Taking a leave of absence and the little bits beforehand

Monday, December 19^th, 2011

In honor of this festive time of year, I will be taking a respite from the blog during the holidays. I'm doing this, not to honor any particular tradition, rather because I am taking a break from driving for a bit. I will be switching companies so that necessitates another orientation, which is not really driving. Should events change, there will be an update, but not likely.

      I woke up confused face down and partly drooling. Par for the course I suppose. A lot of things happening. I had to get the windshield replaced, and get my ECM reflashed. Sounds technical I suppose, but what it really means is that my on-board computer needed an update. So I get myself dressed and walk over to the shop. I talk to El Dude-a-rino about the whole situation. He informs me that this will be an all day event, and that they will come to collect my truck after he makes some phone calls. Total bummer. I'm still under the impression that it would be a quick fix, and that I would be taking my home time in Pacific, Washington today.

      So I go back to my truck and fix me some breakfast. No rush, right? they'll come over and get the truck and take all day, so I'm just going to enjoy the oatmeal. Then this glass replacement guy comes driving into the yard. I wonder if he's looking for my truck, since it has this crater in the driver's side windshield that the shop said they would take care of but hadn't yet for some reason. Not much suspense here, but of course he's looking for my truck. A friendly chap with tattered pants rugged from many long days of working with glass. I help him pop the hood since it is a bit tricky, and he gets to work. Sometime during the whole process, another driver comes walking by. When I say “sometime during the process,” I mean the exact moment he is taking the new glass out of his van with those cool suction thingies and getting ready to set it into the now gaping hole that my face would sit behind were I driving. Back to the truck driver. He comes walking by and says, of all things, “Don't break it,” to the young man replacing the glass. The young man responds, “I won't.” To his credit, of course he didn't. He wouldn't be doing that job very long if he broke the replacement windshields all of the time would he?

      Later, as he is finishing up, I get out of my truck. I walk over to him at a slow mosey. “Hey buddy. Has there been a single day in which some smart assed driver hasn't said 'Don't break that?'”

He just kinda looks at me, rolls his eyes back to the recall position (top right) and droops his head. “No.” At least he smiled about it all.

      Then back to the shop where they see that the windshield guy has finished and they then call the Freightliner dealership to see if it is ok for me to bring the truck, which it is. Awesome! Totally get a much better turn around time if I take the truck over. Which I do. Simple drive, a fairly uneventful 25 minutes. I sit in the lounge waiting for them to do what was supposed to be a 45 minute job. Well, I have no idea how long it took, since I spaced out and they guy in the lounge next to me was watching some manly drama show on TV. American Choppers, I believe. A show about two grown men being all dramatic, angry and emotional, (or childish) but it is ok since they build motorcycles. It is essentially a macho soap-opera. 

 

      At some point, I decide to get up and go see what the hell is going on. It feels like it has been a while, and I want answers. As I walk into the office, I see that the service desk dude is on the phone. That's cool. I'm patient like that. Turns out he was on the phone to my company, telling them that my truck was finished and just checking to make sure that they could release it to me. Intuition at it's finest. Then off to get myself home after some minor snafus with communication that don;t bear mentioning really. Just glad to be done.