Snackbar is chillin'....at Shaffer

People could get their poop together and perform exceptionally at their job and there would be the same number of Angry Drivers™.

There are two main distinctions that categorize an Angry Driver - "Is the irritation justifiable?" and "Is the reaction to the irritation reasonable and efficacious ?"

Angry Drivers will take a justifiable irritation, react in unreasonable and counter productive ways and wonder why things don't work for them.

More often, the Angry Driver will allow a minor irritation to have an outsized impact on their mood. They then are less able to effectively deal with the hiccups of daily life, which creates a feed back loop of anger and resentment.

Many years ago, there was a driver who worked for my company. We'll call him Angry Driver. The first time I met Angry Driver I was hanging out in the Edwardsville OC waiting on the company car and AD was ranting at a couple of other drivers about something. It was - memorable, shall we say. We'd bump into each other over the next few years, and each time Angry Driver was full of bile and vitriol. The second to last time I saw him we were at the Terre Haute Menards DC on a Thursday afternoon. He walked up to me as I was watching my trainee get coupled to our loaded trailer. Angry Driver told me how Ops had tried to saddle him with our load, but he was supposed to be home in Green Bay Friday, but "he wasn't going to take that poop" because it was going over to St Louis. I humored him for a couple of minutes, then tried to politely tell him I needed to keep my trainee moving. He followed us around as we did the pretrip, moaning the entire time about how the company was "too stupid to get him home on time". Once we got on the road I explained to my trainee that he would run into a lot of "Angry Driver" types. Guys, who despite their years of experience, don't understand how things work.

I knew that we'd be able to get to the store with the hours we had (Angry Driver could have as well) and there were several restaurants in the same plaza. Even though we had a 0600 appointment, odds are the store would have us back into the dock that night and then unload us in the morning and we'd be able to not start our clock until they were done. Or they would unload us right away and we creep out of the dock and finish our break in the lot. Even if we restarted our 10 after pulling from the dock, we would still have a fresh 14 when we started Friday morning. That would allow us to go to any of 5 different shippers that usually have loads heading in the direction of Green Bay, where we needed to go. Long story short, we made Green Bay by end of day Friday. Angry Driver could have done the same, but "he wasn't going to take that poop".

At that time, Trainees finished their classroom time about 14:00 on Saturday. I stopped by the yard to do a meet and greet with my trainee for the next week and then run him through the grocery store so he wouldn't be reliant on truck stops for everything. As we were going over the atlas, Angry Driver came into the building to scan his BOLs. Upon seeing me, he exclaimed "Those [naughty words] just got me in, when did those [naughty words] get you home?" He was less than pleased when I told him I was in on Friday, with time to spare, and had more paid miles to boot.
​

This was the original Angry Driver post. Angry Driver was supposed to be in GB by end of day Friday, but threw a tantrum about heading west instead of north that resulted in getting home late with a smaller pay check to boot. During my time with Schneider, every driver who complained about not being able to make money was the root of their own problems. Poor trip planning, inefficient trip planning, poor/non-existent communication, not understanding company procedures, etc. I never ran into the problems so many others did because when things went pear shaped, I always looked at my own role in the situation and then tried something different the next time. The Angry Driver doesn't do that. Angry Driver's lack perception, struggle with accepting feedback, and are unable to self-reflect.

SSB is very justified in being upset about his lousy miles. I'd be livid. Offer me a 50 mile, 2 day load and I'd be ripping dispatch's toenails out via their tonsils - internally. Externally I'd be negotiating layover or discretionary pay. Or electing to sit and wait for new loads to be posted in the morning. There are reasons I made more hauling a dry van coming home weekends and working 270 days a year than he did hauling reefers/flatbed staying out for months at time.

And if I couldn't get an adequate resolution, I'd find a different job. I wouldn't "warn Deland that if they don't get their #### together, I will go back to being the driver I was when I was at Crete (when she would have multiple emails about me and my attitude in her inbox every Monday morning)."

 

You sure do like to preach down to others from your high and mighty pedestal.

You do realize the OP has you on ignore after your previous disrespectful and arrogant ramblings towards him a few days ago, right?

 

I need that on a shirt

 

Yes, I do know that SSB couldn't handle criticism and put me on ignore. I was responding to someone else.

You claim I'm preaching down to others from my pedestal. I think I pointing out salient details to people who are missing the plot. AKA

 

"Salient" is too fancy a word to use on this forum. I think appurtenant is more apropos.

 

This guy pulled into the loves in West Memphis sometime overnight and parked right in front of the fuel island… Where the red line is is exactly where he was parked. We had to get management after he wouldn’t answer us drivers to get him to get out of the way… By the way, another Chicago truck Eastern European too

 

The EuroTrash just don't give a ####.