Bittersweet Ending

Today was my last day with Performance Food Group after a year and a half. It feels good knowing that I'll no longer be unloading my truck by hand but it's also somewhat sad as I've become close to a few customers and genuinely enjoyed seeing them a couple times a week, or in the case of 1 customer 5 times a week.

There are some customers that I'm also EXTREMELY happy I won't need to deal with anymore. I've been quiet for the most part about a particular customer I dealt with 5 days a week for the last year that was a HUGE pain in the butt. In Altoona (just east of des Moines in I-80) across from the bass pro shop is a Facebook Data Center. Between dealing with security to gain access to their property and waiting on someone from the kitchen to let me into the building it wasn't uncommon at all to spend an hour there to unload 30 cases a day. Of course I was only scheduled 15 minutes so I'd be 45 minutes behind every day on that stop alone and it'd fall on me to get back ahead.

I'd addressed the issues but being that PFG also services the data centers located in Omaha and Chicago I was told to deal with it because they're too big of a customer for us in the grand scheme of things. My intention isn't to badmouth anybody by any means but the frustrations dealing with that customer played a large role in me looking elsewhere for employment.

I'll be starting with Perishable Distributors of Iowa (PDI) on Monday, delivering to Hyvee grocery stores in Iowa and the 7 surrounding states while still being home most nights. It's a big change for me to go from pulling a 53' as opposed to my PUP trailer I've primarily had, and using a electric pallet Jack to unload as opposed to my 2 wheeler. I'll be starting on weekends working Friday thru Monday (4 day work week) and will ultimately make just a tad less money despite earning $5.50 an hour more.

I'm extremely excited to get this underway after there were a few times it looked like it was falling apart. At my DOT physical I had a very strenuous lift test just before my exam so my BP was pretty high, barely got it below their threshold. Then I had to wait over 3 weeks because I'd just got my CPAP a week before my exam so I wasn't compliant yet. Last Monday I put my notice in to quit with PFG and the next day I got stuck in the mud at one of my stops requiring me to be towed out. PFG made it seem like it was going to be put as a preventable but after I called my manager and ultimately reached out to me union rep it ended up just going on my employee record, not my license. a couple days later PDI told me it's no problem as long as it isn't on my MVR.

Today (my last day) another driver, who also happens to be joining me at PDI a week after me, was told to ride with me. That's due to too many drivers giving notice and not showing up their last day so they wanted to ensure if I did that it was covered. We ended up getting done 5 and a half hours ahead of schedule and beat the approaching snowstorm!

I look forward to possibly meeting some of you guys out on the road if we cross paths!

Congratulations Rob, and good luck!

Congratulations Rob! Good luck to you.

Congratulations, Rob! Best of luck to you in your new job.

Good luck in your new adventure and good thing you beat the storm.

Best of luck with your new job.

Good luck. Keep us informed. You have helped more people with your posts then you will ever know.