Pineville, North Carolina. I'm sitting in the customer's dock. I just helped a drone re-stack a skid that had partially collapsed. I managed to do so with a reasonably sunny disposition. I know who deserves to be yelled at. It isn't these people.

Right now I can't imagine how I could make my first appointment. The others are in doubt, as well. I guess the most important one would be the 15:00 one with my lawyer (well, soon-to-be lawyer). I suppose after this shitty weekend and what's shaping up to be a shitty day, I could be excused for re-scheduling. But that would just mean that I'd have to be home next Monday, too. Would Epes try to fuck me out of that, as well?

I guess this really only makes me so angry because I was forced to work the weekend because I wanted today off, and I'm still sitting at a dock on Monday morning, waiting to be unloaded. And if one more fucking desk-jockey tells me “trucking is frustrating sometimes,” I'm going to strangle the shit out of somebody. I'm not in the mood to hear platitudes from someone who goes home every day, sleeps in their own bed every night, and can go to the store and the bank as needed, hurls cliche's at me in an effort to placate me. Actually, they're not even doing that. They're giving me the old dispatcher shrug and telling me “that's the way it is.”

Here's my issue. When I am assigned a load I am expected to tell them with my acceptance macro on the satcom whether or not I can pick up and deliver that load on time. If I say I can, I'm expected to do so. Is it so unreasonable to expect that if Epes tells me it can get me home that it will do so?

Most of my angst at the moment is aimed at my dispatcher, Marvin. Knowing I had to be off on Monday, he sends me to Kissimmee Fucking Florida on a Friday? I'm also angry at the weekend crew for being butt-ignorant when it came to the details on this load. But this all starts with Marvin, and with Epes' apparent need to squeeze out a few more dollars out of me before giving me today off.

This is the kind of thing that see drivers leaving companies. All drivers are used to a certain level of abuse. We grade out companies not on how great they are, but on how little they suck. This issue here is the exact sort of thing that starts making a driver realize that his or her company does not give a fuck about them, their issues or their needs. Quite clearly, Epes put its profit first here.

That agers me so much because I'm not one of those drivers who is constantly needing time off. Hell, this is the second weekend in a row that I've worked since Mara left. With me facing separation and divorce, having to move out of my house (perhaps permanently, with nowhere else to go), with legal and logisitical necessities involved in talking to lawyers and banks, I really don't appreciate the apparent indifference of my employer.

No, I don't expect them to give a damn about my situation. But you could reasonably expect that if I'm still willing to fulfill their requirements of a certain profitability from this truck, they could at least give me a break here. I'm covering their ass. Why aren't they covering mine?