Age discrimination at Beverage Companies?

I used to run truckloads of soda out of Seabrook NH for the Midatlantic. It's bread and butter in some ways long ago. Baltimore used to have a Pepsi and other outfits in the area long ago until condos etc moved in and industry moved out.

When you use the word Beverage, you are also getting towards alcoholic and such as well.

I have always said trucking, specifically lumping loads into and out of trailers upwards of 48000 pounds in a few hours is for the young. Im past 50 and if I had to do that by hand, I will. But I can forget driving a certain distance for a couple of days. It's literally not worth it as my system is already damaged from that kind of work.

When people get to a certain age, depending on what life throws at you you have to be prepared to not continue on with trucking and get into something else.

As far as getting INTO trucking with NO experience, a fresh CDL and nothing at all except a couple weeks at school... it is one of the hardest challenges because for every one of you. There are like 50+ experienced hands with a variety of records quality ranging from really bad and not hireable all the way to those rare few who have achieved a life time of a perfect trucking and literally can choose what and where they will work next at wages not normally offered. That is only a lucky few.

100 people wanna drive a truck. Half cannot for one reason or another, drugs, medical etc. Half get into CDL, about half again will survive year one. Half of that will be killed, injured or disabled at some point in life time from trucking. What is left is a dozen or so truckers who have managed to stay in it long enough to be worth something. Half of those are getting the hell out.

Enter the immigrants from younger and growing nations who see America as a chance to make a bunch of money compared to nothing where they came from. Trucking sees these as a cash crop. And so it goes.

Im done here. I tend to be a tired old record repeating the same old messages. I offer encouragement but you have to get out of that chair and go try.

 

I don't want to sound harsh but if they don't want you why would you want them? Honestly people should only hire those they are comfortable with and click with. If I applied somewhere and didn't get the job it is most likely because the hiring manager didn't like me or something about me. I wouldn't want that job anyway in that situation. Even with zero experience I've hire people where I'm at currently (not trucking) just because they were cool. And usually it works out. I know it shouldn't be that way but people you don't click with that you have to deal with you know that it won't work out so avoid it.

 

Back injuries is very high risk in the beverage industry, also older drivers tend to be a little more prone to using the word no.

Younger drivers still believe it won't happen to them, so there easier to push to take chances, if it goes wrong they just fire them and hire the next set waiting to get injured. just imho.

 

On average a truck driver can make x amount
of money per week.
A younger guy will do anything for that money.
No matter how hard the work is.

A older wiser guy is not gonna hump freight
For 5 days a week, when there's another job that'll
Pay him the same or more to do nothing but drive
The truck.
That's working smart not hard.

 

It took me years to learn that simple lesson.

Partly because history was taught to me relatively close to where trucking companies depending on TEEN LABOR part time in the break bulk facilities (Lumping freight into truck load lots going to further distribution such as Freehold NJ from Baltimore Md.) The Teen Labor was viewed as resources from which future truckers will be stamped out and licensed and hired to run for the company doing the same work in addition to trucking among other things.

Now you couldnt touch a teenager into the work force without a billion rules against using them. It's a shame. (I save this for another discussion...)

Many years later I discovered that if I did drop hook and got the hell away from my beloved grocery I would rack up a ton of miles. As of 1998 I was being given solo runs with Dowdy here in Arkansas from say Yakima WA onions to Boston Market in Chelsea something on the order of 5 or 6 days and very close to 3000 ground miles to be there.

That opened a new door and turned me into a true monster running seriously many miles each month. Throw the stuff into the trailer, and go. And not be bothered for 5 days driving to the east coast and do it again going west again. AWESOME.

A little too awesome when three logbooks got involved.

It gets even better when I discovered McKesson, they drop hook loaded trailers and overnight anywhere east of Rockies and reload with cardboard going right back to memphis in about 30 minutes to a hour flat. Gulp breakfast and coffee and burn right back to memphis and repeat. Not just potato chips either. But million dollar motivating loads that are needed badly by sick people.

If I was 21 again and got into trucking with a fresh Class A, guess where I am going. Memphis. But that's water under the bridge. Im pretty sure they wont hire me because of insurance etc etc etc.

 

Yea driver, I really think they did u a favor. That's ball-busting, back-breaking work rolling kegs down rickety flights of stairs into bars and clubs. Or slinging heavy case-loads of beer into C-Stores and gas stations owned by all those wacky Iraqis. Been there, done that...got a tricky knee to prove it!

Even as a young man, I'd come home tired and wiped out with a constantly aching back. A heating pad and cold compress were my best friends in those days. I really couldn't see retiring from a gig like that unless it was on worker's comp or disability. And who wants to spend their golden years in chronic pain?

I'm local LTL now after years of being on the road, and that might be an option for you. Just realize that starting out, it's dock work, lousy hours, and all the liftgate runs because those jobs are all based on seniority. It's why the turnover is so low in LTL because nobody wants to leave and start at the bottom of the totem pole at another outfit.

Tanker work hauling fuel or chemicals might be your best option. Hauling US Mail is something to consider. Those jobs pay pretty well and get you home daily/nightly. Keep looking, you'll find something that works for you. With a clean CDL and a little experience, there's always another good job around the bend.

 

It's the corn dogs. That's Dave's secret.

Don't tell anyone else though.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability. - Walter Scott

Going in thinking you have no chance, will always result in you being right. Think like a defeatist, don't be surprised when your defeated.

An stop making excuses, get out there man up, an go to the next interview. Yea it's harsh but, you didn't come here for hand holding an coddling did you? Or you know, you can continue to play the age card. Personally, I'd toughen up rather than give up like some buttercup. Or you can just quit. Whatever works for you.

If your so dead set on killing your back, Amazon likely has a FC near you. Quite a few cities named Richmond out there. If you meant Va then I know they have one or two around that area.

With all that tough love aside...Good luck, an if you give up you have no one to blame but yourself. Keep knocking an eventually a door will open, sometimes it's one knock, sometimes it takes a couple hundred.

Now I sound like a fortune cookie. Egads. Your lucky #'s are 18 23 45 22 12 17

Sirscrapntruckalot - Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.- Winston Churchill

 

Have you check with Old Dominion Freight Lines? Need doubles and hazmat endorsements. They hire new cdl grads.