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Holiday weekend not as enjoyable as I hoped
Big Sky Redneck
Member Posts: 19,752 ✭✭✭
Yes, I'm going to complain and whine for a moment.
Not sure if I mentioned about having to have my son team with me for a spell to "train" him but we have to team for a couple weeks. He knew this coming out and so did his wife.
So we make a few runs, last one to Lewiston Idaho with a reload of lumber going back. Loaded the lumber Wed evening but since this is a holiday weekend the reciever is closed Friday giving us a Monday delivery. Yes, this hurts the pocketbook sitting on a load but sometimes you take the good with the bad.
A long time ago when I started driving an aquaintence of mine started as well, we were within a few months of each other in starting. In a couple years Paul had worked himself into a damn good position, nice cars, nice home and a super cool $300,000 show truck and trailer. Me, I struggled to find a niche, did some job hopping before buying my first truck but could never get to where Paul did. One night we are both at a popular club in Huntingdon, PA and after a few hours I walked up and asked him a serious question. I mentioned how well he was doing and how poorly I was doing. I said to him, "what am I doing wrong?" Paul had a simple answer that spoke a ton, he said "sometimes you have to eat poop and smile." Ya know, he was right!! Over the years I did better, working my * off and doing different things, life was getting better. Along the way I ate a lot of poop, and I am still doing it but stayin focused, yes at times it is hard and I want to throw in the towel. Y'all know what I've been through over the years and recently, divorce, jobs, money problems ect ect.
So this last deal with buying another truck and hiring my son, this was planned, thought out, discussed and agreed on by all parties including spouses. Enter in a woman of the same mindset as my ex.
So we park at my house for the weekend, to go on to the customer would have meant sitting in truckstops and to be honest I hate them, we go to my home. Planned BBQs, fireworks and rodeos, we are going to make a fun weekend out of a crappy situation which is sitting on the load for a few days.
My sons wife, who reminds me of Dorothy blew a gasket, she wants Robert home and she has not one care about why we are sitting. She is freaking over money, it isn't even payday yet!! He hasnt worked a pay period so he isnt due any pay this weekend. She doesn't care, she dont understand nor does she want to understand how a pay period works. Nor does she understand nor want to how trucking works in regards to being somewhere at a certain time. She threatened Robert, talked bad about me and threw one hell if a self centered selfish fit. She told Robert to quit me and go back to Werner thinking that would solve all of her issues. Even after I fronted them $$ and told him the upfront $$ was a bonus and would not be taken out of his check.
My son, let her wreck him and in turn is quitting me to make her happy. I've been in a terrible mood all weekend, me and Robert had words and I unloaded on him. I voiced my opinions in his wife, told him she is doing exactly as his mother did to me. I told him to grow a pair before it's too late. It was a long conversation that was one sided with me giving him a speech hebhas never had, he heard his Dad give him some lifes lessons. I let hik know all the reason I left his mother, I told him how life with Bryann was 1000 times better because while she will voice opinions on things I want to do she does not give ultimatums, everything me and her does is thiught out and agreed upon, comprimise is the key here. I didn't tell him to leave his wife and I encourage he stay with her but he needs to be a man and stand up, there is things he needs to do to provide and sometimes sacrifice is the only way. If he lets her talk him out of everything and order him on how to do his job he is going to be heading downhill real fast.
So, I tried to salvage the weekend, told him no matter what he is still my son and I'm not going to turn my back on him. We still had some fun but this issue has been eating at me for days, appitite lost and just not "here". Neither of them understand what this does to me, it has put me in a bad spot but I'm trying to stay positive. Tomorrow when we get to the plant, final decisions will be made. Time to get out of Dad mode and get into Boss mode, I'm giving him the ultimatum this time, as an employer I have to cover my *.
Yep, fun freaking weekend.
Not sure if I mentioned about having to have my son team with me for a spell to "train" him but we have to team for a couple weeks. He knew this coming out and so did his wife.
So we make a few runs, last one to Lewiston Idaho with a reload of lumber going back. Loaded the lumber Wed evening but since this is a holiday weekend the reciever is closed Friday giving us a Monday delivery. Yes, this hurts the pocketbook sitting on a load but sometimes you take the good with the bad.
A long time ago when I started driving an aquaintence of mine started as well, we were within a few months of each other in starting. In a couple years Paul had worked himself into a damn good position, nice cars, nice home and a super cool $300,000 show truck and trailer. Me, I struggled to find a niche, did some job hopping before buying my first truck but could never get to where Paul did. One night we are both at a popular club in Huntingdon, PA and after a few hours I walked up and asked him a serious question. I mentioned how well he was doing and how poorly I was doing. I said to him, "what am I doing wrong?" Paul had a simple answer that spoke a ton, he said "sometimes you have to eat poop and smile." Ya know, he was right!! Over the years I did better, working my * off and doing different things, life was getting better. Along the way I ate a lot of poop, and I am still doing it but stayin focused, yes at times it is hard and I want to throw in the towel. Y'all know what I've been through over the years and recently, divorce, jobs, money problems ect ect.
So this last deal with buying another truck and hiring my son, this was planned, thought out, discussed and agreed on by all parties including spouses. Enter in a woman of the same mindset as my ex.
So we park at my house for the weekend, to go on to the customer would have meant sitting in truckstops and to be honest I hate them, we go to my home. Planned BBQs, fireworks and rodeos, we are going to make a fun weekend out of a crappy situation which is sitting on the load for a few days.
My sons wife, who reminds me of Dorothy blew a gasket, she wants Robert home and she has not one care about why we are sitting. She is freaking over money, it isn't even payday yet!! He hasnt worked a pay period so he isnt due any pay this weekend. She doesn't care, she dont understand nor does she want to understand how a pay period works. Nor does she understand nor want to how trucking works in regards to being somewhere at a certain time. She threatened Robert, talked bad about me and threw one hell if a self centered selfish fit. She told Robert to quit me and go back to Werner thinking that would solve all of her issues. Even after I fronted them $$ and told him the upfront $$ was a bonus and would not be taken out of his check.
My son, let her wreck him and in turn is quitting me to make her happy. I've been in a terrible mood all weekend, me and Robert had words and I unloaded on him. I voiced my opinions in his wife, told him she is doing exactly as his mother did to me. I told him to grow a pair before it's too late. It was a long conversation that was one sided with me giving him a speech hebhas never had, he heard his Dad give him some lifes lessons. I let hik know all the reason I left his mother, I told him how life with Bryann was 1000 times better because while she will voice opinions on things I want to do she does not give ultimatums, everything me and her does is thiught out and agreed upon, comprimise is the key here. I didn't tell him to leave his wife and I encourage he stay with her but he needs to be a man and stand up, there is things he needs to do to provide and sometimes sacrifice is the only way. If he lets her talk him out of everything and order him on how to do his job he is going to be heading downhill real fast.
So, I tried to salvage the weekend, told him no matter what he is still my son and I'm not going to turn my back on him. We still had some fun but this issue has been eating at me for days, appitite lost and just not "here". Neither of them understand what this does to me, it has put me in a bad spot but I'm trying to stay positive. Tomorrow when we get to the plant, final decisions will be made. Time to get out of Dad mode and get into Boss mode, I'm giving him the ultimatum this time, as an employer I have to cover my *.
Yep, fun freaking weekend.
Comments
I would strongly suggest they get counseling.
If your daughter n law has a chapped * this early in the game, things can only get worse over time and either directly or in-directly, everything is going to be your fault from the weather to the price of tea in China.
Shame this could not have came up prior to you investing in another truck but, it is what it is.
Your son is a grown man and has to decide his future at this point because you've got your family and future to think of.
As hard as it may be, you have to think like a business man and may be faced with making a hard decision as to whether his working for you will be an asset or, a liability.
Just doing your job on a daily basis along with all the issues with a second tractor to deal with is a full time job without all drama associated with your daughter n law's drama bouncing around in your head.
If you sit down with your son and don't let emotions come into play, he may well see your side of the business. If not, it may be best that he turns in his man card and lets his wife wear the pants in the family and see how that works out for them.
Hard choices I know but finding a responsible driver to take care of your equipment and do his job may be the best way for all concerned.
Working with family has got to suck. Sounds like he is undependable, and you probably already knew that.
He is OK, I didn't expect his wife to do what she did. After meeting her I had reservations about her as a person but I didn't expect this. The boy will work, but as asphalt cowboy said, he married a control freak and from what I see when she throws a hissy she gets her way.
No matter what happens tomorrow I'm pretty sure I'm done with him because now all I see is problems in the future and her keeping him home and not workng and I cannot afford that. This is going to be a tough lesson for the both of them, welcome to adult life, time for my boy to be a man and learn that a relationship is about comprimise on both ends, she has to give a little and so does he. He cannot let that * control everything he does. I suffered through that for 21 years with his mother, 21 long years of being too chicken and stupid to do anything about it.
I just hope he loves that woman a lot, because she will keep him down for a cery long time.
He did say he wanted me to talk to her, uhh no sir not my job and besides since she is causing problems with my son she will hear things from me that she does not want to hear, that I guarentee!!!!! I would cause a divorce and I din't want that hanging on my concience.
I worked at a place loading truck and that was the number one complaint for all of them except one company. Kephart, there I very seldom talked to a driver. They had a guy in their Eugene place that would take the truck out get it loaded and the truck was waiting for them when they got to the yard. They also had return loads ready at the Destination. These guys were home almost every week end.
But to get on with them was not easy. Most drivers stayed till they retired so very little Openings.
You might want to relate this to your son (even though it might not do any good,) in order to try to warn him and save him from a similar fate.
With me it wasn't a wife, however, but my mother.
In 1972 I graduated college in Fullerton, CA and a friend then got me a potentially lucrative job with his company in northern Cali as a service rep. Though the job didn't pay overly well at first, I could see that it had potential for me to do very well over time as the business expanded to other northwestern states. I would have eventually become the manager of the company's north western operations.
But about a year later my dying uncle left his little Indian artworks and curio shop in a small, remote hick town called Show Low, AZ to my mother.
Then it started. I was then bombarded with phone calls and letters for months, all saying, "We need you, you've got to come and help us! We can't do it without you!" It was endless begging and pleading.
All my life my mother never gave a damn about what I liked or wanted in life - only what she wanted for me. She wanted me to live in "Mayberry" and marry "Thelma Lou." My father didn't give a damn at all what I did, he only being interested in his golf game three days a week.
So I resisted for awhile, knowing I would hate Arizona (heat, dust, dirt, etc.) And I always have. But I finally relented to her wishes. I was the dutiful son who wanted to help his suffering mother...
It was the biggest mistake of my life, from which I never recovered.
I stayed seven years making a poverty level income before finally leaving in 1980. After that I was never able to get a job remotely as good as the one I'd had in No Cal.
Had I stayed where I was I probably would have made a six figure salary most of my adult life, but as it was, I basically made the poverty level for what should have been my prime earning years.
I tell you this not to rant, but as a warning to your son. I hope I might save him from the life I've lived.
He should do what he wants to do and NOT what others - even his wife - want him to do.
If he doesn't, he will likely regret it the rest of his life and be a relative failure all of his adult life.
I hope this helps you and him.
The ex wife though, I never did anything right, anythin I did was a violation to her and it took me a lot of years and finally losing $250,000 in cash to realize that if I don't do something and do it now I'm doomed for eternity. I finally moved on.
My boy, I have expressed my wishes but in no way will force anything. This job was given to him as an opprotunity to get a head start in trucking and to avoid the rough roads he will surely encounter trying to find his niche. But not being able to explain things to his wife and allowing her to be the sole decision maker out of selfishness will be his downfall, just like me. I in a semi harsh manner in his face told him things he never knew about me and his mother and why things happened as they did. I explained to hik that if he lets his wife do as his mother did to me he will have nothing but a life of regrets, just like me.
Sorry for all the rambling, this entire situation has hit me like a Mike Tyson shot to the gut. In one weekend plans for a father/ son future have been completely dismantled by a greedy self centers selfish *. It is a repeat of my failed marriage and it hurts me to high heavens to see my boy go through this. Not to mention to financial damage that * has just caused me, she does not care and that people pisses me off to no end.
Understood. I'm very sorry.
It sounds like you were offering him a job on the level of what I had in NoCal, and he's now throwing it away as I did. I'm very sorry for him - and for you having to watch him do it.
If you can, without angering him, relate my story to him and see if it has any effect. I'd like to save him from a wasted life just as much as you.
Good luck.
Pop
Now, that would be a nightmare situation for me, and if I were in his shoes I would divorce her right quick.
But that is me.
The problem is, your son CHOSE that gal. He wanted a bossy gal to tell him what to do. I got a couple of friends that married gals like that, never got along with those two women, and, after my friends married them, I never saw much more of my friends.
Your son will bail out of your truck, and will do what that female tells him to.
She made the choice for me Divorced me think she would not have been able to handle me at home and get away with everything she was doing. In the end she did me a favor. I see how she treats the guy she is married to now. I feel for him.
Hope he learns or changes the Situation before he wastes as much time as you did. Just maybe he can learn from you.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
Having said that,Your son at the very least, owes you some time to find another driver for the truck, if he is not going to drive for you. That is what is called respect. I know you taught him that. I also understand your fustration and anger, our son's being the same age, but I found with Chris, that yelling or lecturing him, just makes him resent me further and pushes him further away from me and my advice. Good luck with your son. Wish kids came with an instruction manual. Hey look, we both made mistakes and don't want to see our kids make the same ones, BUT, I bet our fathers made those mistakes too and we didn't listen to them. Oakie
Oakie, he has learned that a woman can ruin a ton of things if left to do so. Puddy is a powerfull weapon and can make weak men do stupid things. Me,, well I'm over that! Dorothy fixed me from ever being puddy whipped again!
I really hope your Son sees the "light" and tells his wife that things are gonna be done HIS WAY or she can hit the HIGHWAY...
If your Son has children with this woman,it could make a bad situation even worse..
Best of luck to all involved BSR,you'll get through this..