The Food Service Rant thread

But I’ve always been intrigued by food service to be honest. Not of afraid of hard work as I work 55 hrs a week now lifting 50-100 sheets of metal.

 

Couldn’t really get any answers so I joined their “talent network”. We’ll see what happens next. Thank you for your response. I’m sure I’ll be asking more questions because I’m definitely in a dead end job right now. Would like to get back into truckload freight, (8 years of flatbed before my current career), but it looks like the real money is in LTL and food service. I’m not afraid of hard work and the idea of working nights alone appeals to me.
.

 

By the way, I’ve read every word of the LTL and food service rant pages and everything I could find on here on Saia, Ward, Central Freight, (the other one , not the yellow trucks), and Estes because they’re the closest to me. I’m going through AAA Cooper now and I’ll start looking at FXF, UPSF, and everyone else that’s on International Dr in Morrisville next. The food service companies will depend on who has a satellite yard close; all terminals are at least 2 hours from my house. TTR is an invaluable resource and I thank all of you who post and moderate it!!!

 

Is it normal for a (foodservice) fleet to be in bad condition? The trucks where I'm at all have chipped windshields, check engine/ABS lights on the dash, and it seems that at least one tractor/week gets put out of service for an air leak. Many of the reefer units have panels and battery covers missing, and exposed wires hanging.

 

Ours is a mixed bag of equipment some are newer and fairly decent then some are like you explained. I think since we slip seat so much and the older tractors are used mainly by low seniority guys that don't take care of things or write them up that's why they are in the shape there in.

 

Ours is also mixed I guess. Normally it’s all pretty safe, but we are in a trailer shortage we have a lot of break downs on the refers lately. For the most part the trucks are okay.

 

Our newer trucks are okay even our 2015 trucks are still for the most part pretty good. The 2012 and 2011 trucks are starting to get a little grody though. Anything that we have that still has the old logos on it is now pretty well broken in. I think most of the 2010s are gone and the 2011s are probably going to be phased out. We still have some 2009 and maybe 2008 trailers in circulation although I bet those will start to get pulled in the next year or two. Usually the tractors are ran for about 10 years and then they are sold off the trailers they let those go for about 15 years, it seems. Although a bunch of 28' trailers were sold off I guess and the pool is running a little dry. Tomorrow I'm going to shuttle some trailers to the warehouse during the day, which is cool. As I'm a week and a half out "tentatively" from switching over to the transit board. My days of route running have a number on them now.

 

Yesterday I finished my first week at a new gig. Still food service, just meat instead of produce. Also driving a semi for the first time in twenty years(everything since then has been straight truck). I was amazed at how quick it came back to me. I still need some practice on my backing, but in time.