The 23 year old employee at our branch.
Why do I keep harping on this? Because it IRRITATES me.
This guy showed up yesterday at 4 am to go with a salesman to a jobsite who told him to bet there at 5 am.
What's the big deal? The deal is that he doesn't DO anything for the hour he is there, excepting to get on the internet and read the BBC. He should not have shown up an hour early to LEAVE.
But I wasn't there yesterday that early to confirm that, today, I WAS.
I drove into the parking lot behind a customer who was also pulling in at 6am.
I saw the 23 yo - kid's - car in the parking lot but assumed he had left with the salesman again.
Instead, I try opening the door with my key and its already opened.  I walk inside, the place is completely dark. He springs up out of nowhere -the kid that is.  Really weird.
I write up the customer's order before I do much of anything else and he goes out and gets the part - just one fitting.

He then proceeds to disappear.  I don't have time for this s***.  I look at the door to the warehouse bathroom, light on.  This is one of his hiding places.  He stayed in there 20 minutes and then came out and wrapped up a pallet - a 3 minute job - and then disappeared again. Meanwhile, I am working my @$$ off pulling and loading pipe, pallets, hydrants and everything else plus strapping down the load.

At some point, I had to go check.  Unbeknownst to him, I: can look through a warehouse window, through a crack in the door inside the room that it shows into and see him.  Yup, he was sitting there, screwing off on the internet again. I just got so mad, but I decided to not vent on him, I would just report it to my manager.  He sits in there another 20 minutes doing nothing, getting paid for it all the while there is plenty of work to do.

FREAK.

But, we complained yet again to the Operations Manager today about this guy and everything he - doesn't do - in terms of work - and everything he does do  in terms of hiding and many times not even hiding, just sitting in plain view, screwing off.  Like he is immune.  My manager asked him how to turn off the internet to the computer he uses - done deal.  No more BBC and all the rest of it on that computer.  If I find him on my computer, I am going to lock it down, but my computer is on the counter directly in front of the manager's office with a huge window.

My manager is asking me why I am not telling him to get to work.  This is not in the purview of my job function, I am not his manager.  I can ask him to do stuff, but telling him to get off his @$$ and get to work is simply not a co-worker's

Onto other things, such as the guy that called in to work today to complain about me.  Another driver on the road.
I was in Queen Creek - small town in the boonies - and was coming up on a lane reduction - right lane ends, merge left.  I have been down this road countless times, I get into the left lane long before you can even see this merger.  I pass a guy in a Ford pickup with Florida license plates.  Leave him well behind, only to get to a light, but I only had to slow down for traffic in front of me - note that everyone else had also gotten into the left lane because shortly after you pass through that intersection, that right lane ends.

You can see that that lane ends from at least a quarter mile.  There are the huge yellow signs that tell you to MERGE left.  This guy that I had passed and was going considerably slower than me?  Comes FLYING up beside me - but his lane had run out.  He was either going to drive off into the desert - slamming into trees and shrubs or crash into my truck, which would have done him no good, he still would have ended up in the desert.  I honked at him, slammed on my brakes to let him in though in reality, he shouldn't have even BEEN there, my anti-lock brakes going crazy.  I did the ethical and morally right thing: just shut it down even though I didn't HAVE to.  HE - KNEW - that lane was ending.  But this is the way people treat trucks and it's drivers.  After that happened, he put his arm out the window and flipped me off!

I'm stuck behind this guy for 2 miles because there is only one lane now.  Once the road stretches out to 3 lanes, he pulls over and then proceeds to write down my license plate number.  What a total, complete moron.  He almost causes an accident, flips me off and then has the gall to call my work and complain to the Operations Manager about ME.  I HATE the way the motoring public treats truck drivers.  I WISH we would all just shut down our trucks for a week and then the appreciation for our job would flow oh so nicely.
I put off buying that dash-camera, but no longer.  After my vacation and all expenses paid, I will look to see what I have left and hopefully be able to buy a dashcam for the truck. I don't care how expensive it is, though I think I can get one for about $50. I want it to have enough memory on it, though to be able to record an entire day's worth of driving.  So maybe more expensive.  I told the Ops manager that I was going to put an end to this nonsense - people calling in about us drivers - at least for me and get that thing and mount it to the dashboard.

And so it will be.

Next.  My tickets I won on Ebay for Seaworld showed up today : )  Should be a hoot!  That's it.  That's all I was waiting for.  I just need to get some quarter rolls from the bank, roll them up and get that cash.  The rest is just preparing the car and getting my stuff ready to go.  I will be doing that this weekend.

Enough.

ben