MY Pepsi Experience

Well well well well let's talk about my eventful day today shall we.
It begins at 5:15 when my trainer picked his route for today and out to the yard we go. We do the pre trip and everything seems to be in order but wait what is that noise we here. Sounds like the starter is about to blow up. Sure enough it is the starter worst yet when we tell the mechanic he comes out and gets under it and what do we see sparks. YIKES!!!

He replaces the old starter with a new starter. Only problem is we were set to leave at 5:30 now it's 7:05am. Well we get to our first stop and as we are turning off the engine the starter is making the same noise but now there is a burning smell with it. The trainer turn off the engine only problem is it doesn't cut off so he hits the clutch a couple times and it finally shuts off so we complete the stop and what happens. Nothing!!!!! Absolutely nothing. Engine won't start. About a hour and a half later the mechanics show up and tells us you have to get towed.

Hour later we are being towed back to the yard. Now it's 11:30 they are telling us we have to swap the product to a working truck well not us but you know what I mean. So we are to go out and try to do as many stops as possible. Only problem with that is its noon and we only did 1 stop.

We complete a total of 8 and get back in 11 hours all in all a very eventful day. Thought they would seal the truck back up so it could be used as a training route but that didn't happen it was striped. Well as always any questions please don't hesitate.

 

How's it going miz?

 

Side loader trailers last for a very very long time they pretty much can be constantly refurbished and no real need to be retired or replaced. There usually all aluminum so they can take a beating.

 

Not complaining in the sense that they are horrible because they are old, but the ones that have gone quite some times inbetween refurbishments sucks because the rollers are going bad.

When they come back from refurb with fresh paint, and new rollers (most time all new equipment in and out) they are decent.

 

Oh yeah agree 100% where I worked they had a rag tag fleet of side loaders gosh was it the most ghetto fleet. They did have some that they sent out for refurbishment, but they were few and far between. When they would come back from the works they were pretty decent, but my regular trailer it had some battle scars and they didn't exactly plan on sending the trailers out for refurbishment just because it was time. It wasn't priority one ha-ha!.

 

Any updates?

 

I may be joining Pepsico as a Merchandiser there brother. I have a couple years experience driving a route and then merchandising grocery stores. Still trying to figure out what is going to work best for me and give me some play money.

 

Don't do it. They work their merchandisers to death. Location is everything in the soft drink industry, so you might get lucky, but either way you'll be waking up at the butt crack of dawn to build displays on Sunday mornings.

 

I have done plenty of that previously and starting early in the am. I was a 3rd shift stocker at a grocery store also for several months to get enough money to get my cdl. But I am looking at a few different offers and not sure which right now.

 

I packed out at Pepsi for 2 years when I 1st started. I wouldn't recommend anyone do it. I only did it because that was how every single person in the company (from the pack out guys to the president) had to start and i wanted to become a driver. In the end, I'm glad I did it because a bulk Pepsi driver in my area is a HIGHLY coveted position and it got me to that. But I don't think I could do it again.

Either way, good luck with whatever you decide. I think I remember you saying you had shoulder issues (I could be wrong about that)? Just make sure you take care of your shoulder if that's the case