Do you get paid extra for being shelf stackers or is it part of the job?
Just got diesel where they were delivering, and not only was the driver dragging cages into the shop, but stacking shelves and moving stock that wouldn’t fit onto the shelves out into the stock room (where I suppose he stacks shelves again). All this going on whilst the staff either chatted in their native tongue or played with their phones and not once did anything to help the P and H guy.
If the P and H guy is reading this, please get some self respect and start being a driver not a slave.
I used to deliver to Costcutter stores all over London many moons ago, the first time I did and at the first drop, I pushed an over filled and heavy cage to the store door and turned away to get the other one.
Two little indian fellas who worked in there were leaning against the door smoking, got the other one and one of them said to me " You must take the cages into the shop and empty it " In your ******* dreams Sonny Jim, said I, I thought he was joking at first, he wasn’t and said all drivers do it.
Not me, so I started pushing a cage back to the wagon and he’s going spare 
What are you doing ? Taking it back the yard pal, there’s no way I’m working in YOUR shop doing YOUR work for you ! I don’t mind a bit of graft, but these people were extracting the urine.
So I wheeled the cage back to the door and the two amigos did the rest, while I had a smoke and watched them do a bit. I’m a professional and waited till they’d finished and took the two empty cages back. 
Cheeky ***** I blame the driver for putting up with it though. Deserves all he gets, just say no and mean it.
I’d decant the cages myself rather than wait for some lazy shop staff who have all day, however it’d be going straight from cage to floor in one spot and that’s it. Wouldn’t tolerate being told to put it on shelves etc.
I must agree that its not a job i would do…but there are companies out there who seek drivers and as part of the deal: Must be prepared to handball the load so i guess the drivers who apply are told what is expected of them…take it or leave it. IF it was me, making deliveries, and it was not part of the job to unload and stack, i would ask them where they wanted it, and thats as far as it will go. I believe 3663 ( bookers ) are in that field of work, where they are indeed expected to take the goods up 3, 4 flights and higher…and stack it neatly in the fridges…but apparently, paid handsomely for it…each to their own.
The bagged flour I used to do is similar, hump it off the back of the wagon onto your shoulder (2/3 bags at a time) and into storeroom of the drop, which can be down/up 2 or more staircases, round the back of the building, etc, then stack it up, go back and repeat till the load is done. Which can be up to 10 tonnes per drop with either 40 or 65 bags per tonne. Drivers mates are optional until the volume at the drop is over 3 tonnes
There are and always have been lots of " driving " jobs that are more manual graft than actual driving.
If you don’t want one of these types of job that’s fair enough.
For you to call the P & H driver you saw a slave, and to tell him he has no self respect, is in my opinion insulting and arrogant in the extreme.
Regards. John.
PS…maybe you should have told him your opinion of him while you were there ? I’m sure he would have thanked you ? 
Maybe the guy was a newbie gaining experience
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I did some agency work for Smales when I first passed, delivering fish up and the like up and down the east coast. They all expected me to take the stock into the cold store room. However, they ALL offered me either something to eat or drink afterwards. Seemed like a fair deal to me at the time.
Many of the shops/bakeries I delivered to would offer me cakes, sandwiches, sausage rolls, hot drinks. I’d regular come home with a couple of dozen bread rolls, even one of the Asian bakeries in Leicester gave me a bag full of samosas. As a rule, the smaller the shop, the bigger the gratuity. Though I remember delivering to one of the larger chain of bakers locally (cooplands) and the manager though he was doing me a favour after I’d handballed 6T on a wet day, when he offered me a single custard tart and I politely declined his offer, and when he asked why I refused, I told him I’d get grief if I took that home for the kids to share.
It’s not a job I’d do out of choice and I respect new passes for doing the hard graft to get hours on their new card. However,if there was tea and custard creams at the end…
A guy at a place in north wales would come running out even before we’d got out the cab brandishing sandwiches, hot sausage rolls and hot coffee
mdourish:
Maybe the guy was a newbie gaining experienceMost are mate. I did 12 months for them, it was my first LGV job 24 hours after passing. The shopkeeper’s will not help you, and if you give them any lip, they phone your depot and grass you up. One guy at Haydock didn’t let it affect him though, he simply 2atted the Asian guy in the Shell garage on the Parkway in M/cr
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old 67:
There are and always have been lots of " driving " jobs that are more manual graft than actual driving.
If you don’t want one of these types of job that’s fair enough.
For you to call the P & H driver you saw a slave, and to tell him he has no self respect, is in my opinion insulting and arrogant in the extreme.
Regards. John.
PS…maybe you should have told him your opinion of him while you were there ? I’m sure he would have thanked you ?
+1
It could well be thats hes new to it and these are the only lot thatll take him on to get the "experience" that every employer seems to want right now. Kudos to the guy for doing it tbh, I have a lot of respect for people wholl graft in life to get them where they need to be.
I think a lot of the time, it’s down to time itself. Most new people (in any job) would do what they can and I don’t mind doing that extra bit for goodwill/ customer service etc. especially if they are ok people and maybe a carrot in the way of some grub at the end of it but if some deliveries like that are going to have a knock on effect for my other tips that day then I’d generally phone my employer/ supervisor and explain things and leave the ultimate decision to them… they get paid for making decisions and I basically get paid to Drive, but with a bit of that cliche ‘going a bit further’ when possible.
You HAVE to stack everything nice and neat in piles of 5 items Andy at EACH drop, and you normally have between 10 and 15 drops per day. The shops count every item before they sign your notes.
It’s bloody hard graft, but I figured that if I got straight on with it for 12 months, it would build my experience as fast as possible so that I could then do class 1 and become the absolute Legend that I am now…
Cages should just be left at the door, signed for job done. From what ive seen over here with the little trucks delivering to my local shop thats how it works anyway.
Couple of years ago i had the usual 30t of aggregate which was pretty expensive polished stone in 10kg bags and 100bags to a bulk bag, 12t of it was coming off at a big garden centre near Zarragoza, the fork truck blew a hose and we handballed the lot off,was like a human conveyer belt though,the owner had just about every staff member there giving a hand, not so bad if shop staff are happy to help…
I done this job years ago before Palmer & Harvey had the contract… back then I was on for Hays Distribution delivering
to all the Shell Petrol Stations in an urban artic pulling a single wheeled trailer from the base in Crawley.
I hated the job… about 10 -12 tonnes and it was ALL handball into the stores NO cages ( We always suggested to management that cages would be better! ) just direct on pallets and we weren’t allowed to take pallet trucks with us! ( Palmer and Harvey used cages, so don’t know why Hays wouldn’t!)
Three compartment trailers, Ambient, Chilled & Frozen… Bloody hard work, especially in Summer when you had pallets of Coke, Mineral Water
etc into each store together with everything else… Oh and having to scan and collect all their ‘Out of Date’ sandwiches for return to base.
Together with constant attempted robberies of cigarettes from the trailer whist you were out delivering… to sum up I hated EVERY minute of
the job. The only upside was the money was ok, back in the late 90’s Early 2000’s (I think!) it was £25k PA and it was a 4 on 4 off shift which
I liked, but even that wasn’t enough to keep me and I went back to an old employer on tramping again for the same money, and was much happier! 
peirre:
A guy at a place in north wales would come running out even before we’d got out the cab brandishing sandwiches, hot sausage rolls and hot coffee
I found up North and the Bristol area to be the most generous. London be it a posh cafe or grubby Persian bakery where you washed your hands when you left, you’d get sweet FA…
I never understood why bakers had flour sacks carried upstairs when they mixed the dough downstairs. I wonder if bakers keep their food shopping in their wardrobe?
We used to lie to new customers and tell them the insurance company wouldn’t allow us to carry stuff up and downstairs, it worked until the self appointed “senior driver” delivered there and told the baker differently.
As Sean Connery said “Never Again” but like him I went back one more time. 