People have bad days. That's obvious. Every once in a while, two people having bad days have their world intersect. I had a 5am wake up call to go to work on a Sunday morning. Leaving that early on a 
Sunday and having a live load is not my favorite bit of scheduling. We unexpectedly had a few of the grand kids over on Saturday night. We had trouble settling them down. It was about 23:00 by the time we had them quiet in bed.
On Sunday morning I woke up about 2 minutes before my alarm went off and put my running clothes on. When I arrived at the trail, I had no run in me. That is rare and frustrating. Anyway, I went to the yard and got a trailer inspected and hooked up and headed to my live load. The pick up is located off of a channel and across from a marina. People were on their boats preparing to spend their Sunday. It only served to remind me that I had a short weekend and never even got the cover off our pontoon boat. When I went into the shipper, no one was in the office. The instructions there were to speak into a microphone and say what you wanted. I announce into the advice that I was paper transport here to pick up a load.
A few minutes later a man walked into the office and with a lovely attitude looked at me and said 
“What do you want?” I was not in the mood for attitude. Part of me wanted to say “WTF do you think I want you moron.” I repeated. “I am from Paper Transport and I am here to pick up a load.” “What's your load number?” Again it was said with an attitude problem. I gave him the load number and he just told me that he was busy – that's it. I was frustrated and I said “Hey, I'm just trying to do my job. Why are you giving me attitude? I didn't do anything to you.” Now, I have never had someone admit that they were giving me attitude. This guy stopped and told me that he was there alone that morning. Ah- actual conversation, That's a good thing. I asked what he wanted me to do. He told me that he had to finish up the guy in the dock and then for me to back in and unhook my air line. Then he was going to lunch. I thanked him for telling me that he was going to lunch and asked where I could get a cup of coffee. He told me of a nice place.
That nice place also served breakfast. Made sense that since he was eating I could too. Just as I walked back to my truck he was finished loading it. He was actually a nice guy. We talked for a minute and he said that he got off at 13:30 and I told thanked hm for loading me quickly. He told me that he was sorry that the load weighed 46,219 pounds. I said no problem and then he asked how long I would have to work. He just said wow, he was upset that he had to put in 8 hours on a Sunday. That was nothing compared to my 12. Wow-empathy what a great way to diffuse attitude.