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Last night we got hit with a blizzard along with high wind and gusts. The first couple of hours were alright because in my area storms like this are somewhat the norm (without the high winds). Most of us hard core vet drivers have learned to just go with the flow, drive VERY conservatively, be VERY aware of the roads (thankfully most ordinary people chose to stay off the roads after work), and just plod our way through. Most of the time that formula works. Not last night however.
Around 7 or 8pm everything starts to go to hell. Visibility is less than a block, the snow is blowing and drifting in several feet high drifts. Since this is "just the beginning of the storm the townships are NOT plowing just yet (not even the main roads). No one else ie. businesses, home, etc. have shoveled or plowed. Around 8ish or so I express to the GM my concern about the condition of the roads and driveability. TO my GM's credit they agree with me and told me they had already contacted the area manager in anticipation of either shrinking our delivery area or shutting down delivery altogether. I think to myself "YEAH right just like every other time this has been tried, it will get shot down. The company wants its $$$$$'s.".
Around 9pm I took a delivery to a hotel and got stuck in a 3 food drift in their driveway. I called the GM and told them when I got unstuck I was DONE driving for the night because the roads were nearly impassable due to the blowing and drifting snow. They inform me that the other 3 drivers had also gotten stuck right around the same time and that they were shutting down deliver with the area managers permission (I do know that at least one other of our stores also shut down delivery around the same time. Ironiclly one of our driver got stuck in our own driveway.
I get unstuck, make my delivery to a surprisingly grateful and generous hotel guest and carefully make my way back to the store. Took me an hour to make a normally 20 minute delivery. The GM called all the remaining deliveries and offered them free carryout as they had NO drivers to delivery food. A few brave souls embraced the weather and got their free orders.
The GM told me she told the area manager that one of her really hard core drivers (me) had said NO to more deliveries. AM said OK NO problem and to also shut off the internet connection to prevent any other orders from coming in.
We DID get a few calls that were the usual "What you guy worried about the blizzard for??? Come one I want delivery!!!!!" Sorry but when even experienced vet delivery drivers do NOT want to ride on the roads NO WAY are you getting delivery. Funnily NO one got stupid and made the "WELL I WILL give you a BIG BIG tip" line.
This is only the second time in 11 years (that I know of) that my store has shut down delivery VERY early because of the weather so YEAH to my GM.
Around 7 or 8pm everything starts to go to hell. Visibility is less than a block, the snow is blowing and drifting in several feet high drifts. Since this is "just the beginning of the storm the townships are NOT plowing just yet (not even the main roads). No one else ie. businesses, home, etc. have shoveled or plowed. Around 8ish or so I express to the GM my concern about the condition of the roads and driveability. TO my GM's credit they agree with me and told me they had already contacted the area manager in anticipation of either shrinking our delivery area or shutting down delivery altogether. I think to myself "YEAH right just like every other time this has been tried, it will get shot down. The company wants its $$$$$'s.".
Around 9pm I took a delivery to a hotel and got stuck in a 3 food drift in their driveway. I called the GM and told them when I got unstuck I was DONE driving for the night because the roads were nearly impassable due to the blowing and drifting snow. They inform me that the other 3 drivers had also gotten stuck right around the same time and that they were shutting down deliver with the area managers permission (I do know that at least one other of our stores also shut down delivery around the same time. Ironiclly one of our driver got stuck in our own driveway.
I get unstuck, make my delivery to a surprisingly grateful and generous hotel guest and carefully make my way back to the store. Took me an hour to make a normally 20 minute delivery. The GM called all the remaining deliveries and offered them free carryout as they had NO drivers to delivery food. A few brave souls embraced the weather and got their free orders.
The GM told me she told the area manager that one of her really hard core drivers (me) had said NO to more deliveries. AM said OK NO problem and to also shut off the internet connection to prevent any other orders from coming in.
We DID get a few calls that were the usual "What you guy worried about the blizzard for??? Come one I want delivery!!!!!" Sorry but when even experienced vet delivery drivers do NOT want to ride on the roads NO WAY are you getting delivery. Funnily NO one got stupid and made the "WELL I WILL give you a BIG BIG tip" line.
This is only the second time in 11 years (that I know of) that my store has shut down delivery VERY early because of the weather so YEAH to my GM.
This was just thick snow, winds were nothing much, driving was okay but people were being careful. I gave the guy a good tip too. In an actual blizzard I wouldn't order delivery. I've been out in that kind of weather and it totally sucks, not worth it.
During a bad rainstorm -- so bad that water was coming in through the front door and we were about to shut the whole store down, we got a delivery call. We informed the guy that we were having to shut down because of flooding. He was (politely) skeptical, and mentioned that he lived on nearby street. We told him to go take a quick look out of his front door, and that we would wait for him to do so. He said OK. We knew, from experience, that his street would have flooded long before ours. He came back to the phone 30 seconds later, said "Never mind" with a haunted tone to his voice, and calmly hung up.
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