First Day at GFS

So today was my first day at GFS. It wasn't that bad granted I was with a person who knew what he was doing, but we did just fine. 12 stops I don't know what our weight or stop count was, but we were pretty well cubed.

However, the stops were pretty fast and straight forward. We went to pretty much all schools and the Sheriffs Office and Jail down town. To deliver a skid of dishwasher detergent, eggs and butter.

We also did one hospital and that wasn't awful either with one guy it would have been more of a pain, but it was no big deal with two guys. We had to load everything on U-Boats and then we just took it all to the kitchen.

The schools and hospitals got a ton of dry goods which are in big boxes, but not all that heavy. Just big and bulky. We did a ton of potato chips and Sun Cups. The school kids love those Sun Cups:


GFS is the king of Suncup distribution oh and frozen pizza's kids at schools love frozen pizzas.
Also chips did I mention chips our dry compartment of the truck was a ton of chips.
Suncup, chips, cafeteria trays, napkins, straws, frozen pizza, french toast sticks, more frozen pizza and ice cream seem to be the #1 thing school cafeterias buy.

We did a ton of schools GFS does like every school district in Cleveland. They must have the pricing and the product offering that makes them really attractive to school districts and institutional places like that.

Like I said we also did a hospital and the hospital was a dock stop and they got all kinds of dry goods, chips tea paper and plastic products we had 2 U-Boats for the hospital freezer 2 U-Boats for the hospital cooler and like 4-5 U-Boats stacked full of dry goods going to the hospital you know, plates, napkins, tea stuff like that.

The dry goods some are not heavy and in general this food is heavy in some cases, but in other cases it isn't it all kind of depends, but today wasn't a bad day.

Where I think the killer is though and where it gets heavy is not so much the schools (not that they can't be heavy) but the regular restaurants and pizza places. I worked at a pizza place for 4 years and yes our stuff was a tad on the heavy side.

With GFS it's more of a oh darn somehow we have to get 100 cases through the side door freezer compartment. That could certainly be a challenge.

Well today wasn't an awful day, but it was a little challenging. I got to drive a little today and I'm rusty driving these kinds of trucks. Our beer peddlers and Freightliner M2's are a lot different to drive then these big tandem axle trucks.

I had to hit a dock this morning and I did it, but these bigger tractors are throwing me for a loop right now. These bigger tractors throw these trailers around and they don't turn as good. I'm mean I'll figure it all out.

Shifting for me is hit or miss, left to my own devises with nobody watching and allowed to do my own thing I'm okay, but usually when someone is watching is when I start to have trouble.

Yeah I didn't have a very good day driving today...
I mean the job it's self isn't that awful, I don't mind it, it's just I'm rusty and have to adjust to new equipment. Suppose this is the problem when you switch jobs, but I need the experience obviously so here I am ready to battle it through.

You will get it Mike, piece of cake!!!!

GT I've been waiting for you! Today we had a couple really big stops in the morning and after that it wasn't to hard at all. I backed up my first converter dolly today. The tractors at GFS have the pintel hook on them so you can attach a converter and then you know back it real close to the trailer you want to connect it to.

The guy who's training me said "That wasn't bad for someone who never backed a converter before." It really in my opinion wasn't that bad I wasn't all over the lot I just went slow and when the converter moved in any direction I just turned the steering wheel slowly in that direction and you know in my opinion the converter once you get it close enough if you have to move it a little by hand no big deal usually you might have to move it just to square it up, but that's not the end of the world.

The driving I can tell right now is probably going to be the first hardest part there computer system will be the second hardest part. The delivering will be third, but that's more of a product recognition thing then anything else if the customer wants me to stand there and check stuff in.

The loading of the two wheeler and working through the trailer isn't so bad, I got pretty good experience at that doing beer, it's already at the point now where I can climb into the freezer of the truck and start throwing and picking off cases without really any help from anyone I understand GFS's loading system and there stop numbering.

The guy who's training me gave me a few tips on how to do stuff with the two wheeler, but those were few and far between, he said "I can tell you know how to handle a wheeler."

Like I said the driving is going to be the hardest part. Although I drove back to the yard today, made some mistakes that are basically bad habits from the beer truck company, stuff that was wrong that I didn't even really know was wrong.

They always say truck drivers pick up bad habits. I mean the beer truck company was lose on some stuff pretty much once we left the yard you could do what ever you wanted in that truck, it was get it done no matter what.

These bigger companies everything is recorded and this that and the other. The beer truck company there was no XATA monitoring hard breaking and left turns and right turns and all that stuff and high rpm of course with a fleet that was 90% automatics monitoring rpm I am not sure what that would prove.

It's fine I just have to adjust is all and it will eventually after 6 months come together.

I do a lot of road tests for new hires, and about 99% of the supposedly experienced drivers have some REALLY bad habits. Often my response is 'He wouldn't drive my truck'. Not to say that a bunch of our drivers don't have those same habits.

Dash cams are on the way for us. I suspect some will be weeded out. I don't really care, 'cause I got nothing to hide.

You running up and down a ramp? How does your body feel? I understand you are used to throwing heavy cases. I feel it the most when I have to do a lot of reaching, climbing and jumping to get stuff on the wrong side of the pallet, or on top up against the wall, or trying to pull them out because the loader jammed the pallets in too tight. I lost over fifty pounds in about six months when I started this gig. I had trainees for almost the whole summer last year, and put on over twenty

I have this real bad character flaw where when I think I'm being tested I get nervous and make dumb mistakes.
When I don't think I'm being tested it's not as bad.
Yeah there's no doubt in my mind I picked up some really really bad habits at the beer truck company. The beer company on some stuff was as lose as it gets. I mean don't get me wrong our trucks weren't like causing trouble or anything like that, but our beer trucks didn't have cameras nothing was monitored the company didn't care about any of that stuff. We had on site fuel they didn't care what the fuel bill was never once did they care how much fuel we burned or idle or anything like that didn't mean a thing to them. All they cared about was the fuel tanks were full so the fuel wouldn't gel that's all the beer company cared about as far as fuel went.

All they cared about was all the stops were off and they got there money oh and pallets because the beer company had to buy pallets from Miller-Coors they always wanted there pallets back, however outside of that as long as nobody was getting into major serious trouble they didn't care. All they wanted was you and the truck back in one piece as long as you and the truck came back in once piece with all the money it was considered a good day. Heck depending on the route you could have came back at 10:00pm (yes that has happened before at the beer truck company.)

As far as running up the ramp goes my route at the beer company had a lot of stairs and all of our product at the beer company was heavy. Unlike grocery where you have some real heavy stuff, but you also have some real light small cases too. Or like I keep saying potato chips and some dry goods are in big cumbersome boxes, but they are really not that heavy.

Now that doesn't mean I'm loading my wheeler up to the tippy top with something heavy like meat or chicken, of course not, but beer kegs weigh a buck 150 each and I would take 2 at a time down the stairs.

I'm not super sore yet however that ramp is not really a pain, but it's a little bit of a nuisance I mean it's easy enough and not that big of a deal, but what ever it is what it is, it's not that bad. You just have to pull it out of the trailer you know how that goes. I'm not in pain yet did break out into a sweat today though haven't sweated like that in a while ha-ha!

Today we had to load a dishwasher onto the back of our trailer. We put the dishwasher on a pallet jack and he pulled and I pushed and up the ramp it went.

I don't know (or want to know) what GFS's stance is on camera's my take is within 10 years every Class -A and Class-B CDL vehicle will have cameras.

Dairymen's here in Cleveland is in the process of installing them right now. They run a mix of trucks they have 45-48 foot trailer that they pull with bigger trucks, then they have 28 foot tandem axle 12' trailers that they pull with International 4400 which we had a couple of those trucks at the beer company, and Dairymens also has a fleet of like 23-25foot straight trucks that they use for routes as well. Any how there getting cameras installed and there thoughts on that were well it's going to be the law anyhow one day so we might as well just do it.

GFS a lot of our stops are floor loaded so in a way it's nice there aren't any pallets to have to worry about all day, however it's hard sometimes because stuff gets out of order or they throw a bunch of light stuff on top of a 6 can and now you've got a garbage stack or something is up against the wall and hard to dig out. However it seems to be okay.

GFS really only uses pallets if the customer requests it. However other then that it's just everything is floor loaded and that's pretty much that.

I hated floor loads. We used to get dry product floor loaded a lot when a route cubed out, but after some improvements, and heavier new equipment, it's overweight before that happens.

I think you'll do just fine.

Only rookies back the dolly with the tractor. A real truck driver uses his front pup, hooks the dolly to it and backs them both together. :D