What can a rookie in food service expect to make in their first year?

I've wanted to ask you what do you guys make out in Los Angeles? Now the only thing that I would say and I am just talking here is, what is your cost of living? I wouldn't say ours is cheap here in Ohio we have high property taxes in Cleveland and all the other crap, but I got to believe were a little cheaper area to live in then LA.

 

That's something I don't understand it live in the cheapest place to live and still get paid around the same as everyone else in the food game 60-75k is a really really good living down here but I can see someone in NYC not putting up with this job for that much money

 

Well our cost of living is indeed pretty high. I pay $850 for rent and thats renting a room in someones house but i am in san diego and literally a mile to the beach.

My company starts at 24.25 ot after 8 and double time after 12. We have a performance bonus on top of that which can be about another 40 cents.

I wasn't socffing at 75k which i think is good money in general but my emphasis was for food service I dont think even 100k is enough. Granted you dont need a high school diploma to do this job but its so tough 99.9 percent of the population cant and wont do it.

But to answer your question mike drivers out here start at the upper 80s their first year. I know sysco pays less and the other guys too but comparable

 

See that's the thing what I make here at GFS is pretty good money for Ohio, I mean our property taxes are high, but other then that our utilities are not outrageous we have water actually the idiots have had to raise the rates of water because demand has gone down for it, but our natural gas and electricity are all affordable. Goods from Home Depot and stuff are usually doable and there's plenty of good used stuff to buy for a good price.

I am curious what do truck drivers in Los Angeles make obviously they very well could make $100,000 grand a year, but you factor in all the expenses of west coast living and there $100,000 grand a year may be equal to our $85K a year.

I'll say this yeah broad line is a little harder then chains in some respects, but we have our easy stops and hard stops it evens out some as well. I don't much care for shopping malls and GFS is like any other company where, while they have one blanket set way of operating, they also have area's where stuff is tweaked as well for a certain division.

Like in Maryland for instance, they have a lot of the equipment you would see us normally run, but they also have some rental tractors and rental trailers with lift gates and stuff that are not normal equipment and that stuffs specific to that area has no company markings on it, because it's all rental stuff and they use it for certain runs into New Jersey or where ever. It seems our newer warehouses and divisions tend to use a lot of the core equipment, but also ad on a lot of there own things.

GFS did have some lift gates because they had an account at one time that, required them the account wanted the stuff palatalized and all brought in, in one piece shrink wrapped and on pallets so because of that they did have to buy some lift gates and they did keep the one lift gate trailer because we have some accounts that are like bulk stop accounts.

 

$850 for one room rent, oh man that could be a mortgage payment out here on a middle of the road house in a middle of the road neighborhood, not the best house ever mind you, but a house with a yard garage, basement, couple bathrooms and maybe 2-3 bedrooms.

That's 60% of my monthly mortgage payment, but I live in a fancy neighborhood with expensive homes.

I've really always just been curious as to what you guys make out there. I know Lodi, California wanted School Bus drivers and they wanted to pay like $23.00 an hour and they said it was "livable wage job" because most of there routes were 6-8 hour routes and days so I had been curious if that was good or not.

 

Lodi is considered central/northern ca...pretty much a completely different state than southern ca. Night and day difference

 

I've heard that Northern California is different then Southern California.

 

Is it common in food service to be on call 24/7 even on your days off?

 

I don't know maybe on extra board at mains typically not at GFS. Not all companies are the same or equal really depends on the company.

If your a bid driver on a route then you shouldn't ever be on call.

 

No, possibly during the week but it would only be in the AM. And the rare Saturday mornings too.