Work! The day in the life of a milkman
For anybody who doesn't know, I'm a milkman this summer on my week-ends. The past few summers I worked for Scotsburn merchandising their stock. Basically I would go to the grocery store and go to the cooler and put milk on the shelf. I would help the milkman if he was around. But this summer I get to drive the truck, except I'm working for Farmers, Scotsburns arch-rival.
To start with, the milk route has changed slightly, making the current use of this information useless. (ie. there is a new milk depot etc.) Given this fact I decided that it is ok to post this information on the web. Not that this section will appeal to people, but I want to put it up because being a milkman is the best summer job ever. You can start your day at any time, however, there are reasons that I start at 5- 6am. First you must load your order before delivering it. Doing this early ensures that you can be the first one at a store, this way you don't have to wait in a huge line of companies waiting to deliver their product. There are no supervisors looking over your shoulder, nobody can actually tell you what to do, and you can work at your own pace doing things your way. I don't know how many other people with summer jobs can say that. I actually work for an indepentant driver not Farmers, so I have a bit more liberal freedoms than a merchandiser.
Also I was asked the question: "Would I be happy being a milk truck driver for the reast of my life?". I immediately said yes. After working for Scotsburn for 4 years and then Farmers for the summer I think I have had enough experience to make that choice. There's just something about the job that makes the time fly by. But as many of you know I have a path set before me in the wonderful world of accounting.
I start my day by jumping in the truck at 5:45am. The pic on the left is at 5:45am, the one on the right at mid-afternoon.
First thing is first. I go to the dairy to load up the milk on the truck. This is the stoarge facility where the milk is. I load up at the side of the building at the door on the far left. The milk truck you see belongs to another milkman.
When the milkman orders milk it's dilivered to us from Halifax. We have to separate it into each individual order for each customer. You wouldn't know it by the picture, but this milk is well organized. The milk on the right is for the superstore, the left is for Glen Haven the local old folks home, and the milk at the back is for the highland square mall. You can't see the massive Westside sobeys order around the corner, or the two convience store stops.
This pic is just the view from behind. The Highland square sobeys order in in front, and the massive westside sobeys order is in the back on the left.
As you can see I have to take all that milk through that skinny door onto the truck. I just take a hook and drag the milk on to minimize lifting too much. I can only fit so much milk on the truck at once. So I have the order for the superstore on the left, and the order for Glen Haven on the right. We take milk to the superstore 3-4 times a week, and Glen Haven 3 times. And yes that is 320 liters milk for the old people, and yes it only lasts them 2-3 days! After I deliver this I have to take the other two large orders and the 2 small stops.
These are the stores I deliver to. First the superstore, second Glen Haven, third the Highland square, and finally the westside sobeys. I won't have pics of the two small stops.
When I get to the store I have to manually lift each crate out of the truck onto a pallet where I can pull it off to the stores milk cooler using a palletjack. Once there I than merchandise the milk, yogurt, cheese, and butter I took in, put back what won't go on the shelf and then continue with my day. And that's a typical day for a milkman.