Someone didn't read... Unemployment insurance is temporary income for eligible workers who become unemployed through no fault of their own and who are ready, willing, and able to work. It's what everyone just calls unemployment.
Jeff You and me think the same way. I worked two jobs once full time on one and the other contract work with the Corps of Engineers. Basically I maintained the park. Probably one of the most enjoyable jobs I ever had. I noticed myself become even more ridicules at the house if I passed by a weed in the yard no matter where I was en rout to I would take the time to pull it. I kept the park looking awesome and I was there every morning before sunup my park being on the East facing shore I got to watch the sun come up It was an awesome way to start your day. But you see the park is only open a little better than half the year. The other people that maintained different sections were doing it then filing U.I. for the rest of the year till they went back.
I've been unemployed for almost three months now. I've applied to so many places my fingers hurt from filling out applications (For some reason the bastards just won't take my resume that has the same exact info on it). I even asked my old company if I could come back and work. They said "No Work" for me right now. Fuck them. My UI doesn't cover shit. Its four hundred less than my monthly bills without food, repairs, cigs, alcohol or anything else. I'm slowly going into a hole that I'm not gonna be able to pull myself out of. Things are bad out there people. Things are bad.
Originally posted by UCICARE Sorry Barry, I deleted this by accident trying to re-login. You wrote: I know that things are bad, but for some reason I am still working at 10:00PM on a Saturday night. I recently hired several people to work for me remodeling a building. A couple worked their asses off, and I paid them well and gave them all the hours I could. Several others acted like they were on the government payroll, fluffed off, bitched and complained, and basically showed themselves the door. Not surprisingly those that worked hard for me are now busy working for others, and are "covered up" with work. The rest stop by about once a week to tell how bad the economy is. My point? Skilled people that will work will always have a job. Joe is a good example. He is out of work, but in no time somebody wanted him. On the other hand, I have a feeling Cheesedog's reputation has preceded him. A man with good references is called "employable." A man without them gets writers crap from filling out applications.
and I say, John (Cheese) is a trucker. The first thing that gets affected when the economy takes a turn for the worse is trucking, shipping, fulfillment etc. Less spending = less demand = less need for people to ship things. Combine that with higher fuel prices etc. and it's no wonder Cheese is having a hard time finding work. I have no doubt he's an excellent driver. To make a statement like that, Barry, that only the 'skilled' and 'talented' and hard working will rise to the top and find work again is pretty f*cking arrogant. Maybe you have it lucky because people are so stressed out these days so you have no problem selling your 'feel-good' services but I don't think it's fair to deride Cheese and assume he's not worthy or not qualified to find work.
WTF? Way to kick someone when they are down! Sounds like someone needs to get off their fucking high horse, but that post didn't surprise me. If you look at any posts Barry makes anymore, they are all belittling and shitty. I think he needs therapy.
Barry and Cheese should bond. I think Barry should let his wife go camping with Cheese for a weekend and then get together with his wife and talk about it. Cheese can teach you things, Barry. Your relationship will be so much better for it. What do you say? ... here come the gun posts again. Lomo - get ready.
Honestly - do you seriously intend to belittle Barry's contribution to society in your post? John - I had an opportunity to meet him a few years back, and he's a great guy (that also has a talent for fucking with people and making others laugh about it,) and the employment that paid his bills and covered the cost of his hookers may be suffering because of trends that have moved people away from their typical 'consumer' base. Nevertheless - he's both a great guy and an essential component of the equation. Barry - I've never met him, but I have had a few conversations with him in the past. Perhaps you feel that more people are needing the 'Dr. Feelgood' therapy as a result of the economic conditions in our country, but who's going to pay out of pocket for them? I'm sure Barry has been hit by this dramatized economic debacle as well - who's to say that he wasn't supplying an Asian crime ring with Alprazolam on the sly? What about those gooks without their drugs?!? Then we have Joe. He was present for 83% of the below-ground atomic bomb tests, and has since grown a third testicle, as well as a strange, glowing toenail that appears to resemble the glass from the initial "Trinity" test site. This is a man to be reckoned with. He can determine, at will, your attendance at his future barbecues. Think about it.
Everyone has an opinion and everyone is entitled to disagree. I didn't see Jefe's post as belittling (you stole my word, btw) but I did see Barry's post as coming across (at the very least) tactless.
Actually, I have very good references. No Accidents, 0 points on my license, and I haven't been late for a pick up or delivery in 5 years. No, I do not list "Makes fun of people online" under the special skills section of my resume. And I certainly don't apply as "Johnny Cheezedawg." Jefe is right in what he's says about the trucking industry. We are the first ones hit and last ones to recover. As an example, I owned my own truck for a year and would still own it today if deisel fuel didn't go up to 4.50 a gallon last year. When u spend all of your profits on fuel and repairs, there is nothing left to live on or make payments with. I could driver 70 hours a week and still not have money to pay my mortgage with. Even when I went to work for a company the very next week after selling my truck, they didn't have enough work for me to make a decent check. I spent most of my time sitting in parking lots and not making money. When the others companies began failing, their drivers started applying at our company. And like the greedy assholes they are, my company hired them even though there already wasn't enough work for the current drivers. (If you are wondering why they do that, its because with more trucks they can pick up more loads in different areas because the trucks are more spread out. The only ones who are hurt by it are the drivers who now have to compete with their own co-workers for the loads.) Being that I had a higher pay rate because of my experience, they choose not to rehire me after my doctor cleared me for work. They continue to hire people today, just guys who work dirt cheap. It had nothing to do with being a lazy guy. The thing is, after the economy picks back up, the trucking companies will continue to pay low wages and not raise them back up because they assume truckers are used to those wages. Some smaller companies will raise the wages (the larger ones use the excuse "We must remain competetive to keep our customers and that means charging less per load.") I have seen what these big companies are paid for hauling and yes... they are making a fortune. Think 3.00/mile. Fuel runs about .50/mile and a high paid driver gets about .45/mile. Still leaves about 2.05 /mile. On an average of 3000 miles a week, thats 6 grand a week per truck. Fleet average of 1000 trucks.... well u get the picture. Payments on new trucks run about 500 bucks a week. Insurance is about 75 bucks a week. Where does the other money go? To some suit sitting in his office 6 hours a day figuring out who to screw his employees out of more. The question is..... how do I get to become that guy? How do I get to give myself 10 million bonuses for screwing my employess out of 15 million. Guess I should have stayed in college.
I drove trucks in the military and worked as a diesel mechanic in the civilian world. I considered driving trucks myself. But even back in the early 90's it seemed to be going to shit for the drivers. There were two kinds of drivers it seemed those that had decent routes and stayed with the company forever. And there were the ones that come and go always jumping over to another company and never content. So I changed my mind word was out that it was not going to get any better working for someone else and the real way to go was owning your own. But that does not always pan out either. My cousin owned a few trucks had a couple guys driving for him when the fuel cost went up. It ran him out of business same for the guy I mentioned in a previous post named William he was also an owner operator and said that on top of the high fuel cost freight simply started slowing down to a near stand still around Nov. last year. But speaking of U.I. and living off of it. I tried to make it a point of having a routine as if I were still working. Getting up at 0700 and spending a few hours looking at job posts and organizing the job search. Did that everyday and tried to busy myself on home projects. Texas has the "Texas Workforce Commission" I went there to see if there were any good resources. Amazingly I ran into must have been 10 different guys getting sent to school by the state for of all things truck driving. Go figure, I advised to them what I had heard and understood about the industry. But they were sure they would be busy working again soon. To me the unfortunate thing about trucking is that its a skill that simply does not transfer to other industries. Cheesedog does your state offer paid training by the state? Texas does and has a wide variety to offer for training in the medical or IT profession as well as of course truck driving schools. Something to check into.
I don't buy into the class warfare crap myself. Life is a gamble businesses win and lose all the time. The owner takes the risk and reaps the rewards or consequences either way. People come to America with nothing and become millionaires. It is true you have to look at life sensibly to succeed.
I'm happy to be still in long-term, part-time employment that pays very well. All of these sad, unemployed plebs scurrying around nowadays is just terrible.
Cheeze, I dont know where you are located, but we are shipping like crazy. A couple of the companies we use are Paschall (PAT) and Florida Rock and Tank. I dont know if they are running anything up to MD, but they are going GA tl La a lot, and all over the south east. We closed a shipping hub in Savannah (transfer station) and now do all the Shipping for the area directly out of Augusta, they are always looking for drivers.
I love the southeast... but I don't live there so those companies aren't hiring me. The area in MD where I live is not close to Baltimore (where most of the freight I ran is out of.) In fact, anywhere in the state of DE is closer to me than Baltimore. Most companies want to have freight in the vicinity of drivers because it cuts the cost of sending them home empty from 150 miles away and sending them empty another 150 miles to pick up the load when they leave the house. I have a blanket application with all the major companies in America. If Paschall had loads going to and from my area, they would have already contacted me and asked me to drive for them. That's how these companies operate. Even so... Augusta might be a hot spot for freight right now. Where those loads end up going... well... they may be a dead zone. Its all about establishing dedicated lanes... but once a company does, the others jump in and try to cutt-throat. Don't be suprised if a huge company like JB Hunt or Swift all of the sudden is running all your freight. They can afford to take a hit on the freight charges and have the added extra bonus of having hundreds of thousands of trucks so that they never miss a pick-up. They can even swap the load out between drivers all the way across country if they need to in order to get it there faster (No sleeper breaks equal faster delivery equals more available trucks). Ahhhh the art of shipping....
The bulk of our intercontinental freight is rail, the trucks hit the southeast (Im guessing for speed of delivery). Then we have some intermodal that hits the pirate lanes. Savannah is only an hour and a half away, so they were kind of a non-value added hub. We are a production facility, plus a point of origin, so it works out well. They have also built a straight shot from here to savannah (used to be 2 lane) so its really a quick shot. Savannah has 95 and 16, we have 20.
When I worked as a mechanic I knew two drivers that lived in Ocala Florida and worked out of Nashville.
