11/7/10

Up is down, black is white, in is out.  For one reason or another, things were upside down today.  The weekend dispatcher called me yesterday to ask if I would have a problem starting today's shift at 3pm.  Apparently my start window ends at 2pm.  I had no idea.  I've started later than 2pm plenty of times, but whatever.  I told her that it was fine, so I started today at 3pm.

Generally speaking, my trips to the Flint area take place in the afternoon and my runs to the Toledo area take place in the evening/night.  Things were flipped around today.  My first run took me to the Toledo area for three stops and my second run took me to the Flint area for two stops.  One last stop in Livonia, on the way back to the dairy, was thrown in to round out the day.

In basic terms, I don't guess that it matters much whether I go to Toledo or Flint with my first load.  Miles are miles and stops are stops.  I get paid the same either way.  The usual interaction with the receiving people was disrupted though.  Since the northern stores tend to get their deliveries first, they tend to be staffed by the appropriate people earlier in the day.  The southern stores are more accustomed to receiving deliveries at night.  My first run - the one to the Toledo area - went quickly and smoothly.  The dairy receiving guy at the second stop didn't arrive until a few minutes after I got there, but I was rotating my third stop to the back of the trailer at the time, so I was taking a few extra minutes of my own.  All was well.

After I made a fuel stop and then got back to Livonia for my second load, it was time to head northward and see what was what.  My first stop was in Flushing.  Nobody answered the door.  Bad sign.  After standing outside and freezing my balls off for a few minutes, I walked around to the front entrance.  It was only 10pm so the store was still open.  I made my way back to the loading dock - nobody around.  I went into the dairy cooler - nobody around.  I walked through the back receiving area of the store - nobody around.  What the fuck, man?

Eventually I found a couple of kids in Kroger shirts wandering down one of the store aisles.  I asked them if they knew who was going to take the milk delivery?  "Uhh, I don't think so.  The dairy guy left."  No, I explained, this wasn't a negotiation.  Somebody most certainly would be taking the damned milk.  I simply needed to know who it was gonna be.

After a bit of back and forth, one of the wandering kids gave in and said that he would pull the milk into the dairy cooler.  Fair enough.  Given the way the stops were scheduled, I made the unusual decision to rotate this trailer at the first stop.  As a general rule of thumb, it's good to rotate the empties to the front of the trailer (and the milk to the back) whenever there are more pallets of empties than there are of milk.  In tonight's case, it was roughly 50/50 but I knew that my second stop, the one in Flint, wouldn't provide much working space.  Better safe than sorry.  So I had to pull out the nine pallets that I was delivering to the Flushing store plus the nine pallets for my other two stores.  Then I had to shove the Flushing store's empties into the nose of the trailer.  Then I had to put the milk for the last two stops back into the rear of the trailer.  That took a while.

The last two stops, on the other hand, took fifteen minutes each.  That's the upside to getting everything rotated.  I finished up before 2am, so we'll call it an efficient day at the office.  My shoulder workout afterward also was quick and intense, although the cardio portion of the deal is still a little tricky.  Essentially I can go until the pain in my calf gets too bad, then stop and lift weights for a while, then go again until the pain gets too bad.  Probably not the best arrangement in the world, but at least my shoulders got blasted pretty well.

I have the day off tomorrow and nothing on the agenda as of yet, so maybe I'll get to stay in bed all day or something.  Not that this would make for a very exciting day off, but comfort tends to trump excitement these days.