Peddling milk...

Food and beverage delivery never stops! Plus with milk it would probably take a week to recover from taking a day off after store shelves were emptied in advance of the storm.

 

I delivered milk for a year, back in the early 2000’s. Our cases were 6 gallons instead of 4. Also, the truck had no lift gate. Loading the truck was the easy part. It was backed up to the dock, the stacks of products would come out on a chain drive that ran along a track in the floor, as they came out I hooked them with a hook and slid them off the track into rows, then finally into the truck organized according to the route for that day. The loading occurred between 1-2:30 AM, to be on the road by 3AM. Every restaurant, convenience store, school, etc had a build-to list, and oldest product had to be rotated to the front, or bought back and dumped. Once the order was determined and picked, the cases were hand stacked off the back door onto the ground, then wheeled into the establishment with a 2 wheeler, put the product away/rotate/etc. Then the empty’s had to be loaded, one by one. I had 30+ stops every day, usually finished between 4-5PM. Then back to the dairy to unload empties and place my order for the next day. The front section of the truck box was the freezer, I handled ice cream too.
The bread guys, chip guys, soda guys, all got chocolate milk when I saw them, or ice cream bars in summer. Often when I returned to the truck there’d be chips or donuts or whatever on the seat of the truck.
It was good times, very hard work, but was satisfying too. I became lean. And very tired. I still have issues with my shoulders and knees.

If I had it to do all over again, I’m not sure I would.

 

Peddled milk for 7.5 years, 6 nights a week. Don't miss it haha! Over time I'd gotten to where I'd run drop/hooks through out week as opposed to pulling milk/unloading it every night. That helped, but if someone went on vacation or sick I'd be on a route. Hard work!