Delivery driver

When I did overnight work. Wake up at 7 or 8 pm and try to stay awake going over the Altamont, Pacheco Pass, or down to Bakersfield. Get a load of some kind of liquid or bulk into the tanker. Try to stay awake going back. Unload. Drive back, get home at noon or 1. Got to sleep for 6 hours. Do it again. Questions?

 

My routine yesterday was:
Wake up at 1:45 am
Start coffee and feed the cat
Brush teeth, wash face, get dressed
Put on hoodie and sweatshirt and backpack
Pour coffee, drink coffee, drink more coffee
Walk out to the car and drive 20 miles/30 minutes to work
Get to work, park in secluded lot that overlooks a Sysco drop yard
Walk across the street to the shop
Punch in, find out what truck I'm in, paperwork isn't ready yet.
Take two wheeler out to the truck and start the truck
Go back in and start filling out route & trip sheets
Paperwork still not ready, shoot the bull with the receptionist while she finally prints the paperwork
Find out what has been shorted due to a driver passing away while bringing a load from CA
Paperwork is finally done, go over paperwork and make sure it's correct for all 18 stops
Fill coffee cup, strap backpack on and walk out to the truck while drinking coffee
Get into truck and set up my Sirius radio
Sign into log app and hope it doesn't crash
Start moving and make sure that the log app automatically changes duty status from ON DUTY to DRIVING(in some trucks it does it, in other not so much)
Get on the interstate and drive 80 miles to my first stop. Manager is in so it won't be a key drop.
Open up back on truck, set two wheeler on the ground, go through skid and tailgate product.
Climb down, load cart, ring bell and enter after customer has opened the door. Three cart loads later and a signed invoice later it's back in the truck.
Drive forty miles to next stop, pull the ramp out, go through pallet and check out invoice, load cart, take into customer. Repeat two more times. Grab signed invoice and back to the truck.
Walk to Speedway station for coffee refill, breakfast sandwich and liter of water.
Back to truck and drive twenty miles to next three stops.
Finish those stops and it's time to drive twenty more miles to the next city where the next nine stops will be.
Four hours later I'm done with those stops and it's back the way I came for the last four stops of the day.
Do those two stops and then it's drive 40 miles to my only Amish customer of the day.
After my last delivery of the day it's off to fuel the truck. Since it's a holiday I hit up a Speedway and fill the tanks.
Time to drive the last 30 miles of the day back to the shop.
Park truck, finish some paperwork, plug truck in, put on backpack, grab two wheeler and load it with empty milk crates and using bungee cords to hold them in place.
Walk to shop, put milk crates on pallet for return to dairy, throw trash out, hand returns over to warehouse and they will decide what happens with them.
Lock cart up, walk in office, take off backpack, grab paperwork and match it up with invoices in my clipboard, make copies of return invoices and route sheet.
Hand keys, paperwork, toll receipts and money in to afternoon receptionist. Get reimbursed for tolls.
Wish everybody a Happy New Year.
Punch out and walk across street to car.
Get in car, start car, immediately drive to liquor store.
Buy two cans of Labatt Ice and a shot of Jameson.
Walk back to car and immediately drink Jameson.
Drive twenty miles home to begin the New Year's celebration and enjoy my day off.
That pretty much sums it up for every day, minus the drinking.

 

Wake up between 2:45 and 3:45am (for routes that start between 4 and 5am.
####, shower, shave, and get dressed in my uniform.
Get my scanner off the charger and pull up my route to see how my day is gonna go and to check if there are any stops I've never been to.
Eat a snack for breakfast and pack my lunchbox with a sandwich, 3 bottles of water, and a soda.
Go into the garage and put the lunchbox in my car, and grab any other gear that may be charging (printer and flashlight) and put it in my backpack which is already in the car.
Drive 13 miles / 15 minutes to the yard.
Pull up near my truck, grab my backpack and lunchbox, go start the truck and log in/go on duty.
While I wait for the air tanks to fill up, I go grab the clipboard with my paperwork (trailer map, invoices for each stop, and a summary of cases/weight/hazmat info).
Swap my truck for my car in the parking spot.
If it's a Friday, I go park somewhere out of the way and wait 1-3 hours for my trailer to show up while I watch TV on my phone.
Go hook up to my trailer and pretrip both truck and trailer.
See if the interior trailer lights turn on, open the back door and the side freezer door to make sure nothing is falling over, then grab my dolly and curb ramp and toss them in the back.
Separate out the invoices and look over my trailer map to see how ####ed I am when it comes to getting to the freezer bulkhead.
Drive 10-20 miles to my first stop and get parked where I need to be to unload (as close to the entrance as possible without blocking anything).
Put the invoice in my shirt pocket, grab my printer, and grab my flashlight if the trailer lights don't work.
Open the trailer, drop the ramp (only 1 stop per week is at a dock), climb in and start sorting the cases, stacking them on my dolly, and scanning them.
Run the first stack to the entrance, bang on the door until the customer opens it, hand them the invoice and kick off the stack where it needs to go.
If it's my 1 key drop stop, I punch in the door code and open it myself instead of waiting for the customer.
Continue stacking, scanning, and running down the ramp and inside until all of the dry and cooler is done, then go shut off the reefer and open the side freezer door.
Pull out the steps halfway so its just a long platform, climb up into the freezer and start sorting out the stops, scanning the cases for the current stop and tossing them onto the platform.
Once everything is scanned, climb back down, start making stacks on the dolly and running them in until finished.
Get the customer to sign on my scanner, print a receipt if requested, then put everything away and close it all up, turn the reefer back on, and head to the next stop (usually not more than a few miles away).
Repeat the same process at each stop, except some customers want the freezer first.
As I work through the stops, I'm mostly working down the right side of the trailer, so by the time I'm halfway done I can get through the freezer bulkhead and don't have to use the side door anymore.
After I deliver the last of my 10-16 stops, I stack my empty pallets and strap them down, then put my dolly, curb ramp, and any returns by the door.
Drive back to the yard, arriving between 8 and 15 hours after I first got there.
Put the returns in the returns trailer and put my dolly and curb ramp away, and drop off my clipboard along with any check payments and fuel receipts (I fuel up every other week).
Park the trailer, shut off the reefer, unhook and bobtail over to my car.
Swap the parking spot for my truck, log my post trip, then go off duty and log out.
Shut the truck off, grab my stuff, get in my car and drive home.


It's really not that bad if I hit that sweet spot of 11-12 hours. It's long enough that I still get some OT (we get it after 10 hours), but not so long that I'm absolutely beat at the end of the day and get stuck in traffic on the way home. And of course only working 4 days helps too.

 

630: Wife wakes me up as she leaves for work.
631-745: Take morning leak, get dressed, make coffee, check web for news and TTR. Deal with cat complaining when I have to toss him off my lap
745-815: Drive into town, grab usual coffee at Starbucks, stop by bank or run whatever errand needs doing
830-845: Arrive at work. Check manifest to see where I'm going today. Build route in my head and number stops for when AM guys have stuff ready to load
900-930: Punch in and finish up loading my trailer/help out if there's still freight to break
930-1000: Hook up, sign into log, pretrip, fill out bills, sign into handheld and sequence stops
1000-1045: Drive to first stop
1045-1230: Get the farther-flung 2-3 stops out of the way, often residentials (which can be a bit of a challenge)
1230-1300: Lunch
1300-1500: Get the other 10-11 stops done, plus whatever pickups they throw at me. Mostly light industrial, at customers I know
1500-1530: Drive back to the yard
1531-1630: Immediately turn out of the yard and go do more pickups that they didn't give me until I was 10 feet from the dock
1630-1800: Load all freight for outbound(aka 10# of crap in a 5#bag), get city trailers swept, paperwork done, drivers dispatched.
1800-1830: Drive home, have a reasonably healthy dinner, go to sleep in my own bed with my wife and a couple of purring cats, and thank the Good Lord I'm not OTR any more.

 

Do you guys have trucks that leave earlier in the day then 9am? I know like in food trucking if you're leaving the yard at 9am you're pretty much an entire day behind LOL!

 

Milk starts 5 am.

First two farms have milked the herd and need you there now.

YOU have to be there. If you aint... there is firing coming down on you. Those farms have to have a set schedule routine paid for in blood sweat and tears. You will be there or someone else will.

 

The super-early start times are another thing I don't miss about foodservice! LOL

Our yard is a satellite yard, with only 5 guys, and our freight--in theory--comes in between 0600 and 0800. So unless we have something special going on, it's rare for us to get out before 0900.

 

Yeah, because Milks perishable and from what I heard, cows and stuff actually know what time milking time is because it's actually painful for them to hold all that milk in. Like they will start lining up on there own when it's time for milking.

I know hauling milk is a pain you have to go to the farms collect the milk then go to the dairy and get screwed around there. Then you have to go and get the tanker washed and washed out. I think a wash on the tanker is only good for what like 48 hours or something so it's pretty much you get the tank washed out and head back to collect the second batch of milk.

 

Starting that late you don't miss any customers dock times. I know a lot of little industries have 8am-4:30pm hours. Although usually a lot of little industries also are willing to wait a little bit if it means getting a skid order shipment out shipped via motor freight.

I worked for an office furniture parts supplier and we shipped mostly FedEx Ground, but we did have big commercial furniture dealerships who would buy major orders that we would ship FedEx Freight and usually when it came to skid freight shipments which were our big $2-$3,000 dollar invoices we were pretty happy to get those out so when ever the Freight truck got there was good enough for us. We didn't play the oh it's after 4:30 game guess were closed. Nahh we wanted to get our stuff out and get paid. Customers were depending on us!