driving test, all over again. I even tried again at___Cola, with the same results. However, right across the street was this foodservice distributor, and they were looking, so I figured "what the heck?"
They were all very nice; I remember my road test wasn't one of my crowning glories, but they said they'd let me know. After not hearing for a week or so, I called them one day on my lunch break . "Yeah, sorry Steve, you just don't have enough experience..." I'd heard that one before.
The manager there was very nice about it, and said he'd call me if someone else quit, or if anything changed. This was in August. Sure enough, a month later, right around my birthday, he called. "When can you start?" Being a professional, and not wanting to screw anyone (whether they deserved it or not) I told him "Let me give 2 weeks notice, and I'm all yours."
And that's how it went down. I told the building supply people I was going to drive container
trailers (another big, big industry here in Chicago) so they couldn't track down my new employer. Paranoid? Prolly, but hey, whaddya want.

Next: Food Service

More Soon,

Steve