Trip

Charlie said you'll get fuel when you arrive. Remember what mpg you did, driving to get here on time. You don't want that empty tank light to show up again, cuz if it did... ah forget it, there's plenty of characters you can morph into. The moment you used the word remember, you remembered that she was thankful for your arrival there to support the team, in a way that felt nurturing and caring, none of which you've heard frequently where you departed from. You asked and she told you it doesn't matter what region you select in the app when logging in. You then ask about fuel, but she doesn't have the company fuel card with her. You end up paying yourself, but it's normal at this point. It's in their name. It's in their name, but you know there's a connection between you being late and her being cardless, almost as if you wrote the code behind this glitch.

Why don't you swap companies?

They. Are. All. The. FUCKING! Same. Everywhere you look online and offline, you hear all about it.

Why don't you swap livelihoods then ?

And what the fuck do you suppose you're doing this very instant, smart-ass? It's a process. You can't start begging to your friends for money again, because you're in between jobs. Don't be in between jobs for longer than 1 second. You're still a slave yet.

[Space Night]

Off you go with the load you've just picked up and you don't want to see the map yet. You follow the sequence and the day goes on. You quickly figure out why they pay a bit better here. You're angry at ThisCorp for demanding you to be fantastic when they're shit. You bypass this by brainstorming how their technical issues can be monetized. You must have some kind of plan, as you've been marinating this idea for a while.

You notice you're falling behind your schedule, even though you did your best. But maybe you didn't, otherwise why would you be behind? Oh, well, it may be because the delivery app freezes for 5-10 seconds at each drop, even though you have swapped devices and downloaded the offline maps on both. Also perhaps there's a ton of other things you have to do while driving, a lot of other errors in the app that you have to wait for or work your way around, which obviously takes patience and attention, all while maintaining that fictional degree of safety that went down the drain anyway, without even specifying the things you have to do while driving. You're not supposed to touch your phone at all, but good luck getting the route done, playing by the book. So then, why are you behind? Well, simply because someone up there in a comfy armchair has unsafe expectations of you, because the people who've had your route before, had brought along their personal helper (wife/friend), to be able to deliver anywhere between 150 and 400 or more parcels in a timely and humane manner, going around ThisCorp's intentionally fucked up sequence of drops. To put it briefly, when you deliver 100 parcels in less than 9 hours, the artificial dumbness responsible with generating the routes knows that 100 parcels can be delivered by one driver in 9 hours. Tomorrow, or when the number of orders in that area allows it (Tomorrow.), that route is likely to have at least 101 parcels. Having unpaid helpers is not allowed. When you tell them about it, all the people that you have access to in between you and that guy in the armchair seem to act as if they were NPCs in a computer game designed under the influence. Numbers, it's all they have in mind, as if their contract with ThisCorp begins with "The moment you sign this, we get to imprint our logo on your soul".

Except for her, who seems preoccupied of her job and sends you help, a rather friendly Moldavian whose face makes you think of a secretly gay orthodox priest. You sense something's fishy about him. You ask your guts about it. They reply with "Food, please!" and now you're playing Age of Empires 2 for a split second, again entertained and distracted in the matrix. He tells you that most of the stuff you brought will probably not get a chance at being used, because of how small the hotel rooms are. He also informs you that you're most likely to move from one hotel to another quite often, because Shit Ltd can't find accommodation available for more than up to 2-3 days at a time. You don't yet decide wether to believe that or not, but you're both in the same jar, so he's probably right. He takes around 34 of your drops and you get to close your eyes and breathe for a minute.

[Sullfupport - Cam Rillem]

You're still getting accustomed to this van and you haven't learned the sensitivity of its sensors yet. It's dark now and you have to make a delivery in a T junction. Parking space for the long wheel base? You park on the road that has to give way, to make the delivery on the main one. You reverse into someone else's car and it was loud. You look at his bumper and in that public night light you're convinced that you've jumped onto a bellend, arse-on. They get outside in 5 seconds. You apologize, saying that you were going to knock on some doors anyway, to find out whose car you hit. They believe you, probably because you're standing right in front of their property and not near the impacted vehicles. And you wear the same skin as them. And you're well dressed and well shoed. You let the injured owner decide how you move forward, showing him your £19.38 fortune on Revolut, out of which £40 were recently borrowed, so you're actually on your negative balance. He looks at the bumper. For a while. He then admits that most of the damage is old cracked paint that was there before you hit it. You focus on the bumper too. You did nothing but a scratch. He was probably never involved in any such event, you can see that by how long he takes to respond. Or maybe he's just a bit slow, which means you can attempt a gentle offensive. The damage is only cosmetic, his rear bumper only needs a re-polish, been needing one for a while now. You're skint, but you offer him a bottle of apricot brandy you spent £70 on, before you drank half, telling him you got it for £200, all the way from Transylvania, AND it's aged. It's only a fucking Zafira, not even new. You have the impulse of saying that, but those words stop right before your teeth. He declines your offer. Then you, him and his wife inspect the damage again, this time with your head torch, the flash on your phone, the one on his phone, the one on her phone, and she also brought some kind of lamp. Conclusion? They will decide tomorrow, in daylight. You exchange numbers and resume previous endeavors, letting only faith in humanity validate this contract. "Whose faith?" -you're thinking. But your body, with all its symptoms of thiscorpirian burn-out, lets that be your faith too. Or was that laziness? ThisCorp would swear it was. Fuck ThisCorp. You're not ThisCorp. Oh, well...

You don't get to make another 2 deliveries when you get a phone call and he's asking for your reg plate. You tell him you're 5 minutes away. You come back to the place of impact in 1, you reverse the van back into position and you film and take photos of e-ve-ry-thing, with your head torch as additional lighting and from as many angles as needed, and you make sure he sees you painstakingly filming when he gets outside again, with a pen and paper in his hand like it's 1902 (he's 45 at most), to note down your reg plate. You offer the brandy again. He refuses. You explain that you had a feeling it would prove useful somehow, that's how a ThisCorp driver has an opened bottle of hard booze with him on the route. His facial muscles forget to help him laugh at your joke and he's giving you the Hawking look. You've been ignoring the signs, but now you know who you stand before, so you show him how much shit you brought with you, to prove your trip-away-for-work story. He looks a bit more animated now, so you offer him a shot, in friendly spirit. He declines that as well. You smile with your whole face, eyes, mouth and cheeks while you slightly turn around and whisper "Mai du-te şi-n pizda mă-tii" between the teeth of your grin, barely audible, so it goes undetected. The meeting ends when they decide that if tomorrow morning the scratch looks worse than it looks now, they will call you.

Gojira - Grind

You get back to the depot to speak to the shift manager, an insecure guy whose attitude is not surprising you at all, considering your history of such encounters. You show him the glitches and every other oddity you'd documented that day. He looks at them unable to comprehend, as if he hasn't ever seen the app. You ask him a few good questions, to which he takes his chair and sits down, repeating no better answer than "I'm rather new in this position, I would prefer to avoid giving you wrong information". You can really feel him somehow, you can see mediocrity in his eyes when he behaves as if his manager's manager is now telling him off. As he is talking, you can hear his words before they come out of his mouth, as if you heard it all before, in a poorly executed show directed in Bollywood style, only he's white. He gives you a number where you can call. That number has no connection to ThisCorp, it leads to a completely different entity. You tell him you recognize that number and that you know it leads nowhere. His ears light up like blooming poppies. There's a pressurized silence for too many seconds. Fuming, you look at him and exhale through your nose as if a big great slap is coming his way, but you don't live in that world anymore, unfortunately. In a world where you don't get sued for a slap if it's well deserved, that is what would've probably pulled some consciousness back into this NPC standing in front of you. You're knackered, and the wise call now is to just make a face at him. He understands your face and puts his mangy look down.

[2:36]

You leave the depot realizing you're slowly becoming a predator and you laugh again with that villain shriek that only in solitude you allow. You straighten your back while you laugh. It really hurts, but you're enjoying the pain. It's part of those things you laugh at right now.

She calls you to ask you the following question: "What do you think went wrong today?".

You're detached from that past when you'd have blasted a rant in her ear without repeating any single curse. The tonality of her question was neutral, with little chance of insinuation. You take responsibility and admit that you could've been tired from the long way. It is also your first time in a while doing a long wheel base route. You briefly mention some of the technicals impeding your efficiency, but it's late and the conversation is concluded with "I'll do better tomorrow, baws", to avoid extending this phone call to where you're both angry at each other. You realize that you enjoy talking to her. She's challenging and fuelling your growth somehow. You rewind the tape and smell some corporate bullshit in her overall choice of words. You replace that thought because it feels negative and slippery and you know how that contributes to everything. You need to FFFUUUUUUUUCK !

You end the day at peace, mostly because you've been gifted with tranquility straight from your origin. Also partly because you have the luxury of your own room. You know this could change soon, because Shit Ltd doesn't care about how well you rest as long as they can still profit from your routes. After all, you named them Shit Ltd for a shitload of reasons you'll eventually also write about.

You rest your thoughts knowing that in the morning you won't have to pack the half of a fucking caravan you dragged after you, because the room is booked for 2 nights, or at least that's what Charlie told you. You take your magnesium and you throw yourself in the bed on your back, like they do in the movies. Perhaps you shouldn't have done that. You're thinking how reality used to inspire movies and now everyone's reality is copying the movies.