It ain't Angus

I called ahead of time, "Your pickup will be ready in 2 hours." That was yesterday.  Today it will not be ready until 6PM my time; however, I am in California (at the wrong end!).  Normally at the beef production plants I never see cattle haulers, in fact I never see live cattle at the plants; however, today is different.  About 30 feet in front of my bumper is the unloading dock for two cattle haulers at a time.  The steers have no knowledge of what is about to happen at the other end of this walk off the cattle hauler and the building is designed to keep as few people as possible actually "knowing" how they get from field to table.  Even of the people within the plant, only a select number of people move into the ranks of those who perform the slaughter work.  Most work in packaging or other areas where you are handling pieces.  Somewhere around 10000 head of cattle went into the plant today.  I'm supposed to haul 42,000 of beef to the other side of the country.  The steers are black and white; therefore not Premium Angus.  It is just after 1:00 PM and they sent a truck away with steers still in it.  I wonder how long it will take to empty all the pen areas and put the last one into processing? One final note: I never observed any of the workers abuse the animals, but you also never observed one of them look at the steers in the eye.