2 Weeks in the Life of a Pop Company Employee

After my first year away at OU, I returned home. I had worked fast food for about 4 years prior to going away and felt a change would be a good thing. A friend of mine named Mark worked for a well known pop distributor and said he could get me in. $7 / hr. At the time that seemed like a lot.

My job discription was, "Merchantizer" My function was to drive to all these businesses, gather the stock from the back room and bring it onto the floor. One thing I never knew prior to this was that businesses like Wal-Mart or Target do not stock their shelves with things like potato chips or pop. The companys that they bought from do this. So Companys like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, 7up, Frito Lay, etc... Stock the shelves themselves. The people that do this are called merchantizers.

The job had highs and lows. You are on your own clock. You take as long or as little as you want. There can be a lot of physical labor involved. 12pks come on a pallet. If you are not allowed to bring the pallet directly onto the floor, you must transfer each box onto a cart and then wheel them out for transfer to the shelves. Sometimes in a small stock room your stock will be buried in the back corner.

On one such occasion, my stock was behind so much stuff I physically could not get to it. So I left. My boss called and bitched about it so I had to return and move the stuff myself. If that market was hit by a meteor today, I'd be pissing on the ashes tomorrow.

You do meet some very interesting people though. Perhaps I'll name a few honorable mentions.

The Leader - I can't remember his name, but he worked 80 hours a week handling Pop.

Donna - This was the secretary. Donna was a quasi-attractive 30 year old woman. Headquarters is a warehouse where all the truckers hang out. Donna was usually the only female present. I was rarely at HQ, but it's amazing how many passes Donna would get while I was there. I would imagine she was either really good at blowing them off, or just really good at blowing. In my two weeks I never learned an answer on that one.

Russ - Russ was a trucker. Quite possibly the foulest mouth i've ever bared witness too. If I took Richard Pryor, Andrew "Dice" Clay, and Eddie Murphy from his "RAW" days and put them on a scale that measured nastiness accross from Russ, the three amigos would be catapulted into the abyss.

Chris - Chris was my supervisor. Chris had an anal fixation. Chris would talk for hours on "butt-sex" and why it was better than anything else on the planet. He would often ask if I had had "butt-sex" the night previous or if I had gotten any pussy. Chris ranked somewhere above a broom handle, but below a soap dish.

I worked 14 days straight averaging 10 hours per day. The workers were payed weekly, but after week 1 I received no check. Workers were not payed milage and were forced to supply their own transportation. Workers were promised days off, but they were often revoked. On one occasion, I went into a stockroom of a store and the dock manager who I was told was a real hard ass says. All that stock is for a display (free form pile of pop in the center of an asleway) that will be set up next week. You'd better have somebody help you because that'll take all fucking day if you don't. I knew in my heart of hearts, no help would be supplied. By the middle of my second week, my wrists were beginning to feel pain. Occasionally they would simply stop working, and anything I was carrying would be dropped.

Finally, I met a stock manager at a local Kroger who I decided to vent to. He said, "You know what, fuck 'em. You don't need those guys, if they're treating you like shit, just fucking quit. No job is worth slavery. If you don't like it, the pay sucks, and it isn't overall worth it, fuck 'em." This man who I've come to refer to as the Kroger Sage actually made an impact. After work the next day, (Day 13 if we're counting) I grabbed a pool floatie and hopped into the pool with a cordless phone. I made sure to have a drink in my hand when I made my call. It went something like this.

"Chris here."
"Hey Chris, it's Jim. Look normally I would give two weeks notice, but for all the pain you've caused I'm going to just give 1 day notice. I'll work my shift tomorrow, but after that I'm done with you guys."
"Oh really... OK... But you'll work tomorrow?"

At this point I realize what a piece of meat I've been.

"Yeah, I'll work tomorrow."
"OK, sorry to lose you"


I seem to remember dropping off my uniform and talking briefly to Russ. He said something like this:

"No fucking check??? Fuck, If I was you I'd piss in their boots and tell them to float away. Those motherfuckingsonsofbitches......" It went on from there, and I guess you can fill in the rest.

But that's it. 2 weeks that I'll never get back.