Assholes in Greenville

I arrived at this customer about 8:30am. It's now 3:41pm and they're just now unloading me. This is completely punitive. I was an hour and a half late. So rather than unload my trailer and distribute its contents onto their trucks fore delivery (which is what this company does), they refused the load. At first they were telling me I would have to come back tomorrow morning, but Epes got them to commit to unloading me “after lunch.”

I had an exchange with the dock master a bit ago. I really hadn't said anything, but he couldn't resist a dig.

He said “We would have had you out of here in thirty minutes if you have been here at seven this morning.”

I shrugged and told him, “This is all on you, brother, however you might want to spin it. I was an hour and a half late. But this load has been sitting on your yard for seven hours.”

He said, “Well, it's punitive, to discourage carriers from being late.”

So I told him, “It seems like a strange policy to me. Right now the only people you're punishing are the people who are waiting for this freight. I started making $10 an hour at 10:30 this morning, and got to take a nice nap besides. Hell, I appreciate the break.”

He tried to come back at me with “The customer probably doesn't appreciate it.”

I said, “I agree. But who do you think they're going to be pissed off at? It's not going to be an Epes truck that bring this freight to their docks nine hours late.”

Ding! I swear for a brief moment I saw the light bulb come on. It didn't last long. And who really cares? I'm about to leave. Hopefully I'll never have to deal with these assholes again. But he's right about one thing. The next time I won't be late. In fact, I'll be six hours early, demanding to be unloaded.

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Okay, I have to take back the assholes remark. The guy who brought me my paperwork was apologetic. Apparently he thought it was insane that they made me sit here all day when they could have unloaded my truck and put the freight out on the floor for the trucks that would be coming back in this afternoon. Oddly enough, I agreed.