They’re hiring who?

So the other day when I was driving along, happy to be moving and making some money again, I got a message from dispatch. It went something like this:

“Hey guys! I need you to bust it up to Memphis yard. Got a load going to southern CA will be there about midnight.”

This message ticked me off for two reasons. The first of which is that unless the shop in Houston had installed a warp drive in our truck and failed to tell us where the “engage” button is, there was no way in hell I could make it to Memphis by midnight. The second reason was the use of the phrase “bust it up.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

Was They Who Must Not Be Named now hiring minimum wage 18-year-olds as night dispatchers? Well that’s just great. As if it isn’t bad enough having a bunch of people who have no idea what our job entails bossing us about night and day, now we are to be subjected to teenage colloquialisms while simultaneously being bossed around night and day by kids who still live with their parents. Lovely.

Or was this “bust it up” phrase just thrown out there by some older dispatcher who was trying to jolly me up with some oh-so-clever hip slang? We’ve had dispatchers before who tried that sort of nonsense with us. There was a fellow at a former company of ours who used to try the familiar slang business. He’d do the, “Hi folks. Need a favor from you gals. Got a few trailers for you to spot at XYZ Company. Thx. Rock on.” Oh no, this fellow wasn’t fooling us with his friendly jive. We knew what he was doing. Translation to what he actually meant: “Hello bond slaves. Get over to XYZ Company immediately and spend the next 8 hours spotting trailers for no pay whatsoever. And be damned grateful for it, you wretches.”

When I got the “bust it up” message, I was about an hour south of Texarkana, on a U.S. highway, which meant there really wasn’t any convenient place to pull over and respond to the message. That gave me a while to chew over what I wanted to say to Mr. Hip. None of it was pretty. By the time I made it to the rest area on I-30 in Arkansas, I had resigned myself to giving a no-nonsense response. I sent off, “Okay. ETA to Memphis 02:00.” Short and sweet, the way we truckers like it, making it clear that a midnight arrival time was not even within the realm of debate.

Not too long after, I got a response, and now I knew who I was dealing with. He sent: “Awesome work, guys! Thx for ETA. Go for it!”

I’m pretty sure there’s not an 18-year-old alive who still uses “awesome” or “go for it,” so I was relieved that They Who Must Not Be Named haven’t started hiring teenagers. It’s not total relief, of course, since it means we’ve got to deal with some new guy who thinks we don’t know the score. My best hope is that he was just covering our board for one evening. If not, I’m going to face many evenings to come having to restrain myself from starting every message to him with, “Hello Dumbass.” Oh well, it’s not like that would be a first.