A trucking firm boss publicly mocked a ‘busybody’ who complained one of their trucks was taking up too many spaces – in a near-empty 550-space car park.
Pete White of Whites Transport Services Ltd was shocked to spot a scathing Facebook message slamming one of his drivers who was grabbing supplies from a Sainsbury’s in Coventry early on July 12.
The raging shopper, known as Chris, griped that the 16m-long truck took up ‘so many’ spaces – but then attached a photo showing more than 30 free bays around it.
Pete posted screengrabs of the bizarre rant on his company’s Facebook page along with a tongue-in-cheek reply joking he’d terminated his driver’s contract immediately, ranting ‘how dare he eat’.
The 41-year-old then suggests Chris should approach his driver in future but ‘prep some new underwear’ beforehand.
Since sharing his retort the post has gone viral, racking up more than 30,000 likes, shares and comments.
Pete even boasted that the complaint had spectacularly backfired after the family’s business page clocked up an extra 9,000 ‘likes’ in just two days.
The dad-of-three branded Chris ‘the most boring person at every party’ and boasted he’d picked ‘the wrong haulier’ to message.
Pete, from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, said: “I’m sure this guy’s the least fun person at every party he’s at, and he chose the wrong haulier to message.
“The majority of hauliers would apologise and reprimand the driver, but we’re the complete opposite of that.
“We’re not a politically correct company and whatever we want to say, we’ll say it.
“In the picture there’s only two cars parked so it’s pretty much empty. The driver could have parked right outside the doors, but he parked far away just to keep his truck away from the building.
“I’ve had messages to say the car park is enormous and it’s never, ever full, even on the busiest of days.
“He’s just a busybody that likes to complain and create a problem when there isn’t a problem.
“As soon as I saw the message, I thought ‘I’ll have ten minutes to think about a reply and then our Facebook fans are going to love it’.
“I really enjoyed writing the response and I thrive on situations like that. The reply was very polite but just using wit and sarcasm to beat them.
“Even after the post he came back with a couple of replies and he’s obviously a guy who won’t change his mind.
“I called him a t**, I probably shouldn’t have done that because I tried to remain professional at all points but that’s hard.
“Sometimes we get messages from people that are serious and they’re warranted and we’ll deal with them seriously, but this makes a mockery of those.”
Pete White of Whites Transport Services Ltd received an angry text from Chris (Image: Kennedy News/Whites Transport Services Ltd)
Pete says the lorry was fully loaded with 20 tonnes of hanging lamb headed for another supermarket and the driver was beginning the second of his two-week stint living in his lorry.
The Sainsbury’s car park on Court House Green is shared by other shops and also the supermarket’s petrol station, offering more than 450 spaces.
Pete updated his post later on Monday evening revealing he’d been blocked and then unblocked by Chris who returned to double down on his criticism of the off-duty food delivery driver.
Chris claims he understood the trucker ‘has a job to do’ but pointed towards his claim the driver spent time cleaning his truck in the car park and was taking unnecessary time in the parking spaces.
Pete was quick to defend his driver again, maintaining he’d done nothing wrong and he even ended the exchange by promising to ask more drivers to do their shopping there in future.
We say – Well done Pete and Keep On Trucking ✊🚛💨
#SpottedVOSA #KeepOnTrucking
