Friday Failure and a little help from Sysco Cleveland

MikeJ

TB Veteran
Credits
188
Hi Friends,

Oh what a mess today turned into. I got home from work about an hour or so ago. After getting there at 5:00am. It was a good 15-16 hour long day.

So I get to the yard do my paperwork walk out to the truck and get ready to go, I check my load write down where everything is, and were off. I do the first stop no problem, then that's when the fun starts, I get to the second stop pull in around behind the building right on time, ready to go, even beet the store check in clerk so I was the first truck there, then the trouble started. I smelled diesel fuel and looked down and saw a bunch of diesel fuel leaking from my truck. I said "uh oh".

I called mechanical and they sent someone out who then decided that we needed a tow truck, so all in all I lost 3.75 hours waiting for a new tractor and a tow truck.

















Any how the company did eventually send a van out and I drove a few stops in the van while another driver drove the truck for a couple stops, but oh what a mess, missed delivery times, product and crap scattered all over my truck, oh what a mess, you know I don't worry about it to much though, I figure, by tomorrow they will be on to some other fiasco and two days nobody will even remember what happened. Miss placed stuff product on the truck that didn't make delivery, oh what a mess, oh well.

I got to chat with a salesman from my company today and generally all the sales people I have meet are pretty cool the guy I was talking to today I said to him "Hey I heard from another driver you guys in the sales department are on the company's S-list." He laughed and said "That's an understatement." The sales people and merchandisers don't seem to last very long where I work, thinking of that neither do some of the drivers. Word on the street one of the drivers already quit decided he wanted to go work for Talon Logistics which is Giant Eagle Grocery Stores private fleet. They have a major warehouse in Cleveland and it serves like the whole state of Ohio. I see there trucks everywhere.

Any how I've pretty much with the exception of Wednesday, got my butt beat this week. Thursday was okay by comparison a tad long, but could have been worse.

Any how they had me working with the same guy for the past 3 days he's new like me, I've got a couple weeks on him, but I could tell, by the end of the day today he was starting to run out of gas. He was trying not to show it, but it happens. Me ehh what ever I really didn't care. Actually what they could have done and I would have been perfectly okay with this, was told the guy working with me, okay you have learned enough, you can go home and Mike you just finish this up your self. Sometimes, it's just easier to do it your self. I mean now obviously from the companies perspective, they have to send help, because if the product doesn't get delivered they don't get paid.

The guy I was working with who I guess, was kind of in training was like "Well 5-6 O'clock every one should be around then." I said "Look you can't really just barge into a restaurant at dinner time and demand they take care of you. It doesn't work like that, and places have delivery windows some of them and plus the company, I can't speak for everyone I realize this, but the company I mean doesn't want you making deliveries way late I mean that's just terrible service, they have to do something, I think... I don't know though some companies probably go oh well let it fail."

Any how I had a delivery to make a restaurant today and Sysco Cleveland was there at the same time, well as I was wheeling the wheeler into the restaurant I hit a divot in the pavement and my stack went all over the place I at that point yelled out and obscenity that I can't write on this forum. Well right when that happened Jimmy from Sysco Cleveland was there and rushed over to help and with his help I didn't break any cases. Which was good, and actually it evens out, because when my truck was broken down I saw the coke merchandiser drop some cases of Coke and I ran over and helped him pick everything up. So I helped and got help.
 
As new driver sounds like your quickly realizing the importance of working relationships outside your own company, working next to and together with drivers from other outfits is really important, gaining and giving respect out on the street goes a long way in making for a smoother day, I think that you will find the reputation you earn with other drivers is as important the reputation you have with customers, and maybe more important then with the suits back at HQ, as your the one working out on the street.
 
Top