I face a certain dilemma. I try to be a nice guy, and I try to help when I can. Just the other day I helped a woman who had an epileptic seizure. I believe in the Boy Scout motto, “Do a good turn daily.” But I face a dilemma every day. As a truck driver I have people asking for money at every single truck stop I go to. The last guy who was asking for money said he was an Iraqi War vet. But he got kind of aggressive with me, and I ended up slamming the truck door in his face and locking it. Mainly for safety reasons.
There’s this perception that truck drivers make a lot of money. That may have been true at one time, but pay is being slashed across the board. A lot of companies have gone out of business the last two years due to the economy.
The last two days at Wal-Mart I have had the same guy asking me for money. That’s right, two days in a row. The one thing he does is sneak up on me. That really bothers me. I usually have a sixth sense about people around me, but this guy has managed to sneak up on me twice.
I realize that it is bad out there, but I am not doing so well myself. My pay has been slashed for doing the same job. In fact, I think I am actually working harder than I ever have.
I don’t want to be rude, but some of these guys are getting pretty aggressive. It’s also seems that at every single truck stop I get the same thing. I can’t be the world’s savior. I am barely getting by as it is.
I don’t feel so bad about not giving them anything. If I don’t have the money, I don’t have it. What I hate is that I am having to be a real jerk to them because they don’t take no the first time.
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