The Food Service Rant thread

Our "new equipment" is usually "6 or 7 years old"

 

Well trust me the truck I drive right now is 8 years old and the one I drove before that was 9 years old and we do have a good amount of trailers that are 10-15 years old. However we do have a good amount of trailers that are not 10-15 years old as well.
Most of the trucks at our yard are 2007-2015. We have 4-5 2015s 1 2014 and the rest a mix of 2007's 2009's 2010's and 2011's. I used to switch with a senior driver on Friday and I got to drive his 2014 Volvo which was 100x's nicer then my 2006 Cornbinder which since has gone back to the shop and I'll probably never see again. The shop probably forgot they even had it ha-ha! It needed a lot of work some of it kind of serious, mechanically speaking. The truck I got to replace it is almost as bad, but it rides a little smoother and doesn't leak oil however it's no bargain either pretty much swapped one clunker for another.

 

Mike, How is your backing skills now? I bet can make a lot of veteran OTR folks jaw drop

 

Well Shaggy,
I've been having a hard time not really getting the trailer into the general vicinity ha-ha, but actually getting square on the dock for what ever reason. Today I had to go to a GFS store and I got into the dock on one shot, but the dock plate was a little odd if you will when it was in the dock.

Monday I had one of our tougher spots if not toughest dock that I know of and I got the trailer very close, but it was way ####ed, and I just wheeled everything off.

Now Tuesday I had a stop that blind side I would never do, but I knew knew knew that sight side it was defiantly do able and that's exactly what I did and it was actually a good move. It's not a dock stop, but I came in from the sight side got it in between both buildings and as you can see there's enough room there. Now I've kind of wondered and have never tried it, because I am kind of afraid to, but the building to the left the red brick one has an okay size parking lot behind it and I am curious if you can maneuver the truck around back there, not a big 53', but one of our trucks just might be able to cut it. Any how this is only a 20 case account so I have to weigh how much backing work I really want to do for a grand total of 2-3 wheeler trips.

My last stop on Tuesday is a high school and I was able to get it in back in from the street in one shot it's not a dock stop, but it's pretty easy drop the ramp and run right into the kitchen it's not hard. Any how backed that in, in one shot was pretty proud of my self, I'm defiantly better at the backing ramp stops then the actual hitting the dock stops, because I have a hard time getting the trailer it seems right where I want it to go so the dock plate gets in pretty square, I know it doesn't have to be perfect, but would like it to be better.

 

Yeah management... Going on past experience at another company I think a lot of times managers have no interest in anything. They don't care. A lot of these individual managers only care about advancing them selves through the ranks just so they can get to the top of what ever corporate ladder they are climbing and then fall off the top, and companies go through mid level managers pretty quickly as well.

See I always though that if you're in a business what ever the business is you should at least have some interest in it show a little passion, if you have the power to make improvements that are good and can make everything easier for everyone which can save the company money in the long run then do it.

Like if I were to sit down and make routes it would take me forever because I would be trying to find the best way to get product on trucks so that, we hit our stops on time instead of just load it down and if one gets mad oh well. Now granted real world is you can't please everyone that's just a fact of life and these customers some of them are a tad ridiculous and they them selves don't know the facts of life to well, but that's because they are sheltered like a turtle in it's shell.

 

Had 825 cases today, and 14-15 stops something like that. This week has been just non-stop looking forward to the weekend and taking it easy a little bit. Day just went on and on today it never ended. Our trucks have been late out of the warehouse all week and this could keep going on and on, I hope not, but it's hard to tell warehouse has never done schools before.

Schools weren't bad truck was loaded okay I guess I've seen them a lot worse that's for sure.

This dock was my second stop, ehh it worked would have liked it to be a little more square, but it worked pretty good.

 

I've never had a magliner with brakes, I just let the wheel rub the edge of the ramp to slow down.

You do have the nice creepers tho.

 

The breaks on my wheeler are broken ha-ha. That wheeler has been through the mill. However it's built well takes a beating everyday. A lot of GFS wheeler's have breaks. The company likes buying breaks on the wheeler's.