Delivering Beer vs. Freight

I heard they had free beer in the break room back then. They still crash down basements but for no money. A lot of these restaurants that are mom and pop joints still use all the old storage areas. I would go down stairs with US Foods and a beer guy would come pounding down the stairs. Atleast I was getting compensated for it.

 

Yeah beer is the lowest paid you’ll be better off at FedEx freight. Just you’ll have to get used to being in a hurry. My buddy when he worked at Budweiser said he’d show up whenever they didn’t care as long as the route got done. Left him alone. It’s a different animal at these freight companies. FedEx is pretty hostile but pays very well. You can make 90k in the city when topped out and down the road change to Linehaul and make 100k plus. Just got to get used to management eyeballing you all the time.

 

The management at FedEx all varies by your location. I never even see my boss let alone get micromanaged. But definetly a better move from the beer gig.

Best of luck with your new job.

 

I wouldn’t say not back breaking work. Pull a pallet weighing a couple grand with a manual palllet jack. I pulled a pallet with bags of cement that can throw your back out as easy as Foodservice.

 

I did beer for 3 years before I went to food service and I can honestly tell you never again it was a fun young man's job free case of outa daters every Friday but I doubled my pay when I made the switch plus they did away with free beer Fridays bout a year before I quit because some driver got a dwi.

 

I heard that Budweiser in Newark had free beer in the break room back in the 60's and maybe the 70's. Too
Food service can be as back breaking as beer. When I drove for Sysco in the mid 90's I would have a run in NYC with 15 stops and the first would be Planet Hollywood on 57th st double parked with 500 to 600 cases down the basement stairs by my self ,a couple of hours going down stairs with a hand truck as high as your head weighing a couple of hundred pounds.Next stop was Harley Davidson Cafe right around the corner,300 to 400 cases down the basement steps from street level.Not only that in the summer time you sweat your ### off and the front part of the trailer was frozen food and you'd go in there soaking wet with sweat and always end up with a sore throat or some kind of cold.
In the summer. Food service is commando work.
I had a good seniority number and it was union so we bid our runs. I would bid 3 hard runs for the over time and a easy run for Friday to get a break. The easy runs were usually 3 or 4 corporate AT&T cafeterias in NJ ,all palletized with loading docks and they let you eat whatever you want at the cafeteria for free. One of the perks in food service ,many places will offer you food and drinks for free.

 

That free beer deal isn't just "good ol' days" stuff. I delivered to a beer distributor a couple years ago and the drivers were hitting a keg when they ended their routes. Talk about risky. "Let's help our CDL drivers get a little buzz on before they drive home!" Yeah, bad idea.

 

That beer in keg and in cases of cans by the pallet is going to get heavy with age.

Eventually your body will need to replace lost or depleted nutrients and minerals until something breaks or literally wears into arthrtis that moltrin will never solve. I am living testamony to that from my lumping days.

At 30 I had glowing bones of a 18 year old. At 45 the bone scans finally showed loss. At 52 I was shown to have the bones that my 70 plus year old grand parents did. Ending my trucking. Eventually at least one of those bones will snap if I cough too hard. But that's ok, they have stronger medicine by IV for that Ow plus the 6 month air freshener for the stink accumulating under the cast.

 

You'll make a lot more money, and work a lot less at FedEx. No question about it. Go for it, and good luck!