How many times has this happened to you? You show up at a warehouse to make a delivery. You walk in smiling. You pleasantly hand your papers to the receiver and say, “Hi, I have a delivery for you.” The receiver looks at your paperwork and then asks, “Do you need a lumper, or are you going to unload it yourself?” Your smile is suddenly gone as you realize that your day may have just been ruined.

A whole bunch of thoughts and questions race through your brain as you wrestle with this unexpected problem. Is the product heavy? Do I have to re-stack every box, or just break each skid down to a certain level?

Will they purposely try to make it difficult for me? WHICH FOR SOME REASON THEY DO...MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT...WHY ARE THE GROCERY WAREHOUSE GUYS SO MEAN! That one I quite can not get. Even the girls working behind the counter are very rude and indignant! However, I smile and give the purple promise. As they try hard for no reason other than to just be mean. No matter how many times you go to the place.

As a good person, you quickly understand that it is not you, as you visit hundred of other customers you love to see and provide service on a a weekly basis. But, there is alway two or three of these grocery warehouses, that all the drivers seem to talk about.

WHY?

Then there’s the time factor. It almost always takes a much longer time to get unloaded when skids have to be broken down or re-stacked. To me, this is warehouse work and should be done in the warehouse after the truck is unloaded and gone. It just doesn’t make sense to re-stack a skid, or break it down to two skids, while on a truck because, for one thing, you will then have to move two skids instead of one. Plus, you are making a truck wait while you do warehouse work. Good shippers and receivers know this and they get trucks out of their docks quickly. TIME IS IMPORTANT TO ME AS BPH IS SOMETHING I SHOOT FOR, PLUS THE APOINTMENTS BEHIND THIS ONE STOP!

It’s “not their job” they say.

ONE DAY FOR FUN I LEANED OVER TO THE PERSON AT THE DESK AND SAID HERE YOU GO! HANDING HIM THE KEYS, HE TOOK THEM AND SAID...WHATS THIS. I SAID KEYS TO THE TRUCK...GO AHEAD AND BACK IT UP FOR ME WHILE I GO FIND THE SHRINK WRAP! THE OTHER DRIVERS WAITING IN LINE STARTED LAUGHING AND SO DID HE. NOW, THAT PERSON IS THE ONLY NICE GUY IN THAT WAREHOUSE. I LOOK FOR HIM...WHEN EVER I GO THERE!

A driver, who has never been to a given warehouse, can’t possibly know where things are. But try to ask a union warehouse worker for a few skids or a hand-truck, or anything. They make it as difficult as they can for you.
I once walked...I am guessing two miles in a dark stinking grocery warehouse for five chep pallets. FUNNY! All the way up and back people were gawking and rude! Not even making eye contact. I was like...GOOD MORNING HOW ARE YOU!

Just curious to others answers to this old question and fun talk!

I will have to admit that this happens very rarely, the sort and segregation is not hard...mostly baby work. But, some times it makes me laugh as if they are punishing the drivers for some strange reason.

I once had one pallet with five layers of six. Five diffrent items...five pallets. 200 pounds tops! I broke the pallet down. Shrink taped the boxes and put the labels on the right corner of the product like I had seen the reciever do on many occasions. I cleaned up, walked over to the supervisor and asked to be checked out. ON LUNCH. OH...OK! Stood there for one hour while they sat behind a huge window and ate cup of noodles and talked about...LORD knows what! While glaring at the drivers...waiting patiently.

Finished their lunch and talked another ten minutes. Walked over to me like I was an inmate and asked for the labels. I indicated, oh...I have put them on for you already.

WHAT?

You can not do that!

This individual went back into the office, took ten minutes to scan new labels...five of them and went back to the neat pallets and actually put labels over the labels I put on the boxes one hour ago. I silently prayed for the man!

NOW TELL ONE OF YOURS!