Feb 07 concerning pilot travel centers; knoxville, Tn. Steven blair 865-474-2291 inquiring about An incident I reported about the hostile, abusive attack By the manager at one of their stores. My 1st contact with Mr. Blair was on 01-13-11. He called me 24 hrs after my 1st voice mail about my ordeal demanding I speak with him despite my telling him I couldn't at that time because I was working. He then laughed at me and said he thought I had an emergency. I told him apparently pilot didn't see it that way calling 24 hrs later. He continued to badger and taunt me and left his number and I told him I would get back when I could and follow up and repeated again everything he needed to know had been sent by me via their complaints site (which is below). So today I followed up. Called Mr. Blair. He said that he talked to everyone of the employees and found that none of them had done ANYTHING wrong. I asked how was that possible did he get my complaint? He said no and that he "left a voice message explaining what he did." I responded that I got no such thing from him. Then incredibly he then went into the details of the complaint he said he never got (sometimes repeating word for word reading from it) and did a spin job on anything i complained about.
When I would question him, he would sidestep or refuse to answer any questions, play dumb, change the subject when I questioned the logic / truth of what he said. When I would try to talk, he would cut me off, when I wouldn't allow him to cut me off, he would accuse me of of yelling and having a temper problem. I told hm he was being evasive and asked why? He denied this and continued to spew accusations based on spin, distortion and outright lies. He would accuse me of a behavior I wasn't doing to him WHILE he was doing it TO ME!!! (example: he would say: you trying to provoke me while he is yelling, lying, laughing at me and calling me names) I even asked him if I could verify his accusations by talking to those people he claimed made the accusations. Keep in mind I'm trying to say all this while he is talking over me. H In my opinion, Mr. Blair had no intentions from the 1st time he contacted me of resolving the issue he was antagonizing me from day one. I suspect the whole thing is to provoke one to anger by insulting them.
Mr. Blair refused to let me speak to his boss when asked, saying HE was the boss, i asked if he owned the company again he side stepped the question asking me what wanted from him / pilot to which i tried to respond I want to be treated fairly but what cut off by more rapid fire accusations and character attacks he hung up, so tried to get to his boss (via the receptionist telling me he had one) but Mr answered... He did same things over again. I kept trying to get his boss without success because Mr. Blair would pick up the phone and accuse me of harassing him... I left Mr. Blair a final message of my intent to complain about my ordeal. As I told Mr. Blair I suspect he has done this before and I believe he will do it again and eventually someone will complain and/or things will get out of hand and a disaster will happen due to this kind of abusive behavior. I think there needs to be a record of someone complaining about these issues.
I have witnessed quite a few times hostility/passive aggressive behavior towards nonwhites when visiting pilot to fuel. Ive been doing this over 15 years and I'm tired of taking it and not complaining as much as I should. I had a manger mistreat me years ago and was treated the same by both the general manager and the dist. Manager. It seems to me they all use the same technique. This goes up the chain of command. I'm a company driver, so I'm forced to fuel there. When I owned my own, I wouldn't go near a pilot, unless there was nowhere else to fuel. I wanted to fuel the day of my ordeal, but just wanted to get out of there. I had to stop because of bad weather.
BELOW IS THE COMPLAINT I SENT INTO PILOT. I copied and saved it. As far as I am concerned;Gary (the mgr, pilot #336 dubois, Pa.) is a hyper-sensitive, belligerent, hostile, arrogant and unreasonable bigot that believes in passive aggression and intimidation tactics. Also, in observing his actions, I suspect he could be hostile towards Blacks and exploits situations by extreme overreacting and uncalled for abusive behavior. I have the feeling he has done this before, but no one has ever reported Him for it. Is it pilots policy for its employees to: 1. Yell, run intimidation tactics and scream at a customer for something he/she had no idea was wrong and continue to mock, debate, make false claims, threaten and imply intentional wrong doing no matter what the customers explanation? I could go on, but I'm not. Ive just decided instead to post this on every complaint board I can find, because I highly suspect Gary (the mgr of pilot-dubois) is a person hostile towards Blacks and have no doubt in the future another someone;PARTICULARLY A BLACK PERSON, will eventually speak up, or even worse, make Gary a pseudo victim (because he will be the one that provoked the violent response via his intense overreacting, lack of respect and passive aggression tactics, etc). Its just a matter of time and this needs to be somewhere so others can find it and use it against Gary.
The night before (about 8pm), I parked in a place in the truck parking area the ground was snow covered, but I could see where other trucks had parked in the same place, it was plenty of room and there were no "no parking" signs. The whole night went without incident, No complaints until about 11am When someone banged on the truck. I couldn't see who it was because he had backed away out of view and the only way he could be see if i were in the driver seat. So, I had to stoop down and look out (he and another person (David?) had moved that far away) Gary was looking away then he saw my face and went ballistic. Screaming at me repeatedly "move the truck!!!" with the other person (David?) Laughing. Gary look as if he wanted to kill me, pacing back and forth yelling as he then took out a pen and paper clearly exaggerating his movements (making sure I knew what he was doing), walked around to front and took down my plate number and glaring at me. This was clearly an intimidation tactic;all this anger and yelling and staring/glaring at me, making a scene standing out in the open with (David?) grinning about it (why didn't Gary see the need to get info off the truck BEFORE he saw my face? Why did he see the need to do what he did (overreact) when I agreed to do what he asked WITHOUT ANY QUESTIONING or refusal WHATSOEVER?
Why was he ballistic before he saw my face? Clearly they had come to the conclusion I was in the truck and not in the store Neither one of them moved until I moved the truck. (i believe David will deny every single bit of what Ive said here) So I moved the truck to another place and went inside (Another truck quickly moved into the same place I was harassed into moving from). Once inside I ran into David (grinning that "I'm up to no good" grin of his) asking me "how i was doing?" I answered "fine." and continued to look for the Mgr. Went to the office stood there until a female asked me what i needed and she got the manager (Gary). My first questions were "Why was all the anger and hostility necessary? I'm parked in the truck parking area, where are the no parking signs?" you're not supposed to park there" was Gary's response. He would repeat that indifferent ways and I would repeat the same question. I ask why all the hostility? Gary got in my face and shouted " I respond that way to people who don't answer after 3 people have banged and you refuse to answer. I told him no one knocked on my door and didn't hear anyone until he banged on the truck in which I was up and already getting ready to leave. To which he implied i was lying and was just ignoring everyone. He accused me of "using semantics"when I refuted or pointed out inconsistencies / contradictions in his accusations and claims. He even mocked me and started repeating everything I would say. With rapid fire accusations and false claims about my intentions and character. (The same way those am radio "conservative" talk show hosts do their black guests/callers).
Anything I had to say was ridiculous, downplayed dismissed and responded to in a manner that implied he thought I was a "defiant liar that thinks it can do anything it wanted and was now trying to get over on him." He made no attempt to see my side of it. Why would ignore everyone else "banging on the truck, but answer him? He said it was because he did it louder than anyone else, but how could he know that when he said he was standing at the door, watching them bang on my door? I asked him if had done anything that was illegal or anything that could be considered "threatening?" He would not answer. He also called David to say that he did in fact knock my door. I told David it was noway he knocked on that door to which he gave his opinion he knocked hard enough for anyone inside to hear it and also mentioned "The freightliner guy" but gave no details Gary dismissed David and told Him "he didn't have to put up with this" I was being treated as a nuisance. Gary had stopped with the parking (he had no grounds) and made me not answering the door the reason he did what he did. I asked "why will you not accept any reason other than your assumption that everyone was just being ignored by me? Its not logical and doesnt make any sense. I could have been dead or a sound sleeper.instead you make assumptions and come to your own conclusions upon seeing my black face. Not one question from you, just extreme hostility. People park there all the time someone is there now I don't believe you react that way every time, it would make you insane. It would be like myself blowing up blasting my horn, screaming, yelling and tailgating every time a car cut me off the last 15years." I was ignored, dismissed and more accusations about my intentions and character and threats. His responses were done in a way clearly to provoke anger and possibly a violent response from me. He kept up his dismissive tone and said to me you know what, ll make it easy for you and slammed the door in my face (in my opinion imitating the talk show hosts hanging up on a caller. Anyone can tell he is a follower of those things. The same code words, bigoted attitude and and tone...) He even rubbed against me after I had turned my back to him to move out of his way. He denied doing it (my guess was he expected me to shove him in return) Feb 07 Steven Blair 865-474-2291
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