On the Road Again

As I have been going through my internship at National Pool Tile this summer, I have had a number of opportunities to drive to different places in one of the company vehicles to either pick up or drop off product.  I have driven three different vehicles including two different trucks and a 4-door Jeep kind of car.  Work took me as far North as Surprise and as far South as Casa Grande on some days, but nothing could have prepared me for what came next...

 The BIG ONE

I got to go out with Paul, the in-house truck driver, to go deliver product on a couple of different days.  I had never been in a semi-truck before so it was exciting.  

 For the few days while the Sales manager was gone on vacation last week, I was in charge of Paul's deliveries (with the Branch Manager's help, of course).  

I had to make sure the deliveries were pulled, checked, wrapped and loaded onto the truck everyday as well as help divide them up geographically so that he wasn't driving all over town on each load. 

Paul is really fast with the "Donkey" (forklift made for delivery trucks) but still very careful.

 

We went to a truck stop to fill up so I got to see what a "Truck Stop" was like--did you know they have showers?

I also learned a little bit about driving the truck itself, that "Lot Lizards" are bad and that the truck's 160 gallon capacity for gas costs the company almost $500/week!  I couldn't believe how much the gas bill was when he paid it at the truck stop. 

 

This is not a truck.  It's a dog that was on one of the job sites and took quite a liking to me actually.  So, in short, it was fun to actually see the delivery end as opposed to just the prep work.