Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

I noticed years ago that Pepsi tasted different depending on what area it was purchased in, but I've always thought Coke tasted the same everywhere. I couldn't stand how Pepsi tasted around my Dad's house, and it came from a different bottling plant up where he lives. I always figured that had to be the reason.

 

During Hanukkah our market place store that I do on Friday sells a lot of Coca Cola regular and diet and very little Pepsi. It turns out Coca Cola is actually considered a kosher product and Pepsi isn't. I never knew that. They sell a skid of Coca Cola over the weekend Friday-going into Saturday for all the Hanukkah parties.

 

I used to have a customer where that happened. It was a hospital that I delivered to every Monday for my second stop between 6 and 7am (depending on how late my trailer arrived) and every Thursday at 5:30am like clockwork (that trailer was brought in on the 1st turn of the night). Well the big boss wasn't happy about my inconsistent Monday delivery times, and he went off on me one day when they couldn't find a product I had a pickup order for and I suggested I could pick it up next time instead of waiting around. He straight up yelled that "we wait around for you to show up all the time, so you're just gonna have to wait as long as it takes." I kept my mouth shut, but sure enough next week the staff told me they were switching to Tuesday/Friday deliveries. This particular hospital was not a dock stop, so I wasn't too upset to lose out on running a few hundred cases down the ramp since I knew there wasn't anything comparable in the area to replace it on my route.

A couple months goes by and my seemingly random and all over the place Friday "route" had evolved into a 48-ft trailer filled with the biggest stops from all over our delivery area that wouldn't fit on anyone else's route. One day they put that hospital on there as my 8th stop, sometime after noon. The staff were happy to see me, and told me ever since they changed delivery days they had never gotten a delivery before 2pm and almost never the same driver more than once every few weeks. They had to constantly explain to new drivers that they don't take deliveries at the receiving dock, and explain where everything goes and how it gets split up (not hard to do at all as long as you remember it). It really sucks for the drivers who had to go there during the afternoon, because the parking lot is a huge pain in the ### when it's filled with cars.

Felt bad for the staff, but I had to contain my laughter when thinking about how their boss screwed up a good thing by not realizing just how good he had it.

 

Coke bottles kosher Coke and Diet Coke every year for Hanukkah in 2 liter bottles. It’ll have a yellow cap.

 

Pepsi does the same thing as well. Bottled with a white cap. Different sku and not all manufacturing plants carry it or distribute it to the satellites however.

 

It's amazing reading other threads where everyone on here and new guys think you have to run otr to start in trucking. Am I the only one that has only ever run ltl? Can't do this, can't back there, etc lol...holy crap.

 

What's even more amazing is the amount of DRIVERS that propagate the whole "gotta take your lumps for the first couple of years", it's like they have no idea they are doing the Mega OTR recruiting work for them.

I did OTR for less than a month until the dedicated home daily gig that I got my license with opened up, and when I got sick of untarping 3-4 times in humidity and bad weather, got the hell out of dodge. And even then, it was less than a year with TMC.

Had I known what I know about LTL now, I would have never went flatbed, and got my license through FXF.

 

I got my CDL thru UPS in Philadelphia. I did p&d in one of the oldest cities in the country therefore having the oldest buildings with the narrowest roads and everyone acts like you are gonna die if you have to back into a dollar general lol. I managed to do that for 17 years without hitting anything and everyone on here acts like every time a new guy puts the truck in reverse the world is going to end. You are completely right with they do the mega recruitment for them.