How physical are delivery positions at Sysco/Pepsi? Concrete mixers?

I worked for McLane for 3 years. Pretty much the same as Sysco. Its pretty rough lol. I was unloading a 53' trailer with a dolly in Colorado. The ramp would get slippery as #### when it would snow and id have 100 pounds worth for #### on the dolly. Not sure about Sysco, but at McLane you had to work your way up to get the good loads. After about a year and a half I started getting decent loads.

 

I did food service deliveries for 16 years. Eventually I had to give it up because of my knees and ankle. No liftgate, everything up and down the ramp. If you already have bad knees and can barely operate a clutch, I would not suggest any type of food delivery for you.

 

I interviewed for a concrete company in Chicago. They sent me for a physical which also had a "can he do this type of work?" segment. To be honest, pretty easy to pass before I got in better shape.

 

Beverage or food service delivery has the honor of "getting your foot in the door" for many, but find out, it's incredibly strenuous. With your history, I don't recommend it. Mixer too, lot of pulling and pushing the chute, climbing in the drum to chip out old concrete, same thing. Dump truck, or anything specialized, generally hire experienced drivers. In your case, there are trucking jobs you can do. Line haul, tanker, drop and hook, dedicated run, even just plain old OTR is a low duty job, and as a new driver, probably what you'll get. Even P&D ( pickup and delivery) is a lot of physical work, flatbed, lot of work too. As a new driver, it may not be so easy to find what you need.

 

Bad knees means NO food service or beverage work. I’d think twice about LTL unless linehaul, then you may still get stuck doing sock work and dealing with Dollie’s. My suggestion would be pnemybulk or liquid bulk. Hook up a few hoses and let her roll. Lots of places don’t want you on top of the tanks anymore. The places I go to where I have to access the top of the tank is via stairs. In a loading rack

 

Beer-probably the crappiest driving job I’ve ever done. Leave the house at 0400. Hit the grocery store in the early am, hit the convenience stores next, hit the bars and clubs last. Beer and booze was COD and so you had money to balance at the end of the day. And you may have someone try to rob you (they paid cash in the hood). Tough work, running all day, got home at 11pm. You have to stock the shelves and rotate stock. Other drivers will try to put their stock in the spot assigned for yours, and so if the store manager is a pushover, be prepared to hit another driver in the mouth. Because of greedy salesmen ordering big quantities of certain brands that didn’t move too well, driver has to pick the beer up when it’s outdated. Company charges driver and they want you to throw the old beer into the dumpster. Not happening. I paid for it, it’s going to the house.

Foodservice-No COD, so less time at the end of the day. No robbery. No stocking shelves. No greedy salesmen, no picking up any old products. No issues with drivers of other companies as the only other driver that will be bringing food is the little fresh produce box truck. Shorter days, 2x the money. But more physical. Lots of climbing into the freezer and reefer compartments and the ramp out the back for dry goods. You haven’t seen slippery until you have a case of olive oil break open in the back of an aluminum floor reefer trailer.

Dump truck-
1. rock quarry is gravy…super easy. Spreading rock can be very dangerous on the slopes.
2. Asphalt is more work and you feel that 500degrees radiating through the cab.
3. Construction/demolition. I drove the 8 axle lowboy with Armstrong steering delivering the heavy equipment. Some time, I drove a dump truck. Dump truck were the most ragged, beat up POS on the road. Some time, I hauled dirt, some time, demolished houses and buildings. Job is easy, it’s just that the equipment can be so beaten up it’s dangerous. Stand your ground, hands. When management gets ugly, be ugly back. If you deem it unsafe, don’t drive it.

 

What does your doctor say about how much and what type of physical activity is recommended? As an LTL linehaul driver you'd have to stage the dolly when you build your set one or more times per shift, and depending on the company, do some dock work, loading and unloading trailers with forklift, with some walking around. But it's not continuous through your entire shift. It's midway between a delivery job and 100% no-touch. Personally I like the aspects of the job that get you off your rear end and moving around a little.

 

Even tank [dry and liquid] can be taxing.

Yeah most loading stuations have racks with stairs to reach the top of the tank but there are exceptions like vacuum loading dry materials in a railyard where you often hook to a loading inlet that may be most of the way up the back of the tank.

A lot of liquid and dry deliveries usually do not have facilities so up the ladder you go to fetch them a sample.

Occasionally a large chem plant will have a sample rack but not to often.

Liquid pump offs require opening -or- ,at least, venting the trailer and usually climbing up to check the progress by looking into the wagon.

A pre-loaded dry bulk gig [cement/flour, etc.] usually comes with a bagged sample, if needed, so all you need to do is hook up the inlet hose to the blower and handle the discharge hose which for powders is usually a soft rubber hose that goes flat and is eazy to roll up expecially when compared to the flexible [sic] stainless hoses used for plastic resins.

Any chem hose over 2" can also be a bear to handle both when MT and when full of product and even a 2" hose requires handling to walk the remains to the pump as you clear the line.

Fuel deliveries usualy have lightweight hoses and those products are 'bottom-loaded'so you won't have to climb up except to demonstrate to the receiver that they did get all his fuel but you will do multiple trips each shift so there is still a lot of climbing in and out out of the cab.

My last job had a policy to leave the LTL trucks and trailers MT overnight so every morning all the LTL drivers were loading their stuff and they used to fight for the use of the electric pallet jack IF the warehouse guys were not using it.

On deliveries they used the manual jack in each vehcle so pushing up hill -or- controlling it going downhill are both taxing on your whole body, especially back and knees.

Trucking is not frindly to your body.

 

Tanking is a cake walk. Dry and liquid, handling a hose with product IN it? You’re doing it wrong