The Great Holiday Reset: Kicking off 2025 with Episode 164

Music. What's up, JFW family? Welcome back to the Channel 23 podcast, and Happy New Year.

It is 2025, and we are recording episode 164. We did take a break for a couple weeks, which is really the first time. I mean, we've missed one or two in three years. Right. But we've never deliberately been like, we're going on vacation. Right. Yeah. Yeah, need a little holiday break there, and the holidays were a little weird being on Wednesday, right?

Yeah, it really was weird. It was bizarre. yeah i don't like it right i mean a couple days i'm like what day is it you know what i mean is i don't know is it friday thursday monday you think it's monday but it was thursday right yeah i guess that's what it is just it was rough man i'm glad they're over and and we're moving on yeah i had a lot of fridays so as a reminder i was just gonna say happy new year everybody yeah happy new year merry christmas yep jim senior mentioned he wanted

to tell everybody Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Awesome. It is good to be back, though. I was a little nervous just now. Yeah, Linda was like, did you forget how? And I was like, no. I got the gift. The gift of Gab. We all do. Right? Well, the purpose of this podcast is to reach out and touch the fleet, to engage and inform everyone with all things JFW. Clearly, we have Jim White, Brother Dave, and Super Dave in the studio this morning, and we're going to rock it out with a pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Man, we still got it. I love it. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity to go out and do some trucking today. We pray for the safety of our fleet, all of their families, and all the other families and individuals we come across in a row today.

We pray for patience in making good, safe decisions. We pray to be accident-free, and that we all make it back to the comfort of our homes this evening. We pray for healing and 100% recovery for all of our family members that are ill. No matter what, we trust you, God, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As a reminder, anything you hear on today's podcast is not the opinion of JFW's. It's just the man in this room's opinion.

We happen to work for JFW, but JFW does not pay us to say these things.

We're off the clock right now about that, winking handshake right episode 163 and its first week it had 316 downloads which was still on the rise we are at 86.7 000 total downloads and we picked up eight followers and we are at a total of 664 followers outstanding that is outstanding heck yeah yep it's time for the dad joke challenge I'm going to kick it off with a Bella joke. My daughter Bella, she comes up with these amazing homemade Bella dad jokes.

So the other day she says to me, Dad, what city are you required to eat a lot of cookies? City, right? What city are you required to eat a lot of cookies? Milk city, I don't know. No, not even close. Chocolate chip city. When she was four, that would have been the answer. But at 10 years old, the answer is albacookey. Oh, albacookey. Man, she's great. That's so much better than mine. You got beat by a 10-year-old. Yes, sir. Let's go.

All right, I'll go next. Okay, good. Because I'm talking about it. But do you want to hear my pizza joke? Sure. Oh, it sounds cheesy. Nah, never mind. It's too cheesy. So i got another one how many rings or what excuse me what has many rings but no fingers, Telephone. You're right. Phone. See, man. I just can't stump anybody today. You got your thinking cap on over there. Yeah. Well, I cheated because I looked up what are the worst jokes coming into 2025. Dad jokes.

Oh, wow. And these are reused ones. There's just the top three that they picked. So why couldn't the pony sing a lullaby? Don't know. She was a little hoarse. I was going to say, because horses can't sing. Then what do you call a boomerang that won't come back? Stick. Yep. That was that. Good job. Good job. And then what did one toilet say to the other toilet? Don't make me laugh or I'll flush. You look a little flush. So that's supposed to be the top three worst ones. Worst ones?

Yeah, for 2025. They're pretty close. I have seen all of those before, but I couldn't remember the answers. If they weren't the worst, they're the worst now. I keep coming up with the same jokes because I'm typing in the same request. You know what I mean? Like, oh, great dad jokes or funny dad jokes, whatever dad jokes. I think you type in dirty dad jokes. I have, Jim. It gets way off. I'm telling you, we need the R-rated podcast.

At some point this year, we need to pull it off. So you want to hear something really creepy about this AI revolution. I look for all my dad jokes on my computer downstairs.

Stairs i'm getting all these links on my phone now for jokes yeah i mean you know apple just settled a 95 million dollar lawsuit because they've created their phones to listen to you i mean that's they just this week they just settled a 95 million dollar i don't know who's getting that money but whoever sued him for a long time yeah i'm jumping on that bandwagon yep well i have a political slash youth slash college slash all sorts of shit oh man so i've covered all the bases here but

i know you're shocked starting off the year with politics so this is news just in from the usa you who worry about democrats versus republicans relax here's the real problem a political joke.

In a boston university classroom recently they were discussing the qualifications to be president of the united states it was simple the candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age however one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair the requirement was to be a natural born citizen in short her opinion was that this requirement prevented many capable individuals from becoming president. The class was taking it in and letting her rant.

And not many jaws hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by stating what makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one who's born by C-section. Oh. That's great. Yep. These are the same kinds of 18 year olds that are now voting in our elections. It's true. They breed, they walk among us. Lord, we need more help than we thought we did. No wonder more than half of the graduating college students can't find a job. Dang it. Ouch. Man, that's rough.

On a higher note, new employees, we got David Heguera, Carlos Roscone, Mark Dillon, Elias Horta, and Jesus Sanchez. Welcome to the fleet. Yeah, welcome everybody. It's great to have you. You know what's so cool about these new employees? I know who they are because I did the orientation. Yeah. Orientation. Yeah. I need to, you know, I actually need to stop in there and introduce myself and yeah. Moving forward. It's just nice to know who they are. Yeah. To know them. Agreed.

Yep. Especially when you spend some time with them because like me and Dave, we won't get to, you know, we get a quick introduction and then they're out working. Yep. Who's that? So celebrations, anniversaries. We're going to catch up on some here.

Ricardo christensen hit two years on january 1st jesse baeza six years on the second ricardo cordova one year on the second jonathan mckee one year on the second fabian sotero one year on the second and johnny beret hit four years on the sixth wow congratulations guys congratulations you guys that's awesome yep outstanding birthdays robert the bear lincoln 1227, Uriel Moluna had a birthday on the 31st. Sammy Galleta Sonrisas Duas, January 2nd. J.R. Sands, a.k.a. J.R.'s, January 5th.

You know, he answered the phone the other day and had a little sip and answered the phone. This is J.R.'s. I like it's catching on. Jason Cantu, January 6th. Rick Showtime Gray has a birthday today. And Chance Dobler is going to join Rick with his birthday today. And then Kurt Spencer has a birthday tomorrow. Wow. Congratulations, everybody. Yeah. Happy birthday, everybody. Rick and Chance today and then Kurt tomorrow and then the ones we missed,

I guess. I don't know. But happy birthday. Absolutely. Fabian Sotelo's family birthday celebrations. Fabian Sotelo's son, Levi, had a birthday on the 29th. Kylie Guthrie, that's going to be Casey's daughter, had a birthday on the 30th. Edgar's son, Jeremiah, had a birthday on the 31st. Jack Oquendo Mejia's wife, Monica, had a birthday on the 1st as well. My buddy, Tim, Fit Tim, out of North Carolina, had a birthday January 2nd. And Tommy Trujillo's wife, Santreva.

Santreva, yep, had a birthday on January 4th. Happy birthday, everybody. Yeah, happy birthday, family. Good stuff.

All right let's get to the shout outs i want to give a shout out to jr for doing a really kick-ass job putting that powerpoint for orientation together i was able to walk in there never given orientation before and just you know start the slideshow and walk right through it i know enough about jfw to talk about a little bit and yeah i mean it's really i mean it's a it's a class act that's awesome yeah it was it was really good so yeah anybody who's been

here for a little bit and could talk on the points is able to do that because of the way he set it up it's like turnkey you know also i didn't notice for a little bit on the powerpoint but there's notes on your computer screen to hit points that should be discussed oh very cool yeah so it was it was it was yeah that is very cool so like a tab almost jam or exactly so i'm glad it's like you know bullet points yeah items to discuss and you can click on them they're live almost like a live link or

they don't go up on the screen it's just for on the computer i got you yeah that's that's awesome yeah it's pretty cool yeah that is great erica said she was really impressed with it when she took the class a few weeks ago when she started and how well it was put together in a powerpoint and i know she's going to help casey and kendrick because there's so hands-on and kendrick's been asking he wants to get his more kind of like jr's that anybody can walk in and try to do it.

And she just said she thought it would be pretty difficult because Kendrick goes over walking around the truck. The pre-trip is so intensive, but he just doesn't miss things. You know, and I know Casey filled in for him this week and, you know, just Erica's opinion, it's just a lot when you're over there trying to... Trying to go through it by hand, I guess. I don't know how else to call it. Well, the nice thing is, though, like, even in JR's PowerPoint, there's videos.

Mm-hmm. You know, there's the, you know, the embarrassing accidents that we've had, which I cringe watching. But what a great thing to show in the orientation. Like, this is what we don't fucking want. Yep. Right? Yep. Yep. Yeah, because I know. Where's your rated R, Dave? Yeah. Because I know we got them in television over there, too.

Yeah. you know so you know then there's uh you know the low gauge calibration video that needs a little bit of work because it's turned sideways but yeah that might be the only thing it's not even a complaint but it's like i think i'll just talk about this but really you are able to play videos also we really need to have a i don't know how much time we'll have the just staring community meeting later we really need to talk about this connect team because it does things i had no idea about i had

a meeting with the gal from connect team she was in israel connect meeting yeah i had a zoom meeting about connect me but uh yeah i mean it could be a solution for a lot of things and yeah it's it's pretty cool that's awesome yep separate conversation chance tober this is your shout out well from jfw but you brought it up brother dave so why don't you go ahead yeah i just wanted to be sure we covered it chance has been running the the utah run there.

Hauling salt i mean pretty much since day one he's just a plugger he's going out there and grinding and getting it done with everybody else that's doing it and unfortunately yes was it two week two weeks ago or one week ago i can't remember two weeks with the holidays and all the time off and stuff and anyway we sent trucks out on friday to preload to come home on saturday while chance made it to grand junction

and his truck broke and he got stuck there you know luckily and this was the one two weeks ago. Excuse me, he was, Mike was able to get his truck repaired at MHC, but it wasn't until late Friday night. So then he, you know, so he was basically up all day, went ahead and drove to like Green River or Salina, I don't remember which Tracy was able to set up him getting loaded Saturday at two and, So he leaves there, comes home, fights ski traffic.

I mean, the guy was stuck on Eisenhower for like two hours in traffic. Make a long story short, he didn't get home until like 1.30 or 2 in the morning on Sunday morning. And I just wanted to give a shout out to him. And I don't know if he's made a run between then and last Friday or not, but he went again last Friday and the freaking truck broke again in Grand Junction.

It's still at MHC. Wow. He's just such a rock star. I mean, he's the, he's the one kind of being almost a liaison for Mikey on, Hey, this is what they're doing, or this is what they're looking at. You know what I mean? And they haven't pulled it in yet. And then Michael call MHC and go, Hey, my guy says you're not doing anything or whatever there. I just wanted to give him a huge shout out, man. You're, you're just, you're a rockstar chance.

And I just thank you for hanging in there and not having a shitty attitude about it. And, you know, believe me, there's circumstances beyond our control because we don't want to send a truck out there. That's going to break. We try our best not to, but honestly, we just never know. You know, I mean, they still don't know. There's still a case going on in that truck. And luckily we had other trucks out there. So he actually hopped a ride. I don't know who he came back with on Saturday.

So he's here and 0034 is still in Grand Junction. Wow. Great job, Chance. Yeah, absolutely, buddy. Way to grind it out and not just have a crappy attitude about it. I get it. He's been like that since day one. Yeah. You know what I mean? He's coming here just with a great attitude. And he's been a pleasure. I haven't heard or experienced anything negative with Chance. Yeah. It's just outstanding to have people like that. Adds to the culture. Right. Right. It's just amazing. So what a pleasure.

Yep. Yeah. Another guy that's been an absolute pleasure, Valentino. Want to give a shout out to Valentino for throwing chains for Fabio or helping him throw chains, I should say. Yeah. He made his first trip out to Utah. Yeah. Picked up some salt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Martinez took him under his wing, and man, they rock and rolled out there, loaded and rock and rolled back. Thanks for showing them the ropes, Tony. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think we need to add in there, Dave, too, just a quick one. I know he didn't get stranded out there, but Elvin had problems with his truck. Oh, yeah. And had to wait for the tow wrecker and Ricky to show up. True. And get him back and all this other stuff. And again, it's one of those deals. It's at the dealership, still broke down as far as I know. It's here.

Oh, did they get it? We haven't even taken it over yet. Well, it broke down in the other side of, between Vail and Eisenhower, you know, broke down at Copper Mountain. We got him to Eisenhower and then it was just done. So had it towed here and it's not, Mike's trying to figure it out. It's not, I think it's a wire loom is what I'm trying to get at. It's a short and a loom. He's, it didn't go.

To the best of my knowledge, it's not at the dealer. Yeah, I didn't think he could get it, so he took it to the dealer. Yeah. Oh, maybe he did yesterday. I don't even know, Jim. Yeah. You guys have been busy. A lot to keep up with. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, just that Utah run keeps throwing some curveballs at us. Yeah. All the guys that are going out there. I mean, we keep complimenting those guys. But all the stars can line up, and you could have a real easy trip,

or you may have some problems. But even just talking to Brent Carter the other day, might've been yesterday. He's like, man, I absolutely love going to Utah. Yeah. He's like, you know, this local stuff is cool. He's like, but going to Utah, he's like, I would just do that all the time. I love it. He's like, if I got to throw chains, no big deal. I just love going out there. Yeah. And what's really awesome is, God, we had 600 tons going up to Vail.

I think we had 400 tons going up to Breckenridge. That changes everything. It was like money, money, money for those guys. Seriously, they made some Kwan. Yeah. So good for them. So cool. The shame about it, and I know, like you said, Jam, we've had some problems, but when you're running here in town, you don't notice those problems as such. The truck's breaking down because it's easy to get a mechanic to you. It's easy to get you here.

Easy to tow the truck. Yeah. But as much money as we spend on new equipment and we're still having these issues, it becomes deflating for everybody. Right. I mean, you look at it, Chance's truck is a 2023 Kenworth that's got 221,000 miles on it. And you're like, dude, that's literally like a new truck. Yeah. And it's down and out though. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they can't fix it. Yeah. You know, and then. Yeah. And then it really sucked. You know, shout out to Potter.

He hauled some parts up here for it from here that Mike put in his truck Monday morning. They weren't the right parts. So Mikey was able to get parts from Jackson Peterbilt up there, which is literally across the street. So then he called John Jordan, who was at the hotel. He ran over to Peterbilt, picked up parts, took him to Kenworth to get the truck fixed. And it's still down. So, I mean, everybody plays a part and we're just, we're thankful to have,

what an amazing team. You know what I mean? To get those things done.

Absolutely. yeah and i i gotta dog them because i think the teamwork i'm glad we have that kind of teamwork because like kenworth and peter built their pack car product they're both shitty products at this point i'm not getting us going but they can't buy parts from each other yeah they won't won't buy parts by their pack car product only internal you know but just buy from internal go ahead and screw the customer yeah you know that's i just don't don't have the customer's best

interest in mind no and that's that's what we try to do you know that's it's yeah jfw is different i mean we we go through it all the time we just you know if we were a restaurant we would be a different restaurant if we were an auto dealer we'd be a different if we were a truck dealer we would be different you know we would just by doing that good job and just doing common sense things that are helpful that's what makes us stand out so absolutely yeah

but we can't expect that i mean when we expect that from other people and businesses it just doesn't work out it's weird it's it's it's like foreign jam yeah yeah you're like you don't do that yeah and that just makes too much sense yeah and that's that it is common sense that's what really blows you away is you don't you know i was in home depot whatever on the holiday they're getting a part and the deal didn't have a a

scan on it you know you couldn't qr code qr code couldn't scan it and the lady looked at me and you know it's in the self-check line and i couldn't find it and she walks up and She goes, oh, that should have a coat on it. And I'm like, no, it doesn't. She goes, oh, yeah, it does. I'm like, no, it doesn't. You know, when I roll off, oh, she doesn't, it doesn't. She goes, do you want to go get another one? No, I don't. I don't. I've already been there and got your part that doesn't

have the number on it. No, I don't want to go get another one. Do you want to go get one? Exactly. And I'm checking myself out here. Yeah. Where do I clock in? Customer service. Yeah. Usually they run back and get you another one. This lady was like, nope, do you want to go get one? I'm like, nope. It just, it was terrible. I didn't want to get this one. Was she able to look it up for you or did you just leave it there? Oh no. The story goes on, Dave. So it's two fuses.

And she goes, so is it the same as that one? I said, nope. And she goes, well, that one's got a QR code on it. You can just scan it. She just wanted to get you out of there. I'm like, okay. I scanned not even the same fuse, the same breaker, Dave. Different par, different. And I scanned it. Maybe different price too. Maybe you got a deal, Jim. I think I did get a deal, Dave. But you just, how long do you have to stand there and argue with him? You know, just, I'm glad.

Customer service, right? Yeah, I'm glad we try to be different. Yeah. Speaking of Ben Carter, he wants to give a shout out to Teddy Haney just for doing an outstanding job and always helping him get going. It's another guy, you know, just adds to the culture. He's in a good mood. Yep. I want to give a shout out to Jonathan McKee. I don't really know if this is good or bad, but it is noteworthy for sure.

Jonathan, so he just had his anniversary, and I'm in there looking at PTO and doing things and I noticed he has his 60 hours of Colorado sick. He just got his 60 hours of front load for his anniversary. There's 120 hours. Then I look at his PTO, he's gotten 55 hours of PTO. So he called out one time and he missed getting five hours, which honestly I think maybe we should give it to him after this conversation. Let's talk about it. And he's never taken a day off. He's never put in for time off.

That's awesome. Yeah, that is fantastic. Yeah. So he has 175 hours of time off on the books. Wow. I'm like, Jonathan, the limit's 140. You know, we got to do something pretty quick here. Funny, and we have people sleep through work because their kids turn their phones off.

Oh we have guys that well they're not here right now but we had a guy has been disqualified from all his time off through may of 2026 oh that's too bad yeah he's not here anymore but yeah and then here's a guy he's he received every bit of it but five hours and he's never taken a payday off it's like we encourage you to take those days off we don't want you to we don't want you to do what Jonathan did, but wow, Jonathan, you know, so I called him yesterday. I'm like, we got a problem.

You need rest. Right. Right. And it's a good problem. Yeah. Yep. Shout out to Zach Thark for coming in on his day off. That's always super helpful to dispatch when, you know. They get a call and right. Yeah. No, I was, was it cool? It was a Coors load, right? We were in a bar for a Coors load if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Yeah. We had somebody call out that was scheduled to work. And I mean, on those days on weekends, when you're scheduled to work, it's tight for us. Right.

Cause we only scheduled you. Right. We didn't schedule extra. Right. You know what I mean? When it's, when it's a Saturday and we've got 40 trucks running, we can cover a call out. But when it's a Sunday and we have three trucks running, we scheduled three trucks.

We percent of our fleet canceled yes exactly yeah yeah yeah no doubt so yeah thanks zach i mean it was dispatch brought that up and i that's just i mean god we've been bragging for like 15 minutes on everybody it's jim jim asked me earlier he was like is the outline for him like it's full of shout outs isn't that awesome it's outstanding it is yeah because the next two when you get to him jam here it's the same thing yeah i mean it's good it's good stuff i'll let you go yeah all right,

I want to give a shout out to Oz for actually working yesterday and going to pick up the load at Avery and delivering to Lost Creek. So we had a load at one of our new brewers, brewing companies that needed to go picked up and we were kind of scrambling and Oz went and got it and went and delivered it to Lost Creek. And he was getting here when we were leaving.

I don't know if do we leave on time 5 40 6 o'clock i don't know he had a pretty long day out there in the truck man so nice job nice thanks thanks did anybody have to give you some directions you know don't bullshit me that's the clutch kind of stuff i bet he called dispatch told him he didn't want to haul that load he was coming in and linda was looking to make sure he was getting home yeah linda she's like oh he's pulling it now and she's like all right i was this and that it was like no.

He doesn't have his company radio on the day. And of course he did, and he answered.

Same thing for Andrick. Andrick was home yesterday, and he came in special to grab the other load from Prost Brewery. So a similar situation. We were scrambling to get somebody to go get these loads, and here comes Andrick. He's another guy that's just been a superstar since day one. Yeah, and I know he got held up because I think that was froze out there. Yeah, the pipe was. I don't know if that was at Prost. One of them was. Yeah, one of them was.

And it's funny, when we picked it up, we asked, how bad does this freeze in the weather? And they're like, oh, we've never had a freeze. And we're like, it's on the north side of the building. It's going to freeze. And I think it's happened twice already. Right. Right? We get out there and it's froze. And we're like, what? It's never froze. Yeah. It's never happened. Right? Isn't it a brand new brewery though?

No, not the one, Dave. I mean, it's been open for a couple of years. It keeps freezing.

Linda wants to give a shout out to Oz and Tracy for not having to worry about anything while she was on vacation you know just talking to Linda a little bit yesterday just pretty solid crew where she could go and like actually enjoy herself and not worry about what's happening here so yeah it's important to have good people in your corner to take over while you're not outstanding and then last shout out for me well not for me but that I'm gonna read is

Dustin Curry wants to give a shout out to brent carter coleman amara and steve barnes for helping him get his trailer unfroze up at vale yesterday so yeah great job i didn't even know anything about it they they got it taken care of yeah he was texting me in like some cryptic misspelled words and i think this is what he meant so good job guys yeah thanks for the help everybody he was voice texting yeah thank Thank you for voice texting.

Any shout outs from you guys? I just heading into 2025, you know, again, happy new year and wishing everybody the best. And I'm looking forward to 2025. This year is going to be busy. Like I said, when we sat down, you know, it's been, we're a week into the new year here and we just have so much going on. And I, I'm, I'm really excited. You know, it should be a good year. 2025 is going to be a good year. Yeah. Yeah.

Breaking ground over at the the new building even though we've been saying we're going to break ground we've we've gotten through some little steps some plaiting some different stuff like that that's just been some holdups you know or we got the new customers a1 chipsy will start you know in the springtime here we got the new plant down south you know we've been doing the the redmond hall i mean there's just a lot of good stuff i had a little snow yesterday and so

we got good snow little practice with the snow crew and stuff like that and yeah it's positive we're going to have, lunch with brandon next week and you know just reading through their emails and stuff they're excited for 2025 the asphalt and concrete side so yeah just a shout out to everybody and excited for 2025 it's gonna be good it's gonna be great yep absolutely any other shout outs guys.

Good all right let's rock and roll all right let's get into the discussion of today's podcast We've got a couple things on the list here. Number one, we are transitioning away from Paycom, potentially going to QuickBooks. Everything's kind of up in the air there. But the reason I bring this up is I want everybody to start paying attention to their PTO. I'm doing my best trying to get everything to match perfectly from Paycom to QuickBooks or maybe another platform.

So ultimately, though, it's your responsibility to know how much PTO you had on the books because I'm a human being. And perhaps when everything gets moved over and finalized, you know, if this number doesn't match what you think you should have, we need to have a discussion about it to make sure that you're made whole or I can explain to you why it's different.

So please pay attention to what have you on the books. Also, once we switch over, I've also been moving over the time off requests all the way out through 2026. So if you request a time off this year, it should be in the new platform to wherever we go. But again, you know, it is also your responsibility to check and make sure that your time off is correct in the new platform. Does that make sense, everybody? Absolutely.

Yeah, again, it's being an advocate for yourself. I mean, you, you really should be going over your paycheck, no matter what your PTO or whatever. I mean, you could be your garnishments. It could be how you have your, your taxes set up. It could be anything, you know, it could be missed loads and that's, that's your livelihood, you know, and you, you should be taking responsibility for yourself.

Make sure you have, you know, if you're doing long-term or short-term and, you know, I know you guys pay for that, but you know, that's something you should pay attention. Is it on there? Do you want it? Do you have it? You know, same thing. All of that stuff is so important. And if you're, if you're missing it and you, I mean, what you're bringing up, Jim, that's free money. That's something you've earned. You've worked to have those hours.

Make sure they're correct. Make sure they're being transferred forward. Why would you, why would you give those up? Yeah. So. Absolutely. We do have drivers that they, they know to the penny. Yes. Yeah. Isn't that awesome? Yeah. Andrew Bader, he's on it. Yeah. Hey, listen, there was 50 cents missing out of my paycheck three weeks ago. That's great. Right? Because, yeah, like guys like that. And then we have guys that don't even know

what they grossed last year. You know, hey, how much money did you make? I don't know. Not enough. Well, how much? Don't know. Right. Okay. So, yeah, I mean. And it's all right there at your fingertips. Yeah, Paycom. All right there on your phone. Yeah, right now, Paycom is your connection to all this stuff. You should look in there. You should see. Make sure your benefits are right. What do you got going in your 401k? Is JFW matching correctly?

Are you being taxed too much? Are you being taxed too little? Exactly, Joe. All those things don't just take for granted that it's right. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Stop and take them. I mean, if you can spend 15 minutes on TikTok or looking at YouTube or doing something like that, log into your Paycom and look at that. You know what I mean? Familiarize yourself with that. Look at your insurance. Look at your 401k.

I mean, all of that. It is right there at your fingertips. just immerse yourself a little bit and educate yourself a little bit on on what you've got going and and what is just there available for you absolutely next thing on my list slip and falls it's still a thing we had one yesterday uh this was not a three-point of contact fall it was just a walking fall okay but man if you fall it hurts and the older you get the more it hurts right if you got our existing

injuries they're gonna hurt too right so you gotta you gotta either do the poopy walk and honestly you know consider these slip-on ice traction cleats they make all the difference in the world it's like you know you're working on dry walking on dry ground with these things so you know if you want to protect yourself get you some slip-on traction ice cleats yeah yeah Yeah, and they're everywhere.

I've seen them at Walmart and Home Depot. They're just really everywhere and they're very inexpensive, but a good purchase for anything. Amazon, baby. Yeah, Amazon. Have them brought to your house. Yeah, it's so easy. I'm getting so lazy. I don't even want to go to a store anymore. If I know what I need, I'll be like, yeah, I can get it like $6 less at the store. I don't care. I'm having it delivered. It's hard to beat. I just, yeah. I mean, I was in Costco the other day.

I need to buy. I need a laptop, but I don't need, I don't need like this laptop. I need something that'll just, you know, a little bit of storage, just something. Yeah. Right. And I was looking at Costco. I was like, oh, that's a pretty good deal. Then I went on Amazon and I found one with more RAM and this and that. And it's like 80 bucks cheaper. It's going to be hit Thursday. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's hard to beat. It is hard to beat. I do try to support local companies as

well. You know, if I have, you know, if there's a store that I like, you know, I will go buy my smoker pellets there or, you know, try to boost their economy up a little bit. Yeah. You know, if I was going to get some of Walmart or Costco, I might as well get it on Amazon. Right. You know.

All right, let's see here. Moonlighting. You know, it is wintertime and a lot of guys have part-time jobs or little side hustles they do. It is important to note that your side hustle can't get in the way of your main hustle, okay? Especially if your side hustle is driving, okay? That's a problem when it comes to hours of service. May not be your, you know, 70-hour rule, but it could be your 10-hour rule. You got to have 10 hours off from a CDL driving job to do this job.

You know, you can't, you can't work till three in the morning or two in the morning driving a truck and then come in here at six or seven and then drive our truck. That that'll be a DOT violation. Absolutely. So keep that in mind, guys. Don't, don't mess up your main hustle for your side hustle. Yeah, it makes it. Yeah. I was just thinking about that. You know, you're trying to make a little bit of extra money, but you just can't do that.

Jam yeah i mean you you spelled it out i just don't want to elaborate on it but it's it's dangerous it's the liability it's back to the what if it's the liability it's the liability and so somebody somebody get a hold of that if something happens an accident and and you're going to be held liable and you're you're not going to get out of it yeah we got to protect ourselves yep and yourself you know i mean yourself as a jfw but you got to protect yourself You know,

don't, don't give anybody any reason to sue you. Yeah. I was sure brother Dave shared with you, we had an accident in 2023 where a guy took away our space. We hit him at, I'm going to say four miles an hour. And you know, this, this guy's a real piece of, we'll say work for lack of a better term. But I just, I kind of want to preface that and I don't mean to interrupt you, Jim, but we bumped him.

We bumped him. at almost like idle i think four miles an hour is generous for speed i don't want to yeah i just want to i don't want to misspeak yeah but the thing is is he was moving to yes yeah so it wasn't like this yeah but anyway he he jumps out of the car like you know looking for the damage yeah the guy never even filed a claim for the damage of his vehicle that's what i wanted to say is where the speed you're talking doesn't matter.

He's, he doesn't have any damage to the car, has never asked to have the car fixed. Nope. Right. Nope. But he went to the ER to get checked out. He had like an $1,100 bill from the ER docs, and then he kept going to the doctor. He had some kind of $15,000 bill through Medicaid, and Medicaid paid $592 of that. So there's like 16- I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, he's like on the hook for like $1,600. Well, he was trying to extort our insurance company for $15,000.

Like, hey, yeah, my bills were 15 grand. No we only there's only a lien for 592 you didn't pay that yeah you know what i mean well i'm gonna sue you and this and that i'm in law school and i talked and our guys just like no but at the end of the day you know we already offered him or insurance offered him five grand at the end of the day you know he wanted 20 and i think we ended up settling for 10 and just talking to great west yesterday like we don't want to give him anything and the

guy was like listen jam i get it but at the end of the day it's going to cost you more than ten thousand dollars to defend this if he does lawyer up again because he had two lawyers that both kept him kicked him to the curb but if he gets the right one you know if he calls frank azar yeah frank azar is going to take it. At a certain point, Jim, Jim and I need to sit down and look at each other and go, do we want to pay a lawyer 10 grand or do we want to pay this POS 10 grand?

I want to pay someone working 10 grand. Right. And that's what it's going to start to come down to. And I think you're going to start to see, and man, this sounds terrible, but based on the election and the current feeling in the country, there's a movement happening to get back to what's right. Right. We're tired of the world's movement. And what's normal and what's the correct way to do things. And the tide is, it's moving in.

Couldn't be happier yeah exactly and i think you're going to start to see companies like us and and other things start to fight that stuff i love it because it just really is crazy yeah i mean we've been fighting that stuff for a long time when i say we i mean ultimately it's your guys's final decision but you know we'll fight the dlt people at the port we're going to fight false unemployment claims we're going to fight you know all the bullshit we don't

stand for it I mean, ultimately in this situation, the guy should have like, and I'm picking a number out, but I think it's pretty relative because he doesn't even think he has damage on his car when I bet to replace that plastic bumper, because I bet there's a mark in it is probably like 1,200 bucks. Probably. We should owe him 1,200 bucks. And Jim and I would be like, yep, we owe him 1,200 bucks. Right? Not $20,000 in bogus medical claims. Right. That Medicaid paid for. Guess what?

He's not even paying for it. Yeah. He's not even paying for his own insurance to pay for it. The thing of it is, too, is this is how scummy this person is. Yeah. We're ready to cut a check for the medical stuff. Well, he wanted the check cut to him. Right. And our guy's like, nah, if there's too many bad actors, we'll cut Medicaid the check. Yep. He's like, no, I know my rights and you could cut it to me. He's like, we could, but we're not.

Yeah. You know? So he's getting benefits from Medicaid, but he's also enrolled in law school? Yeah. So he says, Dave, right? So he said. Yeah. That's the type individual that we're up against. Right. He even, you know, I'm going to throw this out there. He accused our Great West person of being, he's like, you're discriminating against me because of my color. And the guy says to him, I have no idea what color you are. I've only talked to you on the phone. Right.

I mean, that just tells you right through it. Yeah, it tells you everything. Right. So back to the moonlighting thing. The other thing about that is if you're out there trying to make extra money, but then you're too tired to come to work to make this money, are you really making extra money? Right. That's the point. Yeah. If you're going to work and then have to call off on a Monday because you worked on a Sunday night, then are you really making extra money? I don't know.

It's got to make sense. All right, let's see.

The winter storms in the workload, I feel like this is a storm that's really affected us this season. I mean, we're still doing Utah, but we did have a lot of trucks hit the last couple days. But hang in there. I feel like it's going to be a kick-ass year. We're starting off the year better than we started off last year. So, you know, you just got to weather the storm, no pun intended, and, you know, hang in there and just know that the sun's coming.

Yep. You know? Got to keep in mind though, a lot of those trucks were sitting because of the holidays and there was a lot of plants and pits, both that were closed due to the holidays. Oh, absolutely. And then so here, this storm rolls in, what, four days after New Year's or five days after New Year's. And so it's back to back. Yeah. And then now to back again. Yep. I mean, listen, we all just sat here and talked about how disconnected we were at work.

We didn't know if it was Monday, Friday, Thursday, Tuesday, what day is it? And could you imagine coming to work and going, oh, I have to dig a foundation today. Where does it go? Right. You know, and then you're off for three days and you have to come back and go, well, where did we finish on this? What do we need to dig? You know, we got to get rid. Mud's coming when? Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people don't even work those weeks.

Yeah. It's almost a relief. I mean, I know we should appreciate our time off more, but it's almost a relief to get through those. I mean, I love celebrating and acknowledging the birth of Christ. That's great. Celebrating it on Wednesday, kind of was like, what? New Year's, I'm glad that we went right back to work on Thursday. It wasn't like a complete shutdown again. But yeah, it feels good to have all that behind us and we could focus on normalcy. I like things to be...

Like a standard. Yeah. You know, like, yep, time to go to work. I think Super Dave calls it routine. Routine, there you go. Yeah, and the thing is, hopefully you got some PTO time built up. We did pay for the holidays. We got a paid holiday. And you have to be here to get that stuff, right? I mean, what is it, six months before you can get the holidays? Is that where it starts at? No, no, no. First day of the month. For the holidays? What is it? After 60 days. Yeah.

For the holidays. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Basically when your benefits kick in, you start getting paid holidays. Okay. Anybody that started work after New Year's, their benefits start March 1st and they will receive all the paid holidays for the year. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. And we've, we've put that in. So, you know, a lot of people here got paid for Christmas, you know, so it's not a missing day. You're not off.

And, you know, it's just, we've tried to put all these programs in to help somebody get through. And I have to go back, you know, the, the anniversaries, there's a lot of guys that started right time, right now, this time of year, you know, several years, two years ago, one years ago, six years ago. And, you know, that seems like a really tough time to start here, you know, in the middle of the winter, but look at the success we have there on starting now.

They've gotten through it. They've, they're, they're, you know, they're champions and you just, you just got to plan and work through it. It can be done. Absolutely. Let me look at those names again on the one years. Yeah, I know Ricardo, because I was just looking at him. Ricardo Cordova, Jonathan McKee, Fabian Sotella. Yeah, those guys are studs. Jonathan, he made it through without even using it. Right, yeah. He made it through the winter, like not cashing out any days. Yeah.

When you look at the last two weeks, I mean, if you got paid both your Wednesdays, you got paid for Christmas, you got paid for New Year's, right? And then we kind of worked. Yeah. And that's what I want to bring up.

You know we'll have to go over things with you and make sure you're qualified and you're ready to chain and all that but the redmond hall is open to hall anybody we need more trucks i mean i listen to oz and tracy and linda call people every day can you go can you go can you go can you go can you go and they get a lot of no's oh more no's than yeses for sure so if you if you have a money issue that's not on us yep right and you need to and you need to ask and we may tell you no but

we're going to train you so you can go, you know, there, there's going to be a reason why and what's going on. And you can take somebody else's truck too. It doesn't have to be your truck. Yeah. You know, it's, there's, there's a lot of options here that, that you just have to ask about. And I know the, I guess that kind of leads me here jam on this last one on the winter storms.

Can we talk about last year's wages? Yeah. You know, I think that's important to talk about because was there 17 you guys there's either 17 or 18 people made over 100 000 yep and in the worst year in the last six and a half years that i've been back last year was the worst year right slowest slowest yeah slowest yeah if you look at that we still had. 17 or 18 people make over $100,000. 50% of the fleet made over $80,000.

I was just going to say, if you just lower it to 90, 25% of them made $90,000 and more. I know that for a fact. Over 25%, Jam. There you go. $90,000 and more. And that has to have some guys that haven't worked here a whole year. They just dropped in and got going. Yeah. One of the guys that made over $100,000 was a first-year driver, at least one of them. Yep. Yep. Yeah. He was so proud, too. It was the first time he ever made $100,000.

Ah, yeah. Outstanding. Couldn't. I mean, there was a top group, but I got to brag, it's $120,000. Yeah. I think the top driver made $127,000. Yep. Nice. And that's just going and getting, that's just working. Yep. That's coming to work every day. Yep. That's not saying, you know, I need a raise, but I'm not here to, you know. You know, we have people that ask for raises, but they don't come to work every day. Easiest way to give yourself a raise around here, show up.

Well, and we've talked about that before when they take those days off and they take them unpaid, that really hurts. Yeah, snowballs down. Yeah, and a lot of people don't understand what that hurts. They're probably listening to me going, well, how does that hurt me? It was unpaid. That lowers your average. Right. When you take a PTO day off, your average goes down because you've taken other days that are unpaid. Right. When you have PTO and you take a day off, take it paid.

Right. You know, if you have eight, 10, 12 days saved up and you get sick. Take it paid. If you have 175 hours of PTO, use some of it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it doesn't hurt you. It doesn't affect. It's a paid day. It helps. And I'm going to use that word first time in 2025 here, but the hardwire, those top guys that I know is on that list, none of those are hardwires. They just go and get the load. What? A hardwire?

That's dead to me. What is that? Don't even know. We don't have hardwires. Nope. Man, I'm glad that's not a word anymore. Or I only run this, or I want to run this. Our top guys run every- Hard wire. That's a four-letter word around here. Yeah. Good Lord. I'm going to switch it to hard working. Ooh. Yep. Yep. Yep, they are. Yep. You know what we say? You eat what you kill around here. Right. So if you're not out there killing it, you ain't going to eat it. Right.

Except if you had some of my meat sticks from the venison I killed this year, then you're eating what I killed. And I remind everybody of that. I had some, Jeff. It was really good. That was so funny. You know, I took the rest of that summer sausage home. Nobody wanted it. Huh? Nobody wanted it. Oh, totally wrong, man. But I brought it home because we were having our neighbors over. I kind of forgot they're not vegan because they eat fish. What's pescatarian?

They're pescatarian, right? Is that a religion? And I brought it home and, you know, stupid me, I just don't think like that. I'm like, hey, Janet, I brought some summer sausage home from Jam's Deer, you know, because I'm like, that's cool to me, right? We grew up eating that. You know, Janet's family always had it. We, we always had it. Right. And Janet's like, oh yeah, you think the neighbors are going to eat that? And I'm like, oh, good. More for us.

So anyway, like fast forward a couple more days and I come home and she's just got it out mowing through it with like some cheese jam. She's just eating it with cheese. It's gone. Yeah, I need to bring some more in. Good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. How do you beat that with jalapeno and cheese in it? And you know me, I'm not the spicy guy, but I love that jalapeno and cheese. But it's not spicy. It's flavor.

Yeah, but we say that about those burritos from Santiago's. These aren't spicy. Yeah, they are. The summer sausage, it just gives it some really good flavor. Yeah. Yeah, it's outstanding. Yeah, they did a good job. At the end of the day, other than the service, right? So we talk about this. So just to, this is good. So the place that I took my day to be processed, they have a service, but also a product. They're selling me their specialty meats.

The service is processing it, but they also create a product.

We don't have that. right the service there sucked enough enough to make me get my own processing equipment and say you know what i'm not going to deal with this again this has been a great experience until i've dropped my deer off at the processor yeah but man they've done a good job you know what i mean yeah they've done a good their meat their product there's that's where it's yeah yeah yeah luckily the specialty meats are yummy yes you know so it's like wow you know i

didn't even have to do that and it's yummy you know what i mean but yeah i'm still gonna do it on my own but yeah i mean that's the point is we we only have the service you know we've talked about this all we don't if we don't give good service we don't have anything yep so all right last thing i got over here for the discussion is our benefits have renewed yesterday i got a physical i know super day have you went the day before two days

before this week right yep yeah so it's funny it's like huh why is why are we both getting our physicals in january it's like well our benefits renewed and then i remember getting benefits here right away i got my benefits and it's time to get a physical but yeah go get a physical get your blood work done you know make sure everything's in order. You know, if you're 50, you may need a colonoscopy or 45, whatever they're saying now. But, you know, consider mental health help.

You can even talk to your primary doctor about that if you're not feeling up to speed the way you should. You know, but early detection has just been proven to be a benefit to the outcome. You know, if you got something wrong, you know, it's kind of like your car. Let's say your car is out of oil or low on oil because you got a little leak and you catch it early.

You fix fix it up put put more oil when you're good yep but if you run it out of oil you're gonna have a bigger problem so you know if there's something wrong and a lot of people don't want to know what's wrong but especially when it comes to like more serious things like cancer you want to catch this stuff early so if you have benefits here at jfw like the dust has settled from.

Us trying to you know do all the you know the magic with the benefits and it's a done deal though like we have them use them absolutely best i could say you know and it's better if you haven't been to the doctor and you haven't done anything and you haven't set anything up take a few minutes pick that primary doctor make an appointment because it's it's going to take weeks to get in right you know what i mean sometimes you can't just call and go oh i can it's 9 a.m you have a 1 a.m 1 p.m opening

you know what i mean that's not going to happen right and so when you are sick and you do need to go then you're gonna have to sit there while you're sick and pick your primary care and you know what i mean all of that stuff but you can go to specialists with all this direct to them but you got to try and get in so yeah yesterday i got the works you know like typically you know that that annual checkup is free you know but you got to be careful because as soon as you ask for something

outside of that well now cost but right you know i was there and I knew it. I knew I was going to pay. And it was just like, you know, at one point the nurse, you know, she was, she was doing something for me and she's like, you know, well, how much time do you have? And I'm like, As much time as it takes, like, I'm here. I want to be taken care of. Put on the gloves. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't anything cozy. Advocate for yourself. Yeah. Right? You hear that snapping of the gloves.

I'm like, this is embarrassing. She's like, ah, this is nothing. Nothing for you. Don't do that, Dave. Okay.

They do unscrew the top off that tube though it's usually a flip top after they snap the gloves do you want a male doctor absolutely not yeah if we're gonna get close let's let's be close right, uh so anyway be an advocate for yourself pay attention to your pay con but also pay attention to your benefits yeah you have them if you're paying for them use right yeah your personal care, your well-being. Everybody needs you. We need you. Your family needs you. Your kids need you.

And you need to be healthy for yourself. You can't be. A rock star if yourself isn't healthy. Yeah. You just can't. And I want to emphasize the mental health too. Yeah. Just because a lot of people, they're scared to talk about things that may be going wrong. You may be a little sad and they have an easy fix for you. Maybe you need a little talk therapy. Maybe you need a little medicine for three to six months. No big deal. You know what I mean? And you just get healthy and you're better.

But if you don't talk to people about it and you don't let your doctor know what's going on, nobody can help you. Yeah. Yeah, and I was thinking as you guys were talking too, you know, you got your out-of-pocket costs, you got your primary care costs, your specialist care costs, all that kind of stuff. But the phone call, that's free. It doesn't cost anything. Just to make a phone call and ask about mental stuff, ask about getting a physical, ask about what your benefits cover,

that is all free. The only thing it costs is a few minutes. Same thing at looking at your paycheck and going through your stuff.

That's free and it's also something that could make you money or save you money you know advocate for yourself yeah while we're talking about that i got to throw in the 401k yeah it's a new year you know for all these new people that have started if you don't if you're not in our 401k you're missing free money we talk about it all the time we are giving you free money it's free, What is it, Dave? It's free, Dave.

Free money. Yeah. So yeah, join in that. And I tell you what, over the last month or two, I've heard so many people saying, I had an emergency or I had to help a family member and I cashed out my 401k. So they're able to take advantage of that free money. That's phenomenal, right? And that's not what it's for. No, you shouldn't do that if you can't. But they had it, it was an emergency, right. And they had it and I'm, I'm thankful that we're able to help provide with some

of that. So that's, that's good stuff right there. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. Yeah.

And we might touch upon it. I know we're, you know, Jam's about to bring it up here, but we're looking at some changes to the safety bonus and the safety bonus though, that's affected by your income also. You know, and I don't know if everybody realizes that too, your days off and your missed days, you know, that takes the money that you're making, that's all percentage of that. So everything just multiplies your holiday, your PTO days, your safety bonus days, all of that. Just it's a windfall.

Yeah. It's all based on your gross income or your daily average. Yes. You know, so the safety bonus, you know, if somebody makes, you know, right now at 5% and somebody made $100,000, that's a $5,000 bonus for the year broken up quarterly. Obviously the slower seasons will be lowering and the higher seasons will be higher. Yeah. But $100,000, if you've been safe all year, you're going to get $5,000. Now, if you only made $80,000, 5% of that's less.

You made $120,000, 5% of that's more. So, yeah, it absolutely snowballs or unfolds. Yeah, and we do try to go back and average. You know, that's what, you know, it crosses months, you know, once you're here. It's not like we're going back and looking at 30 days. December. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your sick time, your sick days, your holiday pay, your PTO, that's off your daily average. But the bonuses are on a quarter. So the first quarter bonus may be less than the third quarter bonus.

Would you agree with that? Man, I'm sitting here thinking, Jim, because I've asked Joanne before and doesn't she go back six months? On a quarterly safety bonus? Yeah. Oh, I thought it was based on your gross income for that quarter. I guess we have to ask because I thought she went, it's the gross income for the quarter. Okay. Your PTO and your holiday pay, I'm pretty sure she goes back 12 months. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's probably what you're thinking of. All right.

That's exactly it, Dave. Okay. Glad we got that straight. Yeah. Yeah. All right, what's next? So you guys have anything else for the discussion before we move on? I don't, Jim. No, that was a good catch-up. Yeah, just everybody get ready for the year. You know, and if you're worried and slow and you're not working, come talk to dispatch about going to Utah. You know, I would hope you could spend one night away from home and go haul a couple loads for the week, you know, and make some money.

So I do want to go back just to the payroll thing, and we talk about those bumps. This is the perfect time of year to, to just clarify, you know, I, I'm just, I'm making something up here, right? We had, we had the holidays there on, on the Wednesday, right? So we were all jacked up. It was like a partial day on a Tuesday. We were off Wednesday, like a partial day, Thursday, you know, on Christmas we were off Thursday.

But what I'm bringing up here is if you were scheduled to work on that Monday and you were scheduled to work on that Friday and no other days in between, you got that bump on Friday because you were here monday and then if you worked saturday you got the friday and saturday bump even though you didn't work tuesday wednesday thursday yes you know and i i guess i just want to emphasize that a lot of people don't understand that you've you've done what we've asked here you go you're rewarded for it

you know and that friday saturday bump that raises your annual income incredibly incredibly so take advantage of that man yeah i like it what's next well we're going to be celebrating Friday, January 17th, we have our company holiday party. And I got to tell you, one of the most exciting things about that, besides hearing what you guys have planned for the safety bonus, that Frank's barbecue. Frank's is good. It's some good barbecue. Frank's is so good. It's good stuff. And they're good people.

Yeah. So super excited about that. I hope they bring their son this year. I bet he's bigger. I bet he's taller. But yeah. So keep that in mind. Friday the 17th. i'm sure we'll be bringing trucks in early typically we tell brandon we got to be done by noon or yep i don't know how we're gonna work this year but yeah, Yeah, kind of the same thing, Jim. I seen a note, 2 o'clock. 2 o'clock. 2 o'clock Friday.

Yeah, and we'll start to bring them in. Good time to rub elbows with your coworkers, maybe meet some people you haven't met before. The new guys, you kind of get to know some people, and it's a good time. I enjoy it. I do know as a little teaser, the calendars are amazing this year. We've given them out to some customers and people already, and they're like, that's the best calendar. That calendar's wonderful. We thought the other calendars were good, and people are just raving about them.

Brother Dave had two of them sitting on a dispatch counter, like face down. I'm like, boop, stuck on through it. I see I get the side eye a little bit. Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be nice to see everybody, have everybody together and talk about it. Yep. All right, questions from the audience. Ricardo Cordova sent me an email and asked, what is the purpose of making us sign all these policies and will we be terminated for refusing to do so?

So I did ask as far as what all these policies were. I know we just came out with the three points of contact policy, you know, and here I said, well, just policies in general, what happens if we refuse to sign them?

So I'm going to give you the answer off the internet, which is the best practice, and then we'll talk about it. The answer off the internet. And this is more, you know, are companies legally mandated to have people sign policies? And it says, despite the lack of legal mandate, most employers still ask employees to sign an acknowledgement form when receiving the company's safety policy handbook to demonstrate awareness and understanding.

So I like that last part. We want you to sign these policies to demonstrate awareness and, And understanding. And understanding. I didn't understand that. So will you be fired if you don't sign it? I mean, we've never had somebody say, you know what? I don't want to sign that safety policy. We're presenting reasonable safety policies to you. It is reasonable for us to ask you to have three points of contact when climbing in and out of your trailer, in and out of your truck.

If you don't- That's the law. And if you don't want to agree to that, I would say this probably, our views are not in line you know if you don't want to agree to being safe then our views are not in line right it's not our culture it's not our culture is safety yeah if you don't want to agree and sign like our pto policy or attendance policy or that you know how to use your axle load gauges or do we have a policy for that well i mean i know i've harped on it long enough

i've asked but okay the The things are, we're told so many times when something happens, oh, I didn't know that. No one told me. Right. No one told me. Right. No one told me. And I mean, Ricardo, if you had any idea, I mean, Jim's been doing this for over 40. I've been doing it for over 35. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me that, we wouldn't have JFW anymore. We'd be so freaking rich. Right. We'd be out of here. And it gets so old hearing, no one told me that.

I didn't know that. You know, that was the other enjoyable thing about doing this orientation, because I know what these guys have been told. Yes. I know what's covered. You know, oh, we didn't cover the podcast. No, you sure did. Right. We talked about it in depth. Right, Jim. You know what I mean? Or, you know, I didn't know about the attendance policy.

Well, we went over it. I didn't know how PTO works. You know, we had a driver tell Linda yesterday, you know, hey, you know, I want to get paid for these two days. She tells him, okay, put it in paycom. And he tells her, I don't know how to do that. You know what I'm saying? You know how to do it. Yeah. And you back down to what you said, awareness and understanding, because Dave just said it. Oh, we've been told.

Oh, I didn't know that. I wasn't told that. I wasn't that. The signature is proof. Yeah. Super Dave, let me ask you. You hand me a three-point of contact policy and say, I want you to read this and sign this. And I tell you, I'm not signing that. What happens? Well, you know, this whole thing started 25 years ago or more with the driver manual because the drivers would say, oh, I was never told. And I would say, yes, you were because it's right here in the manual and you signed off on it.

So I think this is just my own thought, Jam, is that if it's been presented to you, then you could sign it off as a supervisor and say this was presented to you. And you've, it's up to you at that point. Yes. You refuse to sign. Yes. But you were made aware of the policy. Exactly. Okay. You know, specifically, and I'm just going to be transparent about this three-point-of-contact policy, right? The three-point-of-contact policy, there is a financial piece to this.

Is it okay if I discuss this? Yeah, absolutely. It's the law. If you get hurt on the job, breaking one of our safety policies, and it's got to be a reasonable safety policy, like having a three-point of contact, okay? If you get hurt while you did not have a three-point of contact, we are only responsible for 50% of your wages until you are back working, okay? Or if you come in on restricted duty, right? We're going to put, we're a company that will put you back to work.

You you know you could have three days off if you know i know we got a guy hurt right now it probably seems like i'll be bringing him to work on monday or maybe even tomorrow right because we live somewhat close to each other we're going to get you here and let you work you know you might be shredding papers you might be doing this but you're not going to get your full wage if you were in violation of one of these safety policies and it it sucks because if you weren't doing the right thing.

When you got injured, why are we responsible for you? Why do we need to take care of you when you didn't take care of yourself? Hence the term, the law. The law, right? Now, your medical bills, this is all workers' comp, right? Your medical bills are 100% under work comp, but your wages, it's called a 50% indemnity where we would only be responsible for half your wages, right? So yeah, it just sucks for JFW. And to me, it's just common sense. I mean, we're still paying 50% of your wages

for something you did. Right. You violated it. And that's fair that you're getting 50% when you did it. Yeah. You're only half responsible for your poor choice. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you know what? I'm sitting. You heard about the new Ford dealership that's just given new cars out and you don't have to sign for your loan? Sweet. I thought you need to sign and drive jim oh that's volkswagen never mind.

You know when you when you buy a new house they just let you just walk out you just look at the papers hey those are nice papers you walk out they give you a house what's the address right right i mean why would you not sign there they have to make you sign for a car so you're aware you have a loan yeah you know it's the same thing we're making you aware that we have a safety policy that you absolutely have to follow right and you know if you think about

it our safety policies are really minimal i mean if you ever worked for one of these big companies oh my gosh you got to put a cone outside of your truck when you get out you gotta i mean their policies that you know their book is a foot thick i mean you know i don't know and and i'm gonna ask why is that i was just about to bring this up you got it policies are in place because shit's happened before that's right someone's been hurt that's right yeah and you know what and someone else let

me tell you something it's not a bad thing i was over yard 23 yesterday putting a new cb antenna and wire and everything in one of the trucks and i signed one of those three points contact papers the other day and you know what i was goddamn careful climbing up and down that truck right because it was covered in snow and i was aware of it yes because i just signed that paper and i'm like oh boy you know what i'm gonna grab that handle i'm gonna turn around

i'm gonna step down facing the truck yes and you know what i didn't injure myself yeah so it's. A good thing yeah it's really a good thing yeah i mean. We can rewind what was it five years ago or longer that marty when he was cleaning his windows he's out there in the yard in his spot and whatever 10 years ago yeah whatever spot that was and.

They i mean marty's no young spring chicken right and i love him to death but he was standing on the steer tire cleaned his driver's side window and jumped backwards off the tire this is a 60 plus year old person at the time and jumped off backwards rolled his ankle and broke it JFW had to pay right.

Who who asked him to do that right now we have to have that in our handbook not to do that right you need three points of stance not a hey watch this you know all he was missing was hold my beer I guess he was holding my glass cleaner, right? You know, so Marty sat in here, you know, I took him to, to urgent care. You know, they, they put him in like a soft cast. Well, I think it was only for days cause it was Marty.

Then he's like, my boots just fine. And he just hobbled on it and we had him have, have to come in and shred papers, you know? So. Yeah. The other, the other portion to the 50% indemnity is alcohol and drugs.

If you get hurt and you have alcohol or drugs in your system, that's another situation where we would only pay 50% indemnity. Which is still believe it's 50%. It should be nothing. It should be 0%, right? Again, your choices. We're responsible for your choices. So, Ricardo, would you be fired? I mean, according to Super Dave, we would just make a note that you were informed and aware. You acknowledge. And you refuse. And you refuse. That would be the note. Yep.

And then you'll never get another dispatch. Just kidding. Right here, too, though, you guys.

Again, here's not a signature, but here's a podcast and how many times jam have you you know you do get do you listen to the podcast somebody says no but you go do you listen to the podcast did you hear this part and they go yes that's the acknowledgement right you know you have been told several times right yeah, what if i told you guys what time is it oh you guys got time we do we're doing good on time yeah what if i told you guys on this connect team app we could

upload the audio file of the podcast and there could be a quiz at the end, but you can't take the quiz unless that audio file has been played. What? Played entirely. Yeah. Including the songs. Yeah, baby. I love it. Is that crazy? Yeah, that's awesome. I love it. And again, I'm sure somebody's listening to this and going, I don't want to effing do that. Well, if they're listening. Right? It's engaged. You're already listening. You know, that's my point, Jam, right? Right?

Yeah. And I'm sure, by the way, I'm going to go back because I've been teasing Erica, and Erica needs to tell you about her Ford story that I said, did you hear the new Ford dealer giving the cars out? That's because it's a Ford. You know, I'm sure somebody's going to catch that here. They're giving them out? Yeah, they're giving them away. You don't have to sign for them.

I've been working Erica over with her Ford mistake. Well, you should have seen what senior and junior did to her in the shop over there because they looked at her back tire for her. Oh, gotcha. Mikey says you need to. Yeah. And I think it was something when she went out, there was like, you know, GMC stuff stuck on the door handles. Yeah, they razzled pretty good. Oh, too funny. That's awesome. That's the reason you can get a Ford. You don't have to sign for it.

That's funny. Giving them away. What if I also told you that we could put out an update or announcement, and then you couldn't punch in, punch out, do anything else until you actually confirm that you received that announcement? Oh, outstanding. My first question, though, is going to be, what's this cost? $3 to $6 per user per month. A max, if we got all the bells and whistles, they couldn't even give us any more modules, it's $10 a month per person. Gotcha. That's $1,500 a month. Yeah.

That's right in line. That's significant. That's bamboo HR money right there. Yeah. Depending on what we need and what we don't need, but it looks like the PTO portion work, but you have to have the time clock portion for the PTO portion to work. Oh, gotcha. But according to Joanne, she doesn't, we could use any time clock. Yeah. So anyway, we need to look at it a little bit more. I'm finding out more information.

You know, you guys know I'm pretty biased about bamboo. I love bamboo, but this thing may have some options that, you know, just really make sense. That's great. And I did, you know, it is tough probably on all the guys to be changing, you know, Paycom, QuickBooks. We talk about this Connect, you know, we got XBE, we do all this stuff. We're just trying to be better, you guys.

You know. The other nice thing is if they have Connect, we have the communication piece to connect with our drivers, right? We have announcements. We can make our company announcement. There could be different groups. We can make a Boca group. We can make a Rocktub group where you're only communicating to those groups. There could be a time, a punch in and punch out, and it's all into one app. We wouldn't need... Them punching in here, but receiving announcements over here.

You know what I mean? Gotcha. Yeah, and I liked it, Jam, and I know I asked you on the text, but because we're demoing it and you put like just a small group of us on there, but I loved getting the little announcement for J- The reminder for JR's birthday. Yeah, for JR's birthday. Yeah, it does anniversaries, it does all that. Yeah, because then you're, you know, it's like, you know, Rick's today or one of the guys today, I could actually text him, happy birthday.

Right. It's more personal, but for me to remember, it's rick's birthday today is hard you know and i i like that part and it pops up and it's you know confetti and stuff it was just kind of classy yeah and the girl i was talking to yesterday she was in tel aviv which was pretty cool because i'm like oh we're here in colorado we have this colorado sick what state are you in she's like tel aviv i'm like wow the state of tel aviv right wow yeah i'm like wow you're in israel she's like

yeah because i couldn't get the accent i was like i thought Like at first I thought she was like European or I'm like, what is going on here? But anyway, could be pretty cool. That's awesome. We have another question for the audience and this comes from Clint Camar. He wants to know if there's any more chain classes coming up. He asked chain before, but he says, put me down for a chain class because I want to learn as much as I can.

You know, I think too on that and I don't want to, it's not like I'm trying to push Clint off from taking a class.

But we went over that before as long as maybe you don't come to us at right at the end of the day when we're all ready to go home any one of us will show you how to chain you know i mean if you just ask if you want a refresher or you you haven't chained in a while and you you volunteered to go up there to redmond get a hold of anybody and anybody can show you you know you know what i mean it's what was cool is he was in the chain up area

having some difficulties and a couple jfw trucks came in and he was like, Hey, you know, I need a little bit of help. And he's like, man, these brothers came right over and helped me. Yeah. That's good. That is awesome. That's that JFW stuff right there. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's good stuff. I also kind of want to say, I mean, to that we have a yard right here and a yard 23, your chains are on your truck. Drop them in the yard and practice. Try it. That's, that's, that's kind of what

I mean. There's all these people around just chain up. You have the means to do it yourself. We will gladly come out and, and I tell you what, once you do it yourself without anyone, you're going to be like, oh, I should have put that link on the outside. I should have put, you know, put the key on it. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The cams. Yeah. The cams on the outside. I should have done this or done that. And I mean, you do it once or twice. You're like, oh, I need to do it like this.

Oh wait a minute i can lay them on the ground and back on top of them or you know what i mean whatever the case may be right and the thing is with with us with our culture i bet if you're out here in the yard or maybe not in your parking place you might not see it but if you start to chain here in the yard i bet you get a crowd right of oh yeah of help i have help what's he doing.

Why are you chaining up we got to chain up to park yeah i didn't get that announcement yeah, yeah and i tell you what chain up go drive around the block on dry pavement right see what it feels like yeah keep it under 20 though please please decide yeah i don't know about chaining up to park jam but we've had a blizzard where we've had to chain trucks up to get them out of their parking oh i get it when i was delivering for call mark when

i was delivering for call mark i was delivering to ski resorts that was my route and i'd have to chain up to get to the store because it would be on like a hill so like i get to my stop chain up go deliver get back out take the chains off get to my next stop chain up to just go deliver i was chaining six times a day sometimes just do my job yeah you know we we talk about being advocates and i understand what you're saying jim because i agree with it don't not ask for help but but

it just Or wait for the chain class. I'm just saying. Right, right, right. But what I'm saying is we talk about being an advocate for yourself. And I mean, we do this all day long with things we don't know. I mean, I just typed in my phone how to chain up semi-tires. Seven videos come up. I mean, one's three minutes, one's 10 minutes, one's seven minutes, one's six minutes. How to put tire chains on trucks.

Pretty big help you know what i mean you're an advocate for yourself you're you're figuring it out you're you're getting better you know and i bet i could watch that one any one of these videos and probably be like oh oh yeah yeah learn learn something or right oh i gotta try that yeah i didn't know that as jr calls it youtube university yeah yes yeah car baby that's where i learned to race yeah i mean i i'm trying to run racing i'm trying to break away from social media

a little bit you know there's reasons i have to have it right but i've actually took my social media and moved it to my last page on my phone yeah because what i was finding like i tell myself right i'm not going to get on social media and then my hand just clicks facebook just boom you know if there's a notification i'm certain you know so i put that i'd have to scroll one two three open four it's like five moves to get to facebook now and i'm barely using it good right i went but youtube,

is educational for me. I learn how things, you know, sound like watching more educational videos instead of BS videos. Yeah. You know, just either hunting, medical, long range stuff, you know what I mean? So yeah, you can learn a lot of stuff on YouTube. Yeah. I'm basically a doctor. I heard what you were listening to and you pulled into your parking spot yesterday morning and I was like, holy crap, does he not even listen to music?

You were listening to some medical thing about hearts and stuff i don't know it was really loud it was totally loud it's probably louder outside than inside i was just like holy cow that's funny yeah in school i went ahead and paid for it jam because i thought it would help force me to do it but instead of doing the tick tocks and the videos and stuff like that i purchased an app that condenses the best books, yes down to 15 minutes i got i got the same

one did you do that's in my facebook spot yep yeah but i've been i've been trying to read 15 minutes instead of doing any social media and looking at tiktok videos i put it right in the spot where facebook was i'm like yeah yeah and i i did the seven day trial and i'm like well it's up to me to do it you know what i mean and it was interesting the way they condensed the books down have you done it yeah i've done I could give you my stats here, loading content.

I've done 15 key points, 25 minutes, and 12 insights this week. Anyway. Yeah. What does that mean in English? This week, since Monday, I've listened to 25 minutes of books instead of being on Facebook. Ah, very cool. And the thing about it, too, is I've been trying to get a streak, and I've not completed like six days in a row. I just end up missing a day. Oh, missing a day. Yeah. Yeah. It's been two weeks, but yeah, it's, I don't know, just something to try to change it up. Yeah.

Yeah. I've actually listened to some of the summaries of books that I've read. And I'm like, they could have, you know. Yeah, not as good. Yeah, like I think they could have. Because honestly, Jim, I feel like AI. AI is doing it. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I'm just like, at first I was like, oh, cool. And I'm just like, this is some AI stuff, right? Yeah. I just thought it would be better than the TikTok. It's still better.

It's still absolutely better than social media. Just the aimless scrolling. I mean, there's so much. I think there's so much good information on, you know, that you see positivity and stuff on the TikTok stuff. But, you know, there's still that blurb of, you know, a girl or whatever it might be, or the worst jokes or, you know, somebody dogging somebody or whatever it might be. They're like, I don't need that. Right. Yeah.

Yep. Good stuff. Yeah. Stuff on there about Justin Trudeau leaving Canada. Who's that? He's dead to me.

Safety topic of the week. Get plenty of rest. take a nap if you need a nap samsara does detect possibly drowsiness and sometimes it's right sometimes it's not possible it is drowsiness true so if you are tired please please please please pull over and take a nap oh absolutely you will not get in trouble we will not be mad at you, We'd probably shake your hand for doing that because you cannot protect yourself or the public if you're sleeping and driving.

Absolutely. And I think this time of year is a little hard too. And we just talked about going through the last few weeks. You're off. You're up. You stay up late. You get in. You sleep. You have to get up early. You have a snow day, so you stayed up because you knew you weren't working, all that different stuff. But that, you know, getting your rest and getting that seven, eight hours of sleep is, is important.

Yeah. We're about as screwed up on a schedule as can be just getting back to it this week. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's important not to let this time of year mess with your schedule, take your, take your health and your job seriously. Yeah. I do want to jump in there before the high road hauling though, Jam, right quick. I did think up a couple shout outs. They're actually for, for my wife, Janet, and for Sam.

When Sam was back here for Christmas, you know, we had him for, I think seven days, seven days is what he came home for, for Christmas. And it was funny. We, I took a couple of days off because we just really wanted to spend some time with him. He's been gone and we needed to spend some time together, you know, and one of the things we went down to, what's the little cart racing. It used to be called Unser.

Now it's called Podium. Oh, the one on 36 and I 25. The five gym and we went in there and it's called podium racing and it was funny he's we haven't been in there for a couple years and he's like i'm gonna kick your ass dad wow and i'm like you're gonna see my rear terror lights buddy that's all you're gonna freaking see and janet looked at us and it was funny we were we got there we hadn't been there long enough we had to take the little safety course and you

know we were still in the computer and stuff but anyway we take the little safety course and then we we get up there and we didn't get a race for like 30 minutes it was kind shocking so we sat there and we watched a couple races go by and janet's like we're gonna one two three that next race we're gonna go one two three sam and i were like okay there's no way we're gonna one two three this and uh we got how many people are racing i think there was eight or ten in each race jam

i can't remember how many cars are out there but it was packed so you thought you're gonna like one two ten it i'm not gonna say that i'm not gonna answer that and sam and i were just like okay and janet's like what the hell you guys i'm i'm gonna kick everyone's ass like i'm in it i'm in it to win it i believe it and she's competitive right but sam and i we didn't say anything but apparently the faces the looks on our faces did say.

So we get out there and it was kind of funny though because we got two races we bought two races, And we get out there and I mean, I just felt like we were just going at it, right? We're just, we're fighting. And it, and how many laps is it? It's a, it's a time. So it's as many laps as you can do in jam. I'm going to say four minutes. It's, it, it feels like a long time, but it's really not. You know what I mean? And anyway, we get out there and I, I, I blasted Sam. I, my fastest lap was

like 30 seconds faster than Sam. Yeah. And I don't even know where Janet came in. And I was first, Janet was, or I'm sorry, Sam was, I think he was second. And we're like, yeah, we're going to dial this in on the race. And Janet's like, we're going to one, two, three. We're going to one, two, three. Well, sure enough, you guys, we, we ran that second race and we won two, three did it. And Sam beat me any beat me with a better time than I had on the first lap.

So shout out to you, Sam. Good job, man. That was, that was cool. And Janet, you too, man, you, you beat, you beat everybody on the track except Sam and I, And, you know, I, the way I'm positioned in the cart and you get, you know, I'm shoe, shoe crammed in there, right. Chew horned in there. And then they put the five point harness on you. They're nimble enough. They can turn around and look behind them. I can't look behind me. I'm like, I go like this. And that's like, that's about all I got.

My head don't move. And there's just too much around this neck to get turned around that far back. Right. And I'm like, Jen, it's like, I was right behind you the whole race. And I'm like, okay.

I had no idea, you know? so it was just it was really we had a blast that's all like it was just it was phenomenal and it is how old do you have to be to do that oh kids can do it jim bella could do it yeah yeah absolutely now they do have to take a special course and i'm i'm not sure i think at a certain age their speeds are restricted sure you know but what i've seen most of the kids, if they're not comfortable they go slow right you know how much was it.

Oh, jam. Approximate. Man, I'm trying to remember. I was just like, oh my God. $500. No, I bet it was over $300 for three of us. For two laps and three people. So about $100. For two races. So it's probably like $50 a race. Yeah, I almost, for some reason, like $46 sticks in my mind per person per race. That sticks in my mind. Don't anybody quote me, but yeah. Okay. When I say not cheap, that's for four minutes. Right.

That's pretty expensive, really. You know what I mean? It's like $12 a minute. Yeah, exactly. So I'm just going to say that, Jim. But if you enjoy that stuff, it's just so fun. It's a priceless thing. It is. Yeah. You can't put it. Well, I wouldn't do it if it was a hundred bucks, right? But yeah, I mean, it's not like I'm doing it every week too, right? So there's a big difference there. Doing it once in a while,

I think you got to, you know, it was a gift, right? That was our Christmas gift to each other is we got to go do that. So, and then I do want to give a shout out to Sam. He's been injured for basically the last year and he actually gets to swim against University of Kentucky Friday. So he's a hundred percent. He's a hundred percent on the free. Nice. So they're going to let him swim the freestyle. He hasn't even been released to swim fly and breast yet, which those are,

those are his races. He puts all four moves together and swims the IM, the 2 IM and the 4 IM. Good for him, man. Those are his races. So he's been a grinder and Jim and I and Holly and Jen are going to fly out tomorrow and go see him Friday. Sweet. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm excited to see Big Ten swim. Good stuff, guys. And have family in that. That's cool. That's awesome. Good stuff. All right. Super Dave, what do you think? You want to hit us with that high road hauling?

Sure. I can do that, Jim, if everybody's ready. Man, we were born ready. So ready and waiting. It's the first one for 2025. It is. Of course we're ready, Dave. It is. If anybody remembers the last high road hauling, it was about, you know, the end of the year. What are you thinking about for your, you know, your New Year's resolutions or maybe goals for the new year? You know, not necessarily one-stop shop. I'm going to, you know, quit smoking or whatever.

It's always good to have goals like I'm going to save money or I'm going to, you know, I can't think of anything else. Get my check up. Exactly, Jim. Get my physical. Thank you. Going to look at my paycheck for the year, make sure everything's set up. Going to invest in my 401k. Yeah. Make sure JFW is giving me some free money for it. So this kind of simplifies it down a little bit. This goes way, way back to John Gordon.

John Gordon wrote a few motivational books, one of them that we did way back in our safety meetings in 2015. 2015, he wrote The Energy Bus, if Rick or Stingray, any of you guys remember that. And I still get emails from John Gordon for his motivational stuff and that. And that's what made me think of this.

And he does this thing every year, and he's been doing it for many, many years. It's called What's Your One Word? And what he likes to do, and a lot of his people, he encourages them to pick a word rather than create a resolution. Because each year, people who make resolutions in our busy, stress-filled world with tons of distractions, the research shows, and I did mention this, that nine out of 10 people will fail with those resolutions.

You know, life will get busy and you'll just be too busy, you know. So if you pick just one word to inspire you to give meaning and focus on your upcoming year, it would drive you in the right direction. A resolution is usually a broad goal that could be derailed by many things over the course of a year's time. A word, though, can emphasize an idea, an emotion, and a direction that can help you focus your attention and motivate you toward your ultimate goal. It is direct and to the point.

For example, a resolution to lose weight this next year is an open-ended goal. The person makes the statement, but usually neglects to outline that plan. Now, what if you choose a word to inspire you? One that you could post in a place that you see every day. A place impossible to ignore. Or better yet, you could put your word in many places. The bathroom, your bedroom, in the refrigerator, on your windshield, or on your computer or phone. You would see it at the most stimulating times.

In this case, a good word to use as a catalyst would be exercise. Okay? So it's a fun practice and much more effective than a New Year's resolution. One word sticks. No goals, no resolutions. Just one word that gives you meaning, mission, passion, and purpose. Remember, he was always about purpose, right? Very powerful stuff. One word that represents the essence of who we want to be for that upcoming year. You may not have any idea what your word is going to be this new year. That's okay.

Give it some time. Don't randomly pick a word and allow a word to pick you. Think about it. listen to your heart and your word will come. To help you get started, ask a few questions. What do you want to focus on this year? Or what's in the way? What do you need to do more or less of? What needs to change? Imagine the power of a single word. We could use our word to help make a positive change inside us that would help create positive change outside us.

And here's just a few examples focus today intentional me you words seeds outlook motivation serve purpose drive teamwork win happy play work thankful forgive respect positive love so what is your word going to be this year. And the quote is by a guy named Arthur Rubenstein. I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. So let's everybody sit down, think about it, and pick a word that might carry you through 2025. I got to ask, what's your word?

Helpful. I think that's been your word for 25 years. Because you are super helpful. You are super helpful. Super. Super helpful. Yep. Jim, you got a word? Yeah, I was listening to Super Dave, obviously, and do that, and I've just been trying to concentrate on an affirmation, Jim, and an affirmation to me. They don't let you get away with the one word like helpful.

I'm going to be more helpful this year in getting my kids up in the morning, or I'm going to be more helpful with my wife doing the dishes.

That's your outline. it's my outline it's more more being positive how are you going to be helpful but i totally agree with super date because you got to pick a word what what's going to be your word and you can have many words really yeah you know but that's that's that's what i i've been trying to do jam and i i've uh what i want to lead into because i like this high road hauling so much is is my final thoughts if we can head

into that is you know what you know i'm talking about tiktok and stuff, but I try to do different feeds that are more positive. And was watching this woman that she said her, her. High school student, her daughter just got, she's a senior in high school, got her first job. And she noticed her daughter coming home, just complaining about her job. Just like, I don't like this person, mom.

I had to do this at my job. I had to do this. And her mom said, she listened to this, you know, for, you know, six weeks, six months, whatever it was. And she goes, you know, finally, I just, I had so much of it.

I had to stop my daughter because is this what she's going to do the rest of her life because what she was doing from her job was she was picking up bricks and she was carrying them home and she was stacking those bricks on top of her at her young age on her first job of, you know, they, you know, they make me cook the pizza. I have to mop the floor. I have to go clean where somebody just ate and I hate it.

And, you know, she had all these bricks and the mom said, I looked at her and I said, when you're going to carry those bricks all your life, you're going to, you're going to lug those around with you? She goes, I think you need to be looking at this process that you bring feathers home. And she felt that those bricks from her job would also be how she dealt with her husband, dealt with her kids, dealt with the problem is they'd all be weights in bricks.

And I would encourage everybody, you know, we just talked around here, the, you know, how busy we are. And we talk about the new building and we told everybody we'd break ground before the first of the year. Yeah, for six months, we've been breaking ground in 30 days. You know, and we truly, we just keep running into bricks, you guys, but we are so close. But- I look at those bricks as those are feathers because it's going to make the building better.

It's going to make the process better because we've crossed all the T's. We've dotted the I's. Right. We've went back and redesigned the building. We've added this. We've subtracted this. And instead of just being pissed off that we haven't broke ground that that's a brick I'm carrying, it's a feather because it's going to make us better.

So I would encourage everybody just pick up your feather and and and make it light whether it's your relationship with your significant other your kids you know all of that stuff you look at you know just a quick instant you look at Sam all the surgeries and being out of the pool and all this stuff and he's one positive guy he's a guy that's got that that athletic affirmation that I'm going to do this, he's back in the pool, swimming his first meet in a D1 school. That's amazing.

We talked earlier, and you just said it about Super Dave Jam, that he's helpful. He hires people and hires people and hires people, and people quit, long-term people, people that we have to let people go because there's a mistake. But his positivity about this next guy coming in or this next person, man or woman, they're our person. He writes this little deal to us and goes, you know, this guy's got a great background. He's going to be a culture fit. He's going to be a star.

He stays positive about that. We're going to love him. You're going to love him. When he's got hundreds of bricks every year that he's hired that he's carrying around. And it's a bitch for everybody. And I, I guess my, you know, final thought is, you, They're not bricks, you guys. Anything can be turned into a learning lesson. And it's really how you look at it. Make your stuff feathers. And for you, Super Dave, I know you've got a lot of bricks already this year of where we've lost people.

And lost people as far as working here at JFW, just to finish up, touch on it is we've got a couple guys that quit that want to go buy their own trucks. They bought their own trucks. They want to be successful. They want to try it on their own.

Congratulations you know hopefully you've learned a lot here and you that's the american dream right there you know hopefully you can do that if not you have a home here here because you've been wonderful teammates and employees we've had you know a guy just gave notice a long-term guy he's going to go to arizona moving his family he's going to try something new i knew i wish him the best yeah when i heard arizona yesterday

i was like that actually sounds pretty good arizona sounds pretty nice right now right right absolutely five threes outside exactly down there.

I'm gonna be in the back of the u-haul yeah yeah and we and you know the you know those are the people but we also had you know people that you know just to touch on it we we work in a second job and and we had to let them go yesterday had to and it's the truth of it because we can't take the chance yeah but also there was like why a couple safety issues yeah yeah oh yeah that you know and we can't go into that that's not polite but yeah there was there was some basic to me

it was a serious safety violence you polite you know so yeah there's there's all of that that it's life you know we have a lot of life going on here at jfw and and we try to keep that that outlet that We're, we're carrying feathers. So that's my, that's my speech. Nope. Go ahead, Jeff. No, no, I just, that's a perfect segue for me about life. Cause I don't know if everybody's noticed, but we don't have any tips and tricks from Ray, Ray Davis. And I guess this is my final thoughts for the week.

Ray, Ray Davis going through some problems, whether this good, bad or indifferent, whether it should be shared on the podcast or not. You know, it's nothing bad against Ray, Ray. we've all dealt with issues or are dealing with issues or will have to deal with issues. And I guess, you know, Ray, Ray, this is, this is for me. I don't have any other speech other than pull up your bootstraps and get shit done, get through it. You know what I mean? You're a warrior.

You've, where you've come from and what you've done, what this is, is nothing more than a bump in the road. This is like a pebble. Right. And we, you know, Jim, I loved your analogy this morning before we started the podcast. We were all kind of kibitzing a little bit here. We didn't have much time because we had to get this knocked out so we could leave, but, RJFW path is kind of like 270. It's not a very smooth road.

You know? And it's old. Yeah, you go in and you make some repairs on it and it's better, but damn, we're always having to work on it. I thought it was more like 58 going to plant two over there. Closed for a while. And I guess what I'm getting at is, like I say, I don't have another speech. Man, buckle up your bootstraps.

Put on your coat. let's get some shit done 2025 is going to be a great year jim you're talking about are you carrying bricks or are you carrying feathers no one can run from their problems you got to just stand up face them and deal with them super dave you're always saying the best way to get that done is come to work i've never met a person that doesn't have a problem that when they don't come to work that problem just got compounded because now they have a problem

and they don't have any money right and damn we're all faced with life right let's get it done 2025 is going to be a good year i'm i'm going to sit right here and i hopefully i don't get in trouble rary's got a lot of friends and and people in places that can take me out he says so i'm encouraging everybody just call ray ray show him a little love that's just my two cents yeah so yeah ray is a good person He is. He's got a good heart. He's part of our family. He is. Yeah. He is. Yeah.

So Ray Ray, I wish you the best, no matter what you decide to do. But remember, no matter where you go, you're going to carry problems, right? So it's best just to face him and move on. Super Dave, do you have any other final thoughts? Okay. I'm good.

I'm going to bring it back to the Lord just because of what you and Jim were talking about. And this is James 1, verse 2. And it's titled, Testing of Your Faith. And I didn't have final thoughts today. I felt like I gave a lot of my thoughts throughout the podcast. Your final thoughts were mid-thoughts and beginning thoughts? Yeah, and now they're my final thoughts, and we're going to end it here. Love it. Count it all joy, my brothers, sisters too, right?

But count it all joy, and what is it? Everything. The problems, the bricks, the feathers. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let that steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Yeah. Amen. There you go. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I watched this interview, and it was this guy talking about his dad, and he found out his dad got cancer.

And his dad was like, I'm not going to do anything. And the son was like, you got to give it a fight. We all count on you. We all need you. And the dad was like, I got one. I'll give it one. I'll give it one fight. That's it. Well, like seven years go by, he had had chemo. He had had surgery. He had had more chemo. He had had radiation. He, you name it. And the kid looks at him and he goes, dad, how are you? How are you doing this? I thought you were going to do it once.

And he said, man, I just need one more day. Hmm. One more day that I can be with you or my wife or my grandkids. I just might get to see the chance to get them married. It's powerful. Good stuff. Absolutely. Hey, everybody. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the Challenge 23 podcast. Hit that follow button. Also, don't forget to go back and listen to episode 72 to help find Amber's mom.

We haven't gave up on that either. links to her story will be in today's show notes let's say the creed and get on out sounds good together together face and overcome.

Let's start when we say together we got to say it together together has to start together yep i don't want any two, all right together we face and overcome all that stands before us together we are acid and free together we joyfully create honest values for those we serve together we celebrate our differences and respect those with whom we work together we are accountable for our words and our actions together we are the jfw family all right everybody thanks for

listening happy Happy New Year again, and let's have a kick-ass 2025. Absolutely. Thanks, everybody. Have a great week, everybody. Music. Breaker Breaker 23, anybody got a copy on that Channel 23 podcast?