The split.

This is something that all couriers must deal with but it is even more annoying in Atlanta, not only because I have to deal with it," but because of our geography. Years ago most of the work was centralized around the courts downtown with legal clients situated along peachtree no more than two blocks or so to the east or west. Before I came out clients started moving north, meaning that our job now consists mainly of traversing this 4 mile north south corridor with only two blocks or so of variation east or west. While making it fairly easy for the rookies to learn all the addresses, it enables heartless dispatchers to ruin(or try to) your day.
Example. 1070-to base, i'm clear downtown. Dispatch-come to midtown to pick a round trip headed down to courts.
Now not only am I being dead headed(making 0$ for the four miles up to midtown), but I'm going to be coming right back to where I currently am. At which point in all likelihood the same thing is going to happen again. One of my former dispatchers liked to call it yo-yo. I liked it when he quit.
1070-to base, thats a lot of riding for 8 bucks with nothing else hooked in. Dispatch-silence.....this is the game they play. They want you to feel bad for not being a team player or some such bullshit. They forget a couple of things.
-They get payed to dispatch efficiently which dogging me out for days on end by having me somehow be the only chance for a package on the other side of town.
-I don't exist in two places at once no matter how hard they try to believe this.
-I've been doing this long enough not to be scared of one idle afternoon.
-I rarely refuse packages.
-I save their asses repeatedly.
-I don't complain(to them anyways).
1070-to base I've got downtown covered. Dispatch.....silence
Low and behold 30 minutes later they found runs within three miles of my last drop.

Now I've heard all the bullshit about how I we can't see the whole picture, and how actually we'd make much more money if we jumped blindly at every run like it was the last lap of the scratch. If this was the case it would only take two seconds to explain that to me. Dispatch-to biker, hey I've got 50 bucks worth of tickets set up on a loop starting in midtown. 1070-to base sent me the pages i'm on my way. See how simple that would be. That could be communicated in maybe what ten seconds. Or simply... Dispatch-to biker, hey you're my only hope on this one but I'll hook it up later. 1070-to base, no problem page it. Wasn't that easy, i don't even have to be the last chance on it but if you lie at least i won't view the situation in a negative light, I'll cringe and bear it knowing if even falsely that in the end it will mean a favorable run, or a morning to sleep in a little later.

....Ahh the glory days of going down with 20 court runs and making 100 bucks in an hour on one loop.