The Food Service Rant thread

Well,
Monday is over we were packed at the yard today trucks leaving the yard with 9 stops on them fully cubed out and packed to the back doors. I had 12-13 stops something like that with 780 cases 17,000+lbs. Actually not a bad day today really 12 stops is a good number. I was running down town most of the day, worked out well. I was cubed out pretty good not right to the back door like other guys, but I didn't have a ton of room to work either ha-ha, however I had enough to get it done. Had the juvenile today, gosh did they have kind of a big order. 5 pallets worth. Actually I'll tell you what they don't eat all that bad at juvenile hall, they feed them potatoes and cookies and chips you'll get fat in jail big and fat. The one guard even said "What? There getting Grandma's Cookies now?"

Actually the kids at Juvie hall eat a lot of hot dogs and I think that's because hot dogs are not all that expensive so the county buys them, which makes sense.

Now the actual county jail I've delivered there too not today but in the past, they don't eat nearly as good, it's pretty much here, here is you're scoop full of Lima Beans and cardboard milk carton of white milk.

Lets see what else oh I broke a gallon of 1000 Island Dressing today, gosh did that make a mess. Oh well now and then some dressing or hot sauce breaks.

 

Well, today something happened something I wasn't thinking would happen ever again. That's right I got my regularly assigned truck back. Could not believe it. You see I've been driving spares and taking unoccupied tractors off the lot for the past 4-5 months. Well it finally happened my regularly assigned truck which was doing a tour of duty in the Pittsburgh Service Pool while waiting for some much needed maintenance. Well today it happened my regular truck showed up back on the lot today. All kinds of stuff and new goodies like for instance and I almost fell over when I saw it, but brand new shocks 6 of them all the way around! They put a brand new fire extinguisher in the truck, they fixed the hand held charging platform, they I hope fixed the oil leak. They also fixed the seat belt and a bunch of other goofy odds and ends I never expected.

Now as far as an International in our fleet goes this truck I think is just worn out it's definatly older and it's slow and it pulls kind of crappy. I've driven other GFS Internationals that pull night and day better then this thing and our quieter to boot. This truck is loud however it runs and works and gets the job done (clutch break on it is non existent.) but it's mine and it has a cup holder which is rare for the binders even-though someone spit tobacco juice all over the dog house and cup holder which makes me very sad, because now I have to clean it up, but such is life. So here it is my regular truck back in action.

 

Dat bumper.

What's a dog house

 

I know that bumper is a real beauty.
Dog house is that piece of housing that covers where the transmission meets the motor on the cab. Like you ever drive a cargo van? The cargo van under the radio has that big piece of plastic that bumps out. Mechanics call it the dog house.

See where the cup holder is some one spit tobacco juice all over I have to clean it up probably do that tomorrow.

 

Have you seen how small checker's/Rally's parking lots are? Tiny. I would kill to have a little pup behind me instead of a 48 and an otr cascadia. I like wendy's parking lots way better. I would trade in my baltimore checkers run for my old manhattan wendy's run in a heartbeat.

Just curious mike what general area do you work around? Going to my last stop in hagerstown md i almost always see a few gfs trucks. Willow run Foods where i work is located in Binghamton ny, our 1 and only yard and do Maine to Virginia

I need to go elsewhere but my age is kind of screwing me, I'm 22. I do 2 36 hr runs a wk, have to finger print every item and put it on a 2 wheeler and its hardly even a 50k a yr job. If you want to make a career of it after 7 years you become fully vested for profit sharing (employee owned) and they contribute about 16-18% of your salary pre-tax. We're paid by mile and case, also get on time and perfect truck bonus. so if you dont have high case count or high mileage run you get screwed. my long Island run is 540mi avg 850-1000 cases. My bmore run is roughly 670mi and a low 700-900 cases. In our 48's we can stuff about 1550 cases. If you want to take a helper they rape you on it, about 1/3 less pay. If your too early to a stop you don't get your on time bonus, such bs (say stop is scheduled for 8pm I have to be there between 7 and 9 to get my bonus.

Way too micromanaged its insane. I am notorious for turning my phone off on the rd, don't call me 10x a day and maybe id answer, now what they do is sometimes call a store im at and want to talk to me. 90% of the time its useless info they want. Wait til i get back. The bossman and I have had it out a few times, were so hurting for drivers you can tell the boss off and not worry in the least you'll be fired.

Only way to get fired is to roll a truck. This one guy had about 10 accidents, no joke and hes still here. not huge accidents but still Drug testing is a joke, had helpers tell me about drivers blowing lines in the truck. had another driver say they only test the same few cuz they know they'll pass but can't see how they can get away with it???

ok im done ranting just needed to blow off some steam before i leave for Iraq, I mean Baltimore. The conspiracy theorist in me says we go threw so many drivers cause they get kickbacks for hiring the unemployed and threw their bs cdl mill

 

Hey Bret Buddy,
I working in the Broadline Division for GFS in Northeast, Ohio. GFS is set up differently from other food service companies in the sense that we have many many drop lots, but only a handful of big distribution centers. We run more doubles then any other broad line company out there. My pay is similar to yours we do have profit sharing 5 years and you are 100% invested. My pay right now is 50-60K range. We do not have sleeper cabs at all we do have OTR guys that do chain restaurants like you do, well not fast food places, but sit down causal Red Robbin and Bob Evans are the big 2 chains we do. Our OTR guys are the Chain Drivers and the Volume Drivers. GFS is also different from our 2 other primary competitors who are Sysco and US Foods in the fact that we have our own line of actual retail grocery stores that serve as mini warehouses and in some cases are also drop yards.

Our Chain trucks are usually 50 foot trailers, however that is not always the case we have guys who do 2 day chain routes in a 28' trailer, happens fairly regularly. There is a guy who does Bob Evans in Northeast, Ohio who runs a 2 day route out of a 28' trailer.

GFS has more 28' trailers then 50' trailers. We only have the 2 sizes 28' and 50' Volume which are the guys who supply the GFS grocery stores always pull 50'. Chain guys some pull 50' (depends on the route) and others pull 28'. However GFS does not use sleeper cabs or really run teams. Sometimes 2 guys might end up on a chain route it does happen, but it's not the norm most of our trucks run out as singles and the guys who do Chains or Volume truck stay the night at like the Hampton Inn or Court Yard Marriot. GFS from what I've seen puts the chain guys or volume guys in nicer places.

Now I work in the broad line division out of a drop lot broad line at GFS is always 28' trailer. I am home every night, I'm a local yokel. The transit drivers are the line haul drivers for use broad line guys. The 28' trailers at the end of the day are assembled into doubles sets and then shipped back to the warehouse where the sets are dropped and the transit drivers then go and pick up new sets of loaded doubles and bring those back to the yard where the sets are broken down and each trailer goes out into the city.

 

Today was a big day 10,000 pounds like 10 stops I think and 418 cases I was back before 12:30pm. Actually it was nice I was able to get some stuff done that I needed to get done, like an oil change on my car.

 

My Tuesdays and Thursdays are like that most of the time, long as they don't run me around doing pickups. Home in time for lunch with the wife and a quick pound before she leaves for work.