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Welcome to episode number 104 of Warehouse and Operations as a Career, the Podcast where we talk about the many Career opportunities within Operations. This week we hit our two year mark, our 2nd anniversary if you will. If you’re a long time listener you’ll know we enjoy talking about our experiences and don’t mind sharing them along with our thoughts and yes, probably a few to many opinions about the Positions, Equipment and Opportunities within this great industry! Our goal is to help everyone that’s interested in getting and keeping a light industrial job and advancing within their company with the tools, keywords and planning that we implemented and used during our careers. Through reaching out to knowledgeable experts & those performing the tasks on a daily basis and researching your questions and thoughts I hope we help each one of our listeners in one way or another! We started this podcast as a way to introduce young job seekers to the fields of warehousing and transportation, a field that can pay very well, and a field that you can take care of your families with and retire from! I’d like to sincerely thank each of you for checking in with us each week, I’d of never dreamed a weekly discussion on Operations would reach so many different countries, states, cities and individuals! And I’d like to take my hat off to each of our guest over the last 2 years, each one having volunteered time to share their experiences with us and that really believes in our industry as much as I do! Keep those questions, comments and suggestions coming in, we love putting the show together each week, heck I learn something new from every guest and show myself, keep thirsting for knowledge and we’ll keep tracking down answers.
Well, next week starts year 3 and I’m super excited! We’re already planning & putting some shows together on 3PL’s, Logistics & the supply chain, and of course a lot more on Safety. We’ll be speaking with a couple of equipment manufactures too, learning where they believe the industry is heading and what our equipment is going to be like in the future! I recon that’s enough of what’s ahead I’ll get back to the present so thanks for being here and as they say on with the show!
Let’s talk a little about transportation. We’ve had a couple of questions about Route driving and local Delivery drivers, quite possibly the most strenuous and stressful position I know of.
If you google the words route driver Google pulls up 210,000,000 results in 0.51 seconds, got to love the internet don’t we?
What is a route driver? Careers.stateuniversity.com says
Route delivery drivers are truck drivers who sell and deliver goods along local routes. They may sell retail goods and services or wholesale products. Their specific duties vary according to their industries, the policies of their employers, and their role in sales.
Route Delivery Driver Job Description, Career as a Route Delivery …
I’ll include their URL in today’s show notes along with several articles I looked up. Their site is pretty informative, check it out if you have a few minute!
http://careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/785/Route-Delivery-Driver.html#ixzz5REL96SWF
I think the Transportation world is a great career choice, and there’s so much room for growth and advancement. We’ve talked about all the supply chain and logistics offerings on a couple of episodes, all around it’s just a great field!
Employers typically are going to seek out individuals of at least 25 years old and a high school graduate, but I know many drivers that possess various degrees too. You’d be surprised how many independent operators have taken their business degrees on the road and are doing very well for themselves!
I believe one of the easiest ways to become a driver is for us to get into a good company, one our research has showed us will offer a long-term career and eventually our retirement. Starting in the warehouse, in any capacity, will give us the product knowledge and the inter-workings of our company, remember knowledge is money and stability! Most large organizations will have a driver program of some sorts, something where they’ll help us get our permit and maybe some actual driving time too! Another great avenue to be a driver is taking a driver helper position. We’ll get as much product knowledge and get to be out on the road with the driver to boot!
A great point, Driving can pay really well, I won’t go into all the salaries here but check out today’s links, I’ll add them to the website. Pay rates vary wildly, I mean from a to z but then so does the job descriptions and responsibilities of being a driver. Everything from Hotshot or currier work in a small van to being a route driver with sales responsibilities like with beer and soda companies or grocery store deliveries. Then you have delivery drivers delivering to 15 or 20 customers a day with maybe 1200 cases that may consist of 1100 different items. Over the road is probably, or can be the most rewarding but man, or in my opinion that can be the roughest job there is! For me it’s hard to think about being away from home so much. And then I guess we ought to talk about the driving schools available to us real quick. I think these are good alternatives if you have the $3000 to $6000 dollars or more to pay for them, and then there’s the contract schools or departments of over the road carriers that will teach us but we’ll probably have to sign up for a couple of years, maybe even a few years and commit to many many miles with them before we can move on to something else.
I want to add that even once we have our license in hand we’re probably not going to be able to just go out and get that really good local delivery job because they’re going to be looking for some experience and miles under our belts. There’s a lot of city miles, in traffic, and several time windows we’ll be expected to meet so experience is a must. I’ve seen the pros have to back down an alley, around 6 vehicles and jack knife the trailer so they could get to the delivery doors. There’s an art to driving, believe me. Anyway, that’s another reason I think getting in with a company first and then transitioning into driving with them is our best bet. We know them and they know us, what better training could we get and be paid to earn more money right!
I think it’s important we remember our work environments too, we’ll be out in the heat in the summer and the cold during the winter. And of course just because it’s raining, snowing or hailing we’re still at work and that freight’s got to be delivered.
Yep, the works hard to some, some find it invigorating but I’ve never seen what I’d call an easy driving job. I always loved the customer services aspect of it, seeing different people every day and that feeling of being the President of the company when on the road. I mean we’re responsible for the equipment and our entire load and we’ll be the sole decision maker all day long!
Transportation is a great career choice, I think we just need to study what we’re getting into and understand our choices. I guess that’s any job or career choice though!
I know we were talking about transportation today but I ran across this article on Forklifts I found really interesting and I wanted to share it with ya’ll today. Of course a Driver has occasion to utilize a lift sometimes, loading or unloading our freight so maybe it’s a good thing to review it here today?
So I found this at https://www.aftt.co.uk/forklift-accidents/
from
@CliveFlucker on Twitter, one of our WAOC followers, we follow them as well, check them out, they have some really good articles sometimes!
Anyway, so the article from aftt is titled So You Thought Mining Was Dangerous. I believe these stats were pulled from the UK but I’d assume we could apply them to our industry no manner where we’re located.
They state as much as 70% of all accidents could have been prevented by standard safety measures. It states 60% of their units are electric powered and 40% are fueled. I’ll try and look that up but I’d assume that’d be true for us here on this side of the pond too? A couple of facts I knew were that forklifts showed up in the 1920’s and standardized pallets came to be in the 1930’s! Here’s some forklift accident stats:
Falling from the forks – 4%
Struck by falling vehicle – 8%
Runover 11%
Crushed between 2 Vehicles – 11%
Crushed between a vehicle and a surface – 25%
And 42% of the accidents listed here were from tipping over!
They listed some Forklift Safety Tips too, it’d be a good idea to add all these to our list:
To keep a forklift from tipping over they mention:
Ensure the load is balanced
Use extra caution when making sharp turns, I’d add to slow down when turning as well.
Take extra care when working on ramps, on uneven or sloping surfaces. Dock plates always make me think twice!
And of course, as we all should know, Drive with the load in its lowest position. I like the old saying “slow & low”, I forget where I first heard that but it’s remained with me all this time.
They list a few thoughts for If the forklift begins to tip over also:
Number 1 – Stay in the seat – do not attempt to jump clear!
Hold on tightly to the steering wheel and brace yourself against the seat
And then they remind us to keep our bodies inside the frame of the machine and lean in the opposite direction of the overturn.
These are all great points and reminders. You know as drivers, and with us not operating one everyday it’s probably a good idea to review our safety practices before we climb on a lift each time. I know with myself since I’m no longer operating one everyday I take a moment and clear my head, kind of gather my thoughts and bring the old operator forward before I climb on one now.
I mentioned Twitter a little earlier, WAOC has forwarded over 2500 job postings, actually almost 2700 tweets in the last 730 days, we’d appreciate a follow if you have a moment. You can find us on Twitter and Facebook both @whseandops. And of course we keep the website updated each week at warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com and you can always reach us by email host@warehouseandoperationsasacareer.com with any suggestions, topics or comments, I’m checking all of them daily!
Well ladies and gentlemen that wraps up 2 years of WAOC and I’m looking forward to year 3 now! I thank you for listening and participating with our group and I’m looking forward to next week! Until then please work Safe and remember we have others counting on us at home, lets return as we left!