An Industrial Route

When I left work Friday, my manager promised that on Monday I would be seeing one of the routes I’m up for. As it turns out, his word was good. At least this second time around.

They sent me out with a supervisor to show me the route, and as it turns out, I like it just fine. It’s an industrial route which means bulk stops, heavy pick-ups, and lots of over-70 packages. But the area is tight, and the nice thing about commercial areas is that everything must be delivered by 5pm. I will work a safe, honest pace, and if I can’t finish in time, I’ll call in and tell my management team, and then it’s their problem.

There’s one catch to the route though: they throw in residential stops from other routes. Without the residential, I could be finished with the route by 5:30 everyday. But that would mean I only work 8 hours everyday. Big Brown can’t have that. If every driver only worked 8 hours, they couldn’t start laying people off now. Nothing is more important than over working some drivers and turning others out into the street in order to maintain profits.

Yesterday, there were 24 residential stops on the truck. All next day air packages that we pick up must be dropped off at our building by 6:15pm in order to make the planes. But I couldn’t finish before then, so I had to drive in to drop off my air, then drive back out to the route. It’s a route close to the building, but few things piss me off more than dropping air and going back out. It’s a waste of time, and quite frankly, I can’t see how it makes financial sense.

My point is, the route has potential in terms of working reasonable hours. But it also has potential to keep me out late, just like any other route. But I’m going to take it. I don’t need to see the other route. The other route is mostly apartments, and I hate apartments. I hate going back two or three times with the same package. And the buildings in that area are old without elevators, and you might be surprised at some of the heavy shit people expect us to carry up three flights of stairs. Plus, the potential on a mostly residential route for working reasonable hours is practically nil.

The other nice thing about my new route is that a lower seniority cover driver has been sitting on the route for months and all the customers have come to know him as “their driver.”

So yesterday, there were lots of people asking, “Is our regular guy on vacation again?”

My supervisor explained the situation, and quite a few people responded with, “It’s a hard route.” Or, “Our regular driver is usually here earlier.”

So now that I’m taking the route, I can righteously respond with, “I’m your regular driver now.”

And let’s face it, who doesn’t enjoy a good opportunity to feel righteous?