Is Delivering To Dick's A Much Better Gig Than Dollar Stores?

I'm not sure if each store takes a full trailer, probably depends on the volume. I could see you doing as you outlined (drop, hook empty from door, drop full in door, hook to empty with possibly stacks of pallets and head back to the DC. ) I would assume you're given a trailer number you're bringing back with you.

As far as driving nights you get used to it. Also if you have a co-driver they may prefer running nights and you drive days. Each team chooses a way to split their hours. Some do something like 6 to 6, others prefer 12 to 12 to split the driving in dark. It's something you and your co-driver would figure out. I typically start my day around midnight and can tell you you'll get used to it. Some days are harder than others but I'll just pull off for a 15 minute nap and that's all I need.

I don’t deliver much at nights. But I do my best to park at the store and stage in their loading area so as to maximize my clock the next day. Helps me get done with that load earlier which helps me get better loads

As far as the moniker. I was a platoon sergeant for a tank platoon in the army. Each platoon has a name and we named ours the “war pigs”. Being in charge I was labeled “papa pig” or sometimes “boss hog”

Much appreciated feedback, guys. Papa Pig, sorry I don't recall, do you have to deliver in the middle of the night much? How hard is that when you’re sleepy, folks? (****’s sounds like always that...a mixed bag, no doubt.) I've made time to read most of what you've written in your own thread, still haven’t come across the origin of your humble moniker, and can't be sure what your most "sphincter clenching moments" have been...nor the most “zany”… But it's all good input for us newbies, especially those getting into the most similar gigs to yours (which I shall never aspire to).

Steve L., great to read that your recruiter experience with Schneider was so “honest". Their training protocol as you relate it is pretty much my understanding too…good to know you don’t find it wanting.

So this morning I woke up too early to be up for doing much of anything at home, so I took the local research cruise in my pickup... Checked out the observable delivery layouts at the two local ****'s stores while it was still dark, since that’s what my deliveries would be. (Then went to the local racquet club for a couple fun healthy hours of pickleball to recharge the body-mind batteries)…

Auggie, both of the stores in the county here did have good docks. I wasted several minutes at the first trying to find my way to the back of the building at a shopping mall, to no avail. Hmm, must be there isn’t one. Drove around to the front again and discovered a convenient dock right there. Backed into it just for unrealistic practice, but hey it was my first dock backing ever in ANY truck. Easily accessible, even by day, especially with the malls mostly shut down. So that one’s dock was empty with no trailer visible or anywhere to picture putting one, so I’m not sure how that would work in practice…assuming they’d unload if for me in the middle of the night, IF I got there in the required timeframe.

The other store’s dock was in back, assuming I located the right one (the only one back there) and felt like that’ll be a problem until I knew from memory or a photo or door code number or something, to be sure I wasn’t dropping at the wrong dock. (Yikes!) Hard to tell sometimes at these big malls when the rear of the stores aren’t labelled by name.

As Auggie led me to suspect, there WAS a trailer backed in there. But is that my “hook”? (Drive away with the wrong one? Extra embarrassing and impactful, Yikes!) So I assume in practice (allegedly 60-40 drop-n-hook), with no evidence of any human help there or a bobtail to move it, that my job would be to: un-couple my full trailer, couple to the docked one and move that, re-couple to the full one, back that in and drop it, then finally re-couple to the empty... The extra driver work just cuz they have no other place to park the empty? (I could be wrong here, right guys?...maybe that empty ain't empty after all?)) Then take off…hopefully first to one of the numerous nearby parking spaces to grab a nap, before getting out of the city (the stores being not as “outskirts” as I pictured) before rush hour, then off to wherever the next supply warehouse is..?

Overall, looks like it’d be a pretty doable OR tough job, depending how sleepy one would be in the middle of the night, looking for these places without perfect clarity of what’s what and where’s where…but once ya get used to it.?! And like P.P. said, get max clarity with dispatch, pre-plan, and when backing, G.O.A.L., GOAL, GOAL. Rookies can never hear this stuff too much! —E.Z.

Dude, if you are doing THAT much research to look at local Diks just go in and talk to the manager. Ask them how their deliveries work. Are you sure you won't be going to some sort of Diks Distribution Center? From my talks with local Diks, the trailers they have in the docks are used for storage. NOT for a drop and hook.

Thanx again guys, for more helpful targeted advice, all of which I shall take into account and follow up on. You all're making a difference...out here in the scary, new-to-many trench you're in the process of mastering. Will pay it forward, whether or not I can give back. --E.Z.