So, Im sitting in my truck getting ready for our 8:15 meeting on monday morning and my phone rings, its the greatest call ive had all year... Lets backtrack 6 months to find out why first though.
I went to work for schwans in April 09 due to being laid off from the oilfield and no other jobs being available. I knew it wouldnt be much money, but it was more than sitting at home. Anyway, when being hired on the LGM (manager) here sells you a great story. There is a top percentage money wise of 15% if you sell $13,500 a WEEK in groceries. The LGM would go on to tell me the top 5% of salesmen in the company make this amount. Yet when the mid-year reports came out in June the TOP salesman in the country was on pace to fall short of this goal by $20,000 for the year, so see no one makes that top %. He then goes on to tell about how flexible schwans is and family oriented, we will get into each of those in time.
So, since all routes are full when i started i trained with the biggest route runner of the depot, he is actually top ten in the company. This guy has done it for years and i can see his customers like him a lot. I notice however when riding with others, that you always hear, HOW LONG ARE YOU GONNA BE AROUND? This route is the only route in the depot here that also consistently makes sales plans every week, if you dont make route plan you have to work Saturday, so much for your family weekend plans.
Well its now finally my turn to start my own route, someone else quit, imagine that. Well i get stuck on a turd of a route that has been seriously abused and screwed all to hell. So normal day goes as, get in and out of the depot by 8:30, or get job threatened. Drive 50 miles to the route i ran and start running the day, put up with rude ppl all day long, get asked the (how long are you here) question countless times, finally after a day of not homes and no sales you get to go to the depot, 50 miles back. Also, DO NOT show up before 9:00 pm or you will get threatened again with your job. Paperwork does not take very long, but the thing with schwans is they are horribly inconsistent and change what you have to do every couple weeks. Then, go make your bank drop off after counting money and head home. I lived about 15 miles from the depot so by the time you have to straighten product up in your truck, inspect it, do paperwork, and make bank deposit and get home its right at 10:00 pm. Now ive worked long shifts all my working live, but never for this little pay. You will have no time with your family, bc half the time your being forced to work saturday due to sales, or some stupid fundraiser schwans has come up with.
Im not speaking for every LGM, but i know here at this depot we were just constantly told how bad of a job we were doing, nothing was ever good enough, always either called deebs, or slackers, absolutely treated like crap.
As far as schwans saying they have flexible schedules, yeah, theyll make you work every hour DOT possible. They do not believe in national holidays either. I have friends still at the depot and they told me they have to work extra days to get the upcomming thanksgiving off. They call it a holiday, but if you have to work to make up the extra its not a holiday. So the ones that dnt work the extra have to work on thanksgiving, how rude do you think ppl will be when you interupt their thanksgiving family time? The only FAMILY part of schwans is you deliver to them.
Back to that phone call. I answer it and its a guy who used to work for me, wanting to know if i want to work for him back in the oilfield. Twice the money, literally half the days, 7 days on, 7 days off. I told him ill be there in a lil bit. I walked in to the depot, handed my keys and schwans wallet to our nazi depot leader and told him I QUIT! Going back to my real job.
In conclusion, I have never been so miserable as this job, tons of hours, chicken scratch pay, extremely rude LGM, rude ppl, poor equipment (trucks forever breaking down). Plus just the fact of basically being a grocery sacker on wheels is below most ppls intelligence. PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WORKING FOR THIS COMPANY, there is a reason the average person works there 4 months
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