8/15/10

What do people call you?  A few different things, most likely.  For instance, my given name is Joseph.  My mother, my sister, a few of my aunts, and my grandmother all call me Joseph.  Oh, and my buddy the reverand.  I think he attaches some religious significance or something.  Then there are the buddies who use nicknames for everyone.  In my case it tends to be a truncated form of my last name, although I'll occasionally cross paths with one or two of the guys who started the old Godfather thing many years ago.  Most people call me by the very common nickname Joe.  Then there are a few broads who call me Joey, but we're not discussing them tonight.

Anyhow, as I rolled up US-23 this afternoon, I started to think that it was time for a new nickname - The Saginaw Kid or Doctor 989 or Genesee Joe or something along those lines.  (Of course these are awful, but cut me a little slack here.  I was working all day.  It's merely the general concept that I'm trying to discuss.)  It seems like every day at work, at least in recent memory, is bound to involve a trip up north to Flint or Saginaw or somewhere in that general neck of the woods.  Today was no exception.  One stop in Flint and two more in Saginaw.  Captain Tri-Cities?

The first stop in Flint was quick and easy, after which I headed back up the freeway for my two stops in Saginaw.  The first stop up there was at the nice and modern store on State Street.  That store has a level loading dock, a maneuverable pallet jack, and a fair amount of space in the stock room, making it an ideal second stop.  (The second stop on a three-stop load tends to be the one at which I try to get some or all of the milk rotated to the rear of the trailer, in order to set up for the final stop.)  After taking a convoluted route to reach the store, on account of the ubiquitous road construction, I went through my usual sequence of events for that location.

1. I pull off the empties from the rear of the trailer and set them to the side of the stock room.  
2. I work my way down the left side of the trailer, unloading pallets of milk.  Once I've pulled the pallets for the present (second) stop and set them in the hallway, I proceed to pull the rest of the milk (for the third stop) from that side of the trailer and set it next to the empties at the side of the stock room.
3. While the dairy guys drag their milk down to the cooler, I start piling pallets of empties into the now-vacant left side of the trailer. 
4. By the time I get half the empties in there, the dairy guys have usually made enough room for me to put the rest of their milk in the hallway.  So I start pulling the loaded pallets from the right side of the trailer, placing the milk for my second stop in the hallway.
5. Then I move the remaining milk (for my third stop) from the right side of the trailer to the position behind the empties that I've already loaded in the left side.  This step is done entirely within the trailer.
6. Now that the right side of the trailer is vacated, I shove the remaining empties into the nose. 
7. All that's left to do at this point is to take that milk that I had set off to the side of the stock room and put it behind the empties on the right side of the trailer.

This all sounds convoluted, but it's really not.  It's a basic rotational process.  At most stops, I don't have a level enough dock and a good enough pallet jack to do a complete rotation, but as I said before, this Saginaw stop is ideal.  I always try to leave there with all of my remaining milk at the rear of the trailer.

I got a little sidetracked in giving you the blow-by-blow there, but now I can tell you that today's sequence of events came to a screeching halt at Step 4.  I had half the milk in the hallway and I had half the empties in the nose of the trailer.  When it was time to pull the rest of the milk and put it in the hallway, I walked over and checked on the dairy guys' progress.  Err, lack of progress.  I had placed six pallets of milk in the hallway to start my little process.  Five of them were still in the hallway.  Huh?

We wound up with a bit of old-fashioned controversy.  It turns out that someone in the dairy department had ordered a shit-ton of milk for yesterday's delivery.  Then someone else had ordered a shit-ton of milk for today's delivery.  There was room in the cooler for three pallets.  I was delivering eleven.  Oops.  There was room for two pallets in the meat cooler... but the meat truck comes early in the morning tomorrow.  And there's room for... well shit... actually that was it.  Condensed version - those guys were screwed.  One of the storage trailers at the dock was a reefer, so the manager turned it on and I put the rest of their milk into it.  Then I completed my rotation process, as outlined above, before handing over the pallet jack so that the milk from the hallway could be moved into the improvised dairy cooler.  (That storage trailer was set to be pulled from the dock tonight at 9pm, so it was at best a temporary solution.  Not my problem though.  I was outta there.)

Quick and easy unload at the third stop though.  You win some, you lose some.  I was treated to an extra twenty minutes' worth of red lights and traffic on the way back to the dairy, since the ubiquitous road construction has claimed eastbound I-96 as its latest casualty.  The ramp from I-275 was closed, so my best option was to come across on 6 Mile.  Pain in the ass.

My second trip took me down to Toledo for two stops.  Each of those stops went fairly well and I made it back to the dairy by 11:30pm, following another extra twenty minutes' worth of red lights and traffic.  Again coming in on I-275, this time from the south, my route took me along Ann Arbor Road until it turned into Plymouth Road.  Since I work right off I-96, I sure as hell hope they have this shit sorted out before I go back to work on Tuesday.

The snafu in Saginaw and the traffic issues in Livonia were enough to make today a 12-hour affair.  I had hoped to get it done in 11 hours, but all's well that ends well.  My $280 for the day is in the books and I delivered all of my milk without crashing or dumping any pallets.  As simple as it may sound, that's all I really hope to achieve in a day on the job. 

Tomorrow, I hope to achieve... I don't know.  Total consciousness, or something.