People, Places and Moments in Time

MikeJ

TB Veteran
Credits
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Hi guys,

Today had it's normal troubles for a Tuesday lost a 1/2 hour due to some stupid problem, today it was getting an order checked in, but over all it wasn't that big of a deal I finished my route at about 3:30ish and then headed back to the yard so it could have been worse. 21 stops made it to my first stop at 7:00am. Wal-Mart which was my first stop was all backed up like a clogged colon. Pepsi said that he had been waiting there for 1 1/2 hours already when I arrived. Any how I chewed the fat with Pepsi (From what I heard from Pepsi he said having a side loader truck at Pepsi is absolute murder, the guy from Pepsi said "I feel bad for all of our side loader truck guys they work there behinds off.) and some of the bread people for about a half an hour or so I was kind of a head of schedule at that point so it didn't really matter. To all of you Sysco and Food Service guys thank god everyday you don't have to go to Wal-Mart. I couldn't stand being a bulk truck driver for Coke and Pepsi or any dairy and going to all those grocery stores ever day and putting up with that crap. The only way I would run grocery store to grocery store is if it was like Talon Logistics or the Grocery Stores Private Fleet and when I got the grocery store it's pretty much here's what the warehouse sent you, you figure it out. Any how for get all of that, it's not what I really want to talk about. What's funny is a lot of the bread guys not the big bakeries, but like Pepperidge Farm and a lot of the other breads a lot of those guys are independent drivers who own there own trucks and do all of that bread work independently. Like Little Debbie, Pepperidge Farm, Mission Tortillas, Bimbo Bakeries USA which is Tasty Cake and what I think Wonder Bread and Hostess (Interstate Brands Company) were absorbed into.

Any how again not what I want to talk about with this thread, but hey this is trucking and as a DSD driver I like to put out what other people might be up against or come to learn.

Any how if there is one thing I am kind of good at it's remembering facts about people time's and things and names. Like if you tell me what kind of car you drive and how many kids you have,and what your wife or girl friends name is I'll remember that information. Especially people I meet in real life or even had seen around.

One thing about this job that's kind of nice and I don't know if this happens to you guys out on the road, is sometimes unexpectedly I run into old friends who I haven't seen in a while working at places I deliver too. It's happened twice now and they always look at me like really surprised like "Hey how did you get that job?" My one friend works at a store that I deliver to every other Monday so I always look forward to going there.

Any how today was a new one, making new and old friends all over the place. I had this restaurant that's not really an every week account it's like a once a month maybe every 3 week kind of place. So any how I go in there not thinking anything about it except I have to get four 1/6 barrels in there as fast as I can so I can go to my next stop. Well out of the corner of my eye I instantly recognized one of the waitresses very pretty girl. Any how I ran out got another 2 1/6 barrels and brought them in and she was standing right there and before I took them down stairs I said to her "You used to work at such and such a place." (The pizza shop I used to work at a couple years ago.) She looked at me said "Yes I absolutely did." Any how I ran down stairs and put them away. While I was waiting to get paid she walked up to me and stuck out her hand and I shook her hand and she said "What's your name man?" I said "My name is Mike." She said "You know the minute you came in here, I thought to myself I don't who that is, but that guy looks awfully familiar." I said "Well, we worked at the same restaurant, furthermore you've seen me around probably a lot and never realized it, you were what at RRHS Class of 2006?" She said "Yes, yes I was." I said "I was RRHS Class of 2007 so you probably saw me in the hall all the time." She went "That all ads up, the minute I saw you I couldn't place you, but I knew I had seen you before." I said "It's better then that, that's for sure." Then we chatted a little and I had to run because some small C-Store and some place called Stinks needed there 24oz single serve Malt Beverages delivered. So that was nice a change from the normal crap that I usually get.

Any how it is funny the people that you run into in life out on the road and the things you see and people you meet, people you think you'll never see or never meet again all of a sudden you run into them. I think never in my dreams or anything did I think that I would be driving a beer truck and delivering to the places that I deliver too. I always knew I would be some kind of truck driver, but I never thought this is how I would get my start, however, things are getting better, the jobs not my dream job, but you know the route I am on now is way better then the route I was on before and some of the stops that I have, have people who know me from other things there, so that makes things nice, and while the company I work for is kind of stupid the guy at Pepsi said to me today "I'm glad to hear you guys are all screwed up too, I thought gosh it can't just be us."

Besides Gordon Food Service and others and maybe some isolated Coca Cola Bottlers and other smaller food service companies and a few beverage distributors here and there. It seems like there is rampant miss management in this entire industry. From the way things are handled from the top down. Almost like there's a better way to do everything, people know there's a better way, but management is to lazy to implement the better way. It's not just things like how the trucks are loaded, like for me sometimes I can forgive them for merging 3 customers on one pallet, because it keeps me in a smaller trailer and the neighborhood I run in I'm very thankful they have me in a 14 bay and not a 16, 18 or 20. However like Pepsi was telling me the side loader drivers have to stock coolers, rotate inventory and now the sales department has told the smaller crappier stores with small coolers "Don't worry about it our drivers will come in and stock your small cooler." So what that means is a 10 minute delivery now takes an hour, and you have an entire truck held up for an hour all on some $100.00 order.

The Pepsi bulk truck driver who told me this said "The side loader guys shouldn't have to put up with some of the stuff they, put up with, but management doesn't care, they send them out 15 stops a day some of them have and some of there stops can be very time consuming, it's awful, the only grace they have is our barn has a 6:00pm curfew all trucks need to be back at the shop at 6:00pm no matter what." I mean Pepsi I thought I get up early, I see there sideloaders out on the street at 24 hour stores delivering at 5:00am there already at there first or second stop at 5:00am delivering. I don't know how those guys at Coke or Pepsi do it I really don't because they do have it rough.
 
I do go to Wal-Mart, I do Subways, I park in front and stroll through the front door. :)

Is Sysco still doing Subways? Here in Cleveland Reinhardt Food Service does all the Subways in fact the company I work for has lost a lot of drivers to Reinhardts Subway Division. I guess the guys say its a good gig.
 
We don't do subways, the transit authority and drug dealers chased us out.

We had a couple of other major chains though, one of which we lost to our competitor, a week or so later the merger was announced and I laughed as we may get them back that way.
 
Mike we just picked them up when USF closed down Northstar, of course we couldn't get the good one, Sonic, that went to Ben E Keith, Sonics are sweet, subways can be difficult, those Sonic deliveries start at 2100 or 2200 at night, we hired a guy that got layed off, he was doing Sonic, he said he misses it alot.
 
Mike we just picked them up when USF closed down Northstar, of course we couldn't get the good one, Sonic, that went to Ben E Keith, Sonics are sweet, subways can be difficult, those Sonic deliveries start at 2100 or 2200 at night, we hired a guy that got layed off, he was doing Sonic, he said he misses it alot.

Sonics are all freestanding newer well in Ohio at least, buildings drive Inns no less so room for a truck to get in and out after the cars are all gone.
Subways on the other hand all franchised and Subway will build a franchise in your basement if you would like them too. So lots of weird and hard spots to get in and out of.
 
Is Sysco still doing Subways? Here in Cleveland Reinhardt Food Service does all the Subways in fact the company I work for has lost a lot of drivers to Reinhardts Subway Division. I guess the guys say its a good gig.

PFG does them down here.
 
Mike we just picked them up when USF closed down Northstar, of course we couldn't get the good one, Sonic, that went to Ben E Keith, Sonics are sweet, subways can be difficult, those Sonic deliveries start at 2100 or 2200 at night, we hired a guy that got layed off, he was doing Sonic, he said he misses it alot.

That would be the only promise Ben E Keith ever came through on. They told us we were getting DQ and Sonic when we lost Chilis. Turns out Labatt does 90% of DQ and BEK only took on like a handful of DQs that a certain multiple franchisee owned. BEK is a terrible place that is hemorrhaging employees.
 
That would be the only promise Ben E Keith ever came through on. They told us we were getting DQ and Sonic when we lost Chilis. Turns out Labatt does 90% of DQ and BEK only took on like a handful of DQs that a certain multiple franchisee owned. BEK is a terrible place that is hemorrhaging employees.

How does BEK beer division work? I see they are also a Budweiser distributor. Do they, have side loader trailers or do they just throw all the beer onto the food service trucks and have you guys make like 37 stops a day?
 
Separate division altogether. They are the 4th largest Budweiser distributor in the nation. Separate trucks, some side load, hand picked, some side load that use a forklift which is mounted on the rear of the trailer. They also have bigger loads which are liftgate delivery with a pallet jack. More like 10-15 stops a day, maybe a tad more on side loader. This is in the DFW market. Some routes have a chaser, with a guy or two helping with merchandising. It's hourly pay, somewhere I the ballpark of 15 an hour. More with seniority. BEK beer is actually a good division. Food, no thank you.
 
PFG does them down here.

I worked for PFG in Arkansas, we did them state wide far as I know, out of Little Rock they had a Subway laydown going to Lousianna. I like Subway ok, but like Mike said, some of them can be difficult. Guys around here at BEK stay, same in Ft. Smith AR, a guy can't get on there, when I moved back to OK, my first choice was BEK, they weren't hiring, Sysco was, so here I am.
 
I think my next choice is probably going to be Lipari Foods of Warren, MI
Today I had a meeting with HR I guess I've been full time at the company for 45 days now and have even
Accumulated some days off who knew?
 
I worked for PFG in Arkansas, we did them state wide far as I know, out of Little Rock they had a Subway laydown going to Lousianna. I like Subway ok, but like Mike said, some of them can be difficult. Guys around here at BEK stay, same in Ft. Smith AR, a guy can't get on there, when I moved back to OK, my first choice was BEK, they weren't hiring, Sysco was, so here I am.


The way the load these days is terrible. Two bulkheads, loaded so you can't break through. All side door, all day. Call it the three door hustle. Haha
 
We have 3 compartment as well, but here we can pull long combos, so if we have a cube high enough we don't go in a 28, around here we pull all sorts of combos, to include a 42' with a 45' as the kite, or 2 42 footers, you get the idea, we have it easier because of that! I would hate to have to pull a 28 everyday the way we load, I would never get done. I would be out the side doors all day long.
 
Hillcrest Food Service here in Cleveland uses a lot of 28 foot straight trucks. One of there drivers showed me his load and how they had it all packed in. I almost started crying. It was literally sickening. Suddenly couple merged customers on the second shelf of a side loader trailer didn't seem all that bad compared to how they had him loaded down. He said he was in the same boat as you guys, all side door. Literally there wasn't an inch to spare. He had to dig him self in and out.
He told me any time I wanted I could come on down, said they were hiring drivers. Said driver turnover is 100% at Hillcrest, said they had to switch there schedules around because of such a driver shortage he said if your into 14 hour days and working all the nights, evenings, weekends and holidays you can handle it's the place for you! Most of there fleet is 28 foot straight trucks with a few 20 foot straight trucks thrown in for good measure and 4 or 5 36' tractor trailers as well. There about a 30 truck company.

 
BEK carried short boxes, as well as 28, 32, 36, 48, and of course 53 for us night guys. I made 100k on my night route, but I wouldn't say it was worth it. Even though I had a partner every night, a cubed out 53 with 15 stops for 2200 cases was a pain. There wasn't an inch to spare in our trucks. I can't speak for their pay anywhere else, but I've noticed from talking to guys, jobs here in DFW tend to pay a lot but demand a lot. Sales territories tend to be much broader here. My location at Martin brower covers a lot of territory. Lets just say I got a team run from dallas to Alamogordo, New Mexico tomorrow. I'll take the 75k at MB I'm making now, even though I'm not a fan of teams. I'm waiting for that 4 day work week, all local, making 70+ haha. Just a matter of seniority.
 
This is a dumb question and I probably semi know the answer, but is your first stop closest to the door? Or do you have to down stack and dig through all that mess?
 
Well what I have isn't even close to that mess:












One of those pictures was in a 28' bulk trailer, the other one was a side loader convertible. I don't have a convertible route any more, which is fine.
 
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