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And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time
Bruce, my father-in-law, worked at an auto parts store on O Street. One of his regular customers was Jeff Schrier, whose family owned some grocery stores in Lincoln. Bruce introduced me to Jeff, who hired me on the spot at Food 4 Less. My first job at Food 4 Less was as a stocker on the night crew. My shift started at 9:00pm and would last until we were done, which varied depending on how big the truck was. Since it was only a part time job I needed to find something else. The Omaha World-Herald Lincoln office had a position called a "bundle hauler". Lincoln was divided up into five or six zones with a driver responsible for delivering papers to the carriers and stores in their assigned area, as well as filling the vending machines. My area was downtown Lincoln, which included the State Office Building and State Capitol, West O Street, and a slice of Lincoln bordered by A and O Streets and 27th Street. I initially started at 2:30am and finished up around 7:00am. Between the two jobs I was working around fifty hours a week.
It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man
'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man
"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson
Bruce, my father-in-law, worked at an auto parts store on O Street. One of his regular customers was Jeff Schrier, whose family owned some grocery stores in Lincoln. Bruce introduced me to Jeff, who hired me on the spot at Food 4 Less. My first job at Food 4 Less was as a stocker on the night crew. My shift started at 9:00pm and would last until we were done, which varied depending on how big the truck was. Since it was only a part time job I needed to find something else. The Omaha World-Herald Lincoln office had a position called a "bundle hauler". Lincoln was divided up into five or six zones with a driver responsible for delivering papers to the carriers and stores in their assigned area, as well as filling the vending machines. My area was downtown Lincoln, which included the State Office Building and State Capitol, West O Street, and a slice of Lincoln bordered by A and O Streets and 27th Street. I initially started at 2:30am and finished up around 7:00am. Between the two jobs I was working around fifty hours a week.
At Food 4 Less I started out being assigned to the aisle that contained peanut butter and jelly, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise and salad dressings. The first thing that we would do after clocking in was "run back stock". Back stock was product that had arrived on a previous day, but could not fit on the shelf. Some of this was items that the manager ordered too much of. These cases were placed on the warehouse shelving immediately above the shelf location. There was also items that we had in large quantity, usually items that had been ordered in bulk or were in the ad. These could be found in pallets in the back room, which we called "the warehouse". When the truck arrived the pallets were unloaded in the warehouse, which unusually for a grocery store, was huge - almost as many square feet as the sales floor itself. Every stocker then went into the back and pulled items from the pallets that corresponded to their assigned aisle. We then "strung them", i.e. set them on the floor in front of the proper section of the aisle. Once this was accomplished it was time to start stocking the items on the shelves.
Food 4 Less was a "box store", which meant that you cut the top and front off the case and put the box on the shelf, making stocking marginally faster than if indivual units were removed from the cases first. Once all the newly arrived stock was placed on the shelf, it was time for "facing". This involved removing excess cardboard and pulling all the product forward. (I always pulled all the cans or bottles or boxes forward, later in my grocery career the standard of just pulling forward a couple of rows predominated. This made the aisles look full, but on a busy day the shelves quickly became raggedy, with all the remaining stock pushed to the rear of the shelf. On top and bottom shelves there could be plenty of stock, but since only a few items were pulled forward, they looked empty). I usually faced each section as I stocked it, although some stockers started facing after all the stocking was done. (In stores where stockers were timed on how long it took them to stock an aisle, it made sense to face separately, even though the combination of the two tasks took long being done separately) While this was going on the more senior stockers filled displays or built new ones. Once all of this was done the stock crew clocked out and the manager and assistant manager swept the floor and ran a floor scrubbing machine around the store before heading out themselves.
Unloading trucks at this store could be a dangerous proposition. A ramp connected the floor of the warehouse to a docking station at the level of the floor of a standard trailer just outside the delivery door. We'd remove pallets from the truck with a pallet jack and descended down the ramp, which was at a very steep angle. Gravity quickly took over and often two guys guiding the pallets down to the floor level had to do all they could do to keep the pallet from getting out of control, sliding downhill at high speed. At the bottom of the ramp you had to quickly turn either left or right or crash into a wall. More than once we'd take that turn so fast the whole load would tip over. Since we didn't have any forklifts or powered jacks and sometimes the level of the trailer was slightly lower than the dock, getting a pallet out of the truck required utilized all available muscle. One night we got a pallet of canned goods over the hump and I ended up running over my foot, cracking a couple of my toes.
After a few months my assignment was changed to dairy stocker. I liked this a lot better since all of my stock was in one place, rather than spread out among multiple pallets. I could organize the cooler the way I saw fit and eventually they let me do my own ordering. Typically in grocery stores the dairy products arrive from two different sources. One was a dedicated dairy supplier, like Meadow Gold or Roberts, which primarily provided milk, but also sour cream, cottage cheese and dips. The grocery warehouse was the source for everything else: eggs, cheese, margarine, yogurt etc. The night crew stocked what came in on the truck from the warehouse, day crew stocked the milk.
For around the first two years I also worked a part time job at the Omaha-World-Herald, which meant I had to leave by 2:00pm. I started picking up some extra hours coming in early to run back stock as early as 6:00pm, which meant I was working close to 40 hours a week just at Food 4 Less.
As I stated earlier, shortly after starting at Food 4 Less I picked up a second job as a bundle hauler for the Omaha World-Herald newspaper. That job started at 2:30am and generally went to around 7:00am. I was assigned BH4 (BH stood for Bundle Haul) which stretched from N 27th Street all the way out to NW 48th Street on West O Street. Our office was in the basement of a strip mall at around 40th & O Streets, but we picked up our papers at a gas station on 9th Street across from the downtown Denny's. One Bundle Hauler was assigned to hand out our assignment sheets, which indicated where we were delivering nd how many papers each stop received. After we unloaded all the papers from the truck we took what we needed for our route and headed out. My first few stops were at the State Office Building and the State Capitol. I especially liked the Capitol, where I delivered to the snack bar on the second floor. It was fun walking through the abandoned hallways and listening to the echoes of my footsteps. My third stop was to a guy named Bob. I viewed him as an "old guy", but in retrospect he was probably younger than I am now. He lived in a ramshackle downtown apartment building - every morning I was supposed to enter his actual apartment and wake him up. I was in mortal fear every night that I'd go in there and Bob would be dead. Looking back, I can hardly believe I agreed to do it!
Things usually went pretty smoothly. But not always. One morning, after loading all my papers into the car and going through my daily route changes, someone banged aggressively on my window and told me to move my car. Apparently I was in someone's preferred spot. When I told him that I would be a minute he started kicking my car door. When I jumped out to confront him I found myself staring at a handgun pointed at my chest. Despite growing up in New York, this was a new experience for me. Despite being terrified, I put on a show of bravado and asked him what he planned to do with that gun. He lowered the gun and started laughing. We were already almost nose to nose, so it was pretty easy to punch him in the face without having to move any closer. He went down like a felled tree - I didn't wait around to find out if he was conscious before jumping in my car and starting my route. When I got back to the office when I was done Vic, the supervisor was waiting for me, having heard what happened from the rest of the team. I told my story and Quick Draw McGraw was fired.
Most of the other haulers drove pickup trucks or vans. I drove a Chevette. If you are unfamiliar with Chevettes, they are small cars. There were days, especially Sundays, where I had to pile papers on the hood of the car to get even the downtown stops done.
Like the grocery store job I started picking up extra hours. To ensure that would be on the clock until 7:00am I would take on "down routes". These were routes that didn't have a carrier and were assigned to Bundle Haulers. There was also a position called "Miss Runner". Customers would call in if, for one reason or another they didn't receive their paper. The Miss Runner would call in periodically to get a list of call-ins, usually working until around noon. Some days I would start at 6pm and work until noon the next day between both jobs. I wasn't getting much sleep but I was paying my bills. This went on until I was promoted to Night Manager at Food 4 Less and was able to quit my job as a bundle hauler.
