7/20/10

Tonight we get to continue our chat about preconceived views on things.  My first solo run last week took me to Howell, Lansing, and Holt.  My stop in Howell was quick and easy.  Then the stop in Lansing was about all I could handle without completely losing my mind.  The stock room was overcrowded so there was no room to maneuver the pallets.  The kids who were supposed to put away the milk were a couple of shitheads who weren't making things any easier.  The pallets of empty cases were in a storage trailer sitting well below dock level.  I wasn't aware of some of the intricacies of the work, so I managed to tip over a pallet of empties as I tried to pull it out of the storage trailer.  Then, after restacking the whole thing, I dumped it again as I wheeled it into my own trailer.  I had pulled the few pallets for the Holt stop out of the trailer so that I could put the empties in the nose, leaving the milk on the tailgate and ready to unload at the final stop.  By the time I finally got all of the empties loaded, I breathed a sigh of relief.  All I had to do was put a few pallets of milk back into my trailer and then leave that Godforsaken Kroger behind.  Then I tipped a full pallet of milk.  For realsies.

'Don't cry over spilled milk,' they say.  (Of course you knew that I would work a dumb milk cliché into one of these posts before too much longer.  Just be glad that I'm not taking credit for illegitimate children all over the country yet.)  Anyhow, I had to restack that pallet of milk, after already having restacked the one pallet of empties - twice.  Then I drove over to Holt and made my final delivery.  The loading dock was a real mofo to access, even with a 48' trailer.  Then the stock room was even more cluttered than the one in Lansing had been.  I managed to get the job done though.  Exasperated, sweaty, and exhausted, I drove back to Livonia, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Hey, guess who got to go to Lansing and Holt tonight!  Yeah.  Given what I just wrote above, I'll bet you can guess how I was feeling about this assignment.  Not exactly grinning from ear to ear as I drove to work.

A couple of things were different this time around, each making life a whole lot better for me than it was on that miserable Tuesday last week.  First was that there was no stop in Howell.  Even though the Howell stop had been an easy one, there is a benefit to only having two deliveries.  If I drop off four pallets at my first stop, the expectation is that I'll take four pallets of empties with me.  This means that, once I reach the next stop, I have to find a place to set aside those four pallets of empties in order to get to the milk.  Then after Stop #2, if I want to flip the milk to the back and set up for the third stop, I have even more work to do since I have those four pallets of empties hanging around.  Condensed version of this paragraph - two stops are WAY easier than three.

The second difference was that I had to go to Holt first and Lansing second this time around.  I got to back into that tough dock in Holt before the sun went down.  Blindside docking is never a whole lot of fun, but it does help when you can see what's around you.  I also got to do the rearranging of the pallets in Holt and set up for a final drop in Lansing, rather than the other way around.  The loading dock in Holt sits almost perfectly level with our trailers, so it's far less risky to move pallets in and out.  Whenever the trailer is higher or lower than the dock, there's a greater chance that I'll be... ahem... crying over spilled milk. 

No such problems tonight.  The stock room was even cleared out a little bit, so I had room to do what I needed to do.  I'm still not quick by any measure.  It took me a little over an hour to unload Holt's ten pallets, make room for ten pallets of empties, and then reload everything with the milk for Lansing at the rear of the trailer.  This is a significant improvement though, compared to a week ago.

Next it was time to tackle that damned Lansing store.  Funny thing though - it was a piece of cake.  The guy who works in the stock room late at night is a much better worker than the kids from last week had been (earlier in the evening).  As was the case in Holt, tonight brought a much cleaner stock room and much more space in which to maneuever.  For my part, I did a much better job of moving both the loaded pallets and the empty ones around.  Speed is still not my strong suit, but I have improved a little in terms of managing the inherent instability of the stacked crates.  Overall I would say that the stop in Lansing tonight was one of the easier ones that I've made so far. 

Preconceptions be damned.  Maybe it's time for me to take a second look at high taxes and super-efficient government bureaucrats or something.  Heh.

In a twist that I suspect is only going to reinforce one man's preconceived view of things, I passed my comrade from the Tennessee trip as I was taking my trailer of empties back to the dairy at the end of my shift.  He's running overnight to Tennessee again.  Hopefully he learned enough from his prior trip down there.  It's a simple enough route and all, but he really was relying on me for everything that first time around.  I don't think it's a huge stretch to guess that he won't be overjoyed about the $1,040+ that he'll make in the first four days of this week.  He seemed to be a little more aware of his upcoming eleven hours on the road when I spoke with him.  Therefore...

Final conclusion - I'm the more open-minded one.  Heh.

I have a Grand Rapids drop/hook turn tomorrow afternoon, followed by a milk run to Jackson and South Lyon.  That drop/hook run is nice and easy, two stops are better than three when it comes to milk runs, and $270 is a pretty solid day's pay in any event, so my preconceived notion about tomorrow is a pretty positive one.  We'll see...