-They will tell you one thing then turn around and do the complete opposite. This is true regarding things such as days off, what route you will be running, length of route, etc. For example, they may tell you that your route for the next day is 10 hours, then you come in to a 13 hour route. -Trying to schedule days off is a struggle. You're usually told something along the lines of "we don't have enough drivers and can't afford to give you that day." Of course when they themselves needed a day off it was much more likely to happen. As a result of this and the usual route lengths the work/home life balance is terrible. -The equipment is in bad shape and the trucks and trailers constantly break down. This may put you behind schedule by hours depending on the nature of the breakdown and your location. At which point you are still pushed to get it all delivered. This company would rather put a cheap band-aide on everything instead of doing a comprehensive fleet update, and then wonder why the level of breakdowns is so high. -Although I stated the pay was decent, it is not sufficient for the amount of work expected. You are required to merchandise a majority of the convenience and dollar stores, and prior to my leaving more stores that needed merchandising were being added to the list. "Merchandiser" should not be a part of the job description, period. It is an archaic, antiquated relic of a service from when Coca-Cola had all but 5 products and there was only a few convenience stores. Now, with the proliferation of these stores in the country and hundreds if not thousands of SKU's worth of product, it's just not a feasible business model. Abarta needs to step into the 21st century and realize that unless there's a significant change to the system (ie. elimination of merchandising for the delivery drivers) then the driver turnover rate will continue to be atrocious and it's employees will suffer from low morale. Yes it would be a lot of work to implement, including having to rewrite contracts with companies and potentially losing some, but what it would do for the company and it's employees in the long run would more than make up for it. It could transform the company. -The amount of rude and condescending customers you deal with is ridiculous. A lot of the people you deliver to act like you are working for them and you must do as they say. They will try to make you do more work than you are supposed to, and half the time if you call your supervisor they will tell you to do what the customer wants, just to pacify them. -Management incompetence is a problem. If you have an issue out in the field and call a supervisor, half the time the answer you get is something like, "I don't know, just do the best you can." And that's if you can get one of them to answer the phone in the first place. -Favoritism runs rampant. If you are a designated "golden boy" in the eyes of management then you are much more likely to get a good route, new equipment, desired days off, having your equipment fixed in a timely manner, etc. -Major lack of communication between management, drivers, merchandisers, sales reps and account managers. Whether regarding an order, the delivery itself, a product reset, or any other of a multitude of reasons. This is always sure to cause a headache in an already stressful day. -The warehouse constantly mispicks products when building the orders. This ranges from simple 1 case mistakes to entire pallets being wrong. You then have to deal with figuring out and correcting the problem, which could be a huge ordeal depending on the issue. And sometimes the customer is COD and already has a check written out which causes further complications. On top of that half of the order builders don't know how to properly build an order and you end up with pallets of product fallen over in your trailer that you now have to rebuild yourself out in the field. You also have to remove any broken cases from the order and deal with working around it the rest of the day. -Sales reps are another source of contention. They place orders that make no sense, then the store manager questions you as the driver and you have to diffuse the situation. At times it looks like they make the order from their car and don't even enter the store. The sales reps are supposed to merchandise when they are in placing the order, but a lot of them do not. Another out of control situation is with the credits. Because of the way they like to over order, there are always a TON of credits that we have to pick up. There's been times I've taken more cases out than I delivered. If you're lucky the items to be returned might be neatly boxed or in shells. But instead there's a good chance that they threw 20lbs of product in a flimsy little soggy box. Or just a bunch of loose broken cans and bottles sitting on the floor/shelf/pallet. That brings up the issue of now having all these busted credits clogging up your trailer and leaking all over the place. You have to work around them the rest of the day, then you have to deal with unloading, separating and dumping them all. -Store cooperation is a joke. Convenience stores and the dollar stores are supposed to keep the shelves and coolers stocked between deliveries but there are many of them that just flat out ignore them. There's a lot of lazy store associates that just expect the delivery driver to do it. Then there's the issue of being forced to wait to get checked in. Whether due to a rush of customers, a lack of employees, or some other "pressing matter" the manager has to do I've had to wait over an hour to get checked in. And then you still have to merchandise everything. -The basic necessities are for some reason hard to get. There's no good reason to not have things like oil, coolant and windshield wiper fluid readily accessible. And yet I would say 4 out of 5 days of the week if I needed something there was nothing in the locker where it's supposed to be. And touching back to the state of the equipment, these trucks are constantly leaking coolant and oil so it's a major problem if it's inaccessible.
