LTL or Food Service - which is tougher?

My vote is foodservice, hands down. When you pop open the trailer and see everything stacked, you know you’re fingerprinting every box at least once, and then in most cases, ramping it out the back on a 2 wheeler. Then pushing it through the snow, popping the curb in front of the door, trying to balance it whilst opening said door, holding door open in a series of feet, hip, butt bumps dragging it through. And then trying not to eat it on a wet, slick, kitchen floor, while Jenny and Becky the waitresses are in the way staring at the schedule because they can’t believe they were scheduled with Nicole because they hate her and can’t be bothered moving, much less god forbid hold a cooler door open as they come out while you’re trying to get in with a stack of leaning boxed meat.
LTL certainly has its challenges as well. As you stated, usually residentials are where they present themselves. I’m all about doing my job within means, but I’ve stated before on another thread and I’ll say it here, I’ve gotten pretty good at lookin at ugly freight with people and agreeing with them, “yea I dunno how you’re gonna get that off”. To wit; families who order playgrounds online and don’t necessarily think about how it’s going to come, much less the delivery technique, although it’s a pain, I get it. Dude who ordered a crated zero turn mower online because he saved $13 and has it delivered to his storage unit though better have a plan.

 

Food service is tougher.

 

food service. hands down, no question.

 

That’s the most accurate description of food service.

 

Foodservice hands down! Kitchens are tight not made for the volume they ordered either. Places you deliver to are made for s straight truck. I don’t think they imagined tractor trailers delivering to restaurants when they built these places. Also everyone lives on fast food nowadays so orders are bigger. Restaurant owners are cheap ###es too. So they’ll have the smaller freezers and coolers to wheel it into. Not made for deliveries. Small tight back rooms also. Also the shorthandness of Foodservice drivers. Instead of a 4 day workweek it’s becoming 5-6 days now. Body doesn’t recover well unless your younger. One of the big reasons I had to leave. It became 6 or 7 days a week. I knew if I didn’t get out my body would of gave me the middle finger. I needed those days off but Foodservice thinks 10 hr off and 34 restart are enough. Yes it’s enough if you just only drive but when you do one of the most labor intensive jobs in America it’s not enough time off.

I did a LTL delivery once. It was a 2 pallets of cement to a storage unit. Couldn’t wheel it in cause the ground was dirt and gravel. Had to drop it down the liftgate and hand the customer each 50lb bag. That was fun.

 

The guys who can do FS for decades are tougher than I'll ever be--after four years of that nonsense, I was done. On the plus side, my P&D career seems like a vacation after that!

 

Food service hands down. LTL shares the same “putting trailers where they don’t belong” that foodservice does, but if I break a sweat more than 5 times in a week from unloading freight, it was a tough week.