Sysco Update – 1351hrs

So now that it’s been a day and I’ve calmed down, let me tell you what it was like to visit Sysco – Freezer Division in Westbrook:

So we arrived for our 1100 hrs appointment time with a load of 6 pallets of ice cream… we go inside (there’s NO other trucks there) and they ask us if we want a lumper (I’ve explained this assenine procedure before so I won’t go into it again).  They say it’ll be $110 to lump the load…we say, no thanks (well actually Charles did) and we decide to pull the pallets off ourselves.

Let me digress a moment and say that if the driver decides to lump a load, THEY get the lumper fee so it can be a decent way to earn a couple of extra bucks.

Well…the moment we said we didn’t want a lumper… a Sysco EMPLOYEE to lump the load, we started getting attitude from hell from this “Chris” there.  Those 6 pallets needed to be broken down into 13 seperate “orders” / pallets… he starts “barking” orders of how the pallets are supposed to be placed on the floor (which direction) and then asks us (in a really condescending / smart-assed tone) “I supposed you don’t know how to read the Bill Of Laden (BOL) on how to break these down?” and explains to us how they’re supposed to be stacked.

So we set to breaking them down… about half-way through the 6 pallets he happens to walk by… and again with the attitude… “those are WRONG!  You would’ve been better off getting a lumper!” and walks away…

Now mind you from what we can tell, not only is this asshole what appears to be the Supervisor of the receiving dock and a Sysco Employee…but we think he was more pissed that we didn’t pay HIM the lumper fee to break these pallets down.

during the whole time, you can almost hear the other Sysco employees and this “Chris” passing smart ass comments back and forth… we’re the only truckers there, the only non-Sysco employees there…and they would look or point at us and start laughing when one says something to the other while they go about whatever it was they appeared to be doing (which was really nothing other than checking on our progress).

So finally after about an hour or so, we get it all broken down… “Chris” comes along and tells us that we have to srink-wrap anything over two layers… okay… no problem.

Get that done… we’re finished…”Chris” comes along again and “barks” at us that “this, this and this” one (pointing to three different pallets of single layer product, “have to be wrapped”.  Um..okay dude.

Get that done, move a couple of pallets around so that they’re pointing “the official direction”… Once again “Chris” barks at us that once he’s tagged a pallet that we can’t move them or the stickers will be fucked up.  Um… huh?  You tagged pallets before we were done with them?  Whatever “dude”.

So Charles get him to sign the BOL’s and we’re outta there… head on out to the truck to send in we’re done… Charles notices that the guy hasn’t written his name in anything identifiable as english and we don’t have his name to send in on the QualComm…

Back inside I go and hear the guys in the break-room joking / complaining to each other how they didn’t get the lumper fees and what assholes we were etc.  I walk up to “Chris” with the BOL’s and tell him I need him to write his name clearly please so we can send it in…

He says to me; “I suppose you don’t have a pen?”  Well…of course I do and start to pull it out… the MOMENT my pen is clear from my shirt… he whips HIS out of his jacket and forcibly scratches CHRIS on the BOL’s after he snatched them from me, then stuffs them back into my hand and turns around.

Bottom line… if this is the way this asshole treats all truckers that come in there and choose not to PAY the Sysco employee to remove THIER product from a truck is a really shitty representation of Mainers and I’m ashamed to be living in the same state!  Lastly… I apologize to any trucker out there that comes to Maine and get this asshole… really, we ARE much more personable and friendly than that jackass and don’t think we’re all like him in any way.