route sales representative

merchandiser

supply chain specialist

fleet mechanic

district leader

Frito-Lay

When i first started the pay was great 750 a week salary and then you get a route after a few months after one became available which you have to bid against other reps and it's seniority gets it. which now your in charge of your stores ordering putting out product and packing out all sounds great except for the added product they throw on every order usually is misc stuff that no one ever orders the plant has to get rid of crackerjack strips muchies flaming hot this and that box or 2 to every store of their new product sometimes up to 12 of those and the store doesn't have a scu for it yet or was prepared for it so you have to leave it in the back until they do killing your shelf time.  the fact your expected to get there early check out your truck make sure it's working (god help u if it's battery is dead or somethings wrong) you have to load your lane into load your truck drive tot he stores unload your truck into the store pack out the store rotate the product of every bag and make sure that merchandising on every route is packed out 100% and even on your days off your still responsible plus for contact with your stores and mess ups done by the extras expected to fit massive amounts of deliveries or product out within a 12 hr time period some starting deliveries as early as 2 am not getting done until 12pm or later you have a specific load time and if your not out of there by then the other rep is held up by you on your lane there's also the added product that no one wants misc products no one buys that basically end up becoming stales 99.9% if the time. then management was always on your case about rotation and stales and why you had so many. it just doesn't make sense when you know exactly why i have so many because you over loaded my order there sir! they went from base+ commission to base plus bonus pay after having us slam the stores with more product then they could ever sell for 3 months straight making bonus pay unobtainable on some of the routes the base went from different routes getting paid different salaries to all routes paid the same and it went from commission based to bonus pay with bonus goals that were set to completely unachievable levels. I was let go after coming back from vacation having to take 2 sick days due to catching the flu on a plane and they suspended me for 2 weeks with no pay no call no communication and the way i figured out i was fired was the kobra insurance packet showed up and i finally called my boss to go so ummm am i fired? had to drive down to the bronx depot not the mt kisco one had to sit and wait 2 hrs for a union rep to show up to be told i was terminated. union asked if i wanted to fight it and i told them no at this point I'd rather look for different work i feel abused harassed and it's been a relief to be let go no one should feel like this about a job they committed 3 years to. The management team doesn't do their due diligence or know what they are doing nor care few months prior to this i was wrongfully suspended without pay for not delivering to a store that wasn't even my store on my route and when we did a group call between me and the district manager the zone business manager and the store manager who "threw me out for doing a bad job" the five below manager confirmed i don't deliver to the mall store they suspended me for getting thrown out of and that it was a completely different rep and route that was responsible for it i was then re instated and had to fight to get back pay on that for wrongful suspension and the union warned me i would have a target on my back which it turned out to be right because from there they looked for any and all reasons to try to write me up and terminate me and just so happened to get lucky i was to sick to work when coming back from a vacation and had to take 2 call out days leading to my 2 week suspension due to "to much time off work" which turned into my reason for being let go. all and all i don't recommend anyone become a route sales representative and i hope that in the time I've been gone that things have changed for anyone there but I am well aware that things haven't as a lot of the guys i worked with there no longer work for the company either being let go or quitting due to arguments with management. 

In my short 5 months with Frito-Lay, all I encountered was miscommunication and unreasonable management among many other headaches. The majority of management, save for a few of the actually “reasonable” managers all seemed to care about sales and sales only. They turned a blind eye to the well-being, both mental and physical of their employees, which to most people, is completely unacceptable.

In my time with this company, I was rarely finished with my workday anywhere close to a reasonable time. Many times, I found myself working 10-11 hour days even though management knew I had another part-time job which I had no intention of leaving. My manager even went so far as to accuse me of prioritizing that job over my responsibilities with Frito-Lay, which is a completely unfair and ridiculous accusation to make considering I’m a recent college graduate who literally NEEDS that extra money.

The main area that needs to be addressed is communication. This is a job where we are not in an office every day to be able to communicate face-to-face with our managers. We had to rely on the use of work phones which became a problem on multiple occasions. Calls that were never returned, texts that weren’t promptly replied to and many other miscommunications led to delays in my workday on more than one occasion.

I am also astonished that a company such as Frito-Lay AKA likely the most well-known snack company around, is still having their merchandisers use technology that is quite literally from the year 2003. The handheld computer, mostly referred to as the “HH” by those within the company causes a great many problems for FTMs including having to be restarted at least once a day, keypads not working and on the rare occasion, not working at all. This company needs to take a look at how this sort of outdated technology is affecting the efficiency of the workdays for their employees on the front lines.

Lastly, I would like to make everyone privy to the fact that the majority of the managers, at least in my experience, do not care very much (though they will try to convey otherwise) about how hard you work. This is a job with a fair bit of physical demand, pulling carts of chips around a giant grocery store, weaving in and out of shopping customers on a busy Saturday morning is no easy feat and one that requires a lot of patience. 
Now to the nitty-gritty of my previous point. FTMs are the ones who place orders for the store. They are the ones who see which products sell well and which ones don’t perform as well and order accordingly. Managers have the ability at the end of the day to review and make adjustments to those orders as they saw “fit.” Most of the time, at least if you work for one of the “unreasonable” managers, they will add unnecessary product on to your orders just for the sake of meeting their sales plan for the week, which benefits them and only them. I would like to reiterate that adding on to the orders benefits the FTM in no way whatsoever. On many occasions, my manager doubled the size of my orders then proceeded to complain to me as to why most of the product didn’t go up on the shelves on the day it was delivered. This led to many uncomfortable situations where I was being accused of not doing my job, when in fact, I was. They will keep adding on to and making other adjustments to the order placed by the FTM, not caring about the fact that they’ll be altering their daily schedule by forcing them to stay in one store for 4 or 5 hours, which is too long to service one single store.

In short, Frito-Lay seems to be a company that prioritizes sales completely over the well-being of its employees. Anyone who works for them as a full-time merchandiser would do well not to believe them when they say otherwise because, in my experience with them, they have said they do, and shown they don’t. Actions speak louder than words. Do not work for them if you want to be home at a reasonable time every day, because they will say they offer a fair work/life balance…they don’t. I applaud you if you made it his far into reading my rant.

Working for this company has gotten worse year after year.  Pay has been drastically cut (commission on sales eliminated) and the number of stores to be delivered to on each route has increased(small and large format).  The routes have become extremely overloaded and unworkable within reasonable time frames.  Expect no work/life balance, injuries/sickness from being overworked and the deterioration of your mental health.

Management/DSLs here are absolutely terrible/useless as they do not actually manage anything you or anyone else does on a route besides getting as much product into the stores as possible so that their pockets get filled with bonuses.  In fact the company could save a lot of money if they just had AI technology replace all of them as the AI technology could easily come up with sales plans and make order adjustments for all routes based on data.  There's your next BIG IDEA Pepsico!!!

Management constantly adds additional items to the orders you make for your stores so that they get their sales bonuses off of your increased/unnecessary workload.  Most of the things added to your orders are unreasonable amounts of (garbage) items that do not sell and will stale out on store shelves/displays or end up sitting in your backstock area because the stores do not want the items and/or do not have a place/space for them (this makes for some very bad relationships with stores you service and non-acceptance of new deliveries).  Guess who takes the loss for these management sent out items? You do!  Yep, those items that you did not order and do not sell work against you and get deducted from your pay/sales plan when you later have to write them off.

Management sets unreasonably high sales plans for you to follow and when you don't meet them, the company actually deducts money from your check!  They will tell you that you have the opportunity to exceed the sales plan that they set and be eligible for big cash bonuses, but do not believe that at all as they are just blowing smoke up your ***  as they will make it next to impossible for you to achieve their sales plans and any meaningful bonuses.  We used to have an incentive to sell based on commission but now the motto at Frito Lay is that if you don't sell the absurd amounts we tell you to sell (way above and beyond what we were selling before which used to net us thousands of dollars in commission) we will take money away from you instead of giving you a couple hundred bucks as a bonus.

Frito-Lay boasts about programs to help you physically and mentally but the truth is that they could care less about you or your health and outsource all claims/LOA/FMLA to a company called Sedgwick who does everything in their power to find ways to delay and deny you when you actually need help.

Corporate/CEO/upper level greed has taken over here and despite the company's continued ongoing and current record sales and profits, they continue to take more away from the workers that made/make it all possible while increasing the salaries and bonuses of their executives.  Pensions are next on their chopping block and are set to freeze soon.  Don't be lured in by the high sign-on(more like retention) bonuses they offer, you'll be lucky if you make it to 3 months to get 1/4 of it.  There are far better options out there for work.  I'll be retiring very soon but I truly wish the best to any new hires, you're really going to need it.  I used to enjoy wearing my Frito-Lay gear with pride while servicing my stores but I am really looking forward to using it as kindling for my retirement party.

I worked for this company for three years. It's a great experience to learn selling, but if you have no selling experience in your past, good luck in getting on the payroll unless you have some insanely mad interview skills. I did and I was able to get my foot in the door with no prior experience. Don't expect to repeat my experience unless they're  desperate to staff. Your experience will differ, depending on what area or district of the company you live in.
The training experience in this area/district of the company can be very demanding, as you could be training with an established RSR in a city that may be 100 miles away from where you live. That could mean commuting about or over 200 miles a day during your 6 week training at a flat rate of $525 a week (this may have changed since my experience). It may sound good, but consider that you will be working at least a ten hour day, along with the expense of any commute during training. 
Initially, after training, you will likely be a float, covering the days off or vacations/sick days of established RSRs on various routes within the district. When you're not doing this, you will partner with established RSRs as a helper on a daily route. You make the RSR's day shorter (and your's) to about 7-8 hours. Your week then becomes a 40-45 hour week, typically, if you're a good worker. You still get the base pay, which is decent (do the math) but not the responsibillity of route ownership.These are actually the best days to work as an employee of Frito Lay. If you need to commute out of town within the district, they will pay for your hotel/motel and pay a very generous perdiem and mileage on top of your base pay. No complaints here about this.  
But, when a route becomes available, everything changes. Pay becomes Base plus commissioned sales. The base can be generous, but it varies on location. The commission is always the same at 10%. This can be very deceiving. As a rule, your paycheck will reflect about the same amount as a large store route or as any UDS route. UDS is generally harder to manage (inventory wise) than a large store route, but a large format route takes a lot more physical effort. 
When I finally was granted my own UDS route after about a year as a float (routes only came available when someone quit or retired), I found myself with a seriously mismanaged account and a rapidly changing demographic (a small town that suddenly had a new Super Walmart). My pay went up about 50%, but the responsibility level, stress, and hours on the job went up through the roof. 60 hour workweek was normal. If I got too sick to work for a day (very rare, considering that I only had 2 sick days in three years), nobody was available to run my route for me on that day (the DSL never did this). Which meant that I had to run a 16-18 hour day the next day to make up for it. I spent the better part of a year trying fix and adjust to the new changes. I was largely successful and showed a better than a 10% growth to prior year for the overall route, in spite of the massive demographic changes, but it wasn't good enough for the management. They nitpicked my numbers and slammed me on individual account numbers and made me feel like a total failure. They expected my route growth to be twice that number. I don't know where they got their numbers from, but it was beyond reality. I thought I did well as a salesman, under the rapidly changing circumstances, but the expectations of management went so far beyond as to be unreasonable.
From one serious career salesman to another, be wary and do your homework on local conditions with this company.

Overall RSR position was pretty easy in the beginning when they still paid commission, once PFP came lots of RSR lost 20-40k a year in pay they also claimed that you were better off with PFP the only people better are Pepsi Co shareholders.

They can manipulate your sales numbers to whatever they want to keep you from getting 100% or better. They couldn't update the template for months yet still consider your delivery accuracy as part of your yearly review. The company will force out product that has sat in the warehouse for too long claiming they do not have a mechanism for getting rid of product. They consider unsaleable% on your yearly review after all the things you had to take that you did not order.

Even with high tenure you are just a number here. Anytime you call the corporate office its the first thing they ask for is you employee ID, if you do any extra work for them it requires multiple check ins and requests to get paid for work you did maybe months ago but if they overpay for any reason that is removed on the next check no problem. 

They will fire you for just about anything they are always looking for fresh butts in seats they don't want to pay for experience.

Mid management here at Raleigh rotates so fast you can hardly keep up with who is your SDL and half the time you didn't even have one, when you did you mostly relied on other RSR for information because communication was non existent between RSR and SDL's unless you were getting called in or doing a bad job.

If you stay long enough to get good at the job it can be very easy and little stress other than holiday weeks or during resets. If you can start very early in the morning 2-3am you can avoid most of the customers and complete the route in a decent amount of time.

All routes have fill in partners (Co-Leads) who mostly consider themselves fill in people not a decision maker so they usually do as little as possible during the days they work leaving a mess to clean up when you get back. This becomes cyclical where they butt heads and try and screw each other over in most cases.

PepsiCo insurance is quite good coverage and they do offer a lot of money saving  programs through pep perks. Management uses work life balance in a lot of meetings and when it is convenient for them (being off holidays, earning off time by having weekend duty) but if you have a concern they usually show no empathy for you. Had several times where I needed off for medical reasons and they will try to guilt you into coming to work, stating that your route will have to sit with no coverage or asking if you could come in a different day. They will also ask you to change your vacation week because they don't have coverage. Most of the time it felt like it would of been easier to work the week you were off because the cover people were so bad it takes 2 weeks to get everything back in order. 

Overall 3 Stars. - Decent job for the pay if you can deal with the B.S.


At first, I thought I had landed my dream job—a place where I could grow, contribute, and make a difference. I was eager, motivated, and ready to pour my heart and soul into my work. But after a year of putting in more effort than I ever had before, I started to notice something troubling. Hard-working people like myself were getting overworked, while others, who coasted by with the right connections, seemed to avoid the consequences of not doing their job. What I thought was the perfect career had quickly become a toxic environment.

I remember the early days, when I felt like I could conquer any challenge. But as time went on, it became apparent that the more I worked, the more I was expected to take on. Meanwhile, certain colleagues, who didn’t put in the same effort, seemed to skate by unnoticed. What stung even more was realizing that the hierarchy of favoritism was alive and well. Those who knew how to play the game—making the right friends and alliances—seemed to coast without consequence. It was frustrating, but I kept pushing myself, thinking things would improve.

Fast forward to nearly eight years later. My work ethic had never faltered, but I felt the weight of constant stress and increasing expectations. Then, out of nowhere, I was terminated. The reason? A technical issue with the ordering system—one that had been ongoing for months, with updates frequently causing problems. I was blamed for it, written up for something that wasn’t entirely under my control. The worst part? I later learned from my former manager that my termination wasn’t really about the technical issues at all. In fact, it was retaliation. Because I had managed to get things done, even bypassing some obstacles by speaking directly with store managers, my efforts seemed to have ruffled feathers. The decision-makers didn’t like that, and they took action.

 From Zero to Three Write-Ups in Just Five Months
The biggest shock to me was how quickly things changed. In over seven years, I had never been written up. Suddenly, in the span of five months, I found myself with three write-ups. The most frustrating part? The very things I was written up for—issues that I was held accountable for—were things that my counterparts weren’t even reprimanded for. It was clear to me that there was a pattern emerging—one that wasn’t about fairness or performance, but about power and personal dynamics.

Looking back, I realize that what I thought was my dream job was really just a microcosm of the challenges faced by so many hardworking people who get overlooked or mistreated in their careers. The toxic culture I experienced not only impacted my mental and emotional well-being but also taught me a valuable lesson: the hard work, integrity, and passion I brought to the table were not enough in an environment that prioritized favoritism and retaliation over merit. Now, as I look forward to new opportunities, I’m determined to never again let myself be caught in a system that undervalues hard work and rewards complacency.

A typical 8 hour day as a merchandiser would be starting weekdays usually early around 4 or 5 am. weekends might leave one of the 2 merchs on your route doing afternoons pulls starting between 10 am and 1 pm. job isn't hard at all but you just have to be very assertive with your approach to working especially when communicating with customers (stores). They give you an iPhone 4 currently as a company phone with otter box case to clock in with and do other work related tasks and also supply you with good knee pads and maxi-flex gloves for free. You also get reimbursed mileage 56 cent per mile month or by period because you will be driving your own insured vehicle. Tasks mainly include Putting chips on isles, end caps, weekender displays, cross-dock pallets etc and will be assembling some of them  as well as relocating and breaking down.

Some Coworkers will put work off on you, Especially salesmen because they get lazy and don't want to work back sock before load and want to go home early. Not all but alot do.Receivers and management seem to always gripe at you and call your boss. Most back stock areas are not well allocated vendor area wise and usually crowded especially when beer and soda loads are delivered.depending on your route, time of day and or week, store volume you can have a lot to do or nothing at all. Friendships are usually strong and fun among Co Workers, vendors and store employees, even consumers and everyday can be different.

You can move up really fast and make very good salary while frito lay  is above the market beginning at merchandisers but at the same time it seems with some District Sales Leads (DSL) if you are more useful as the perfect merchandiser to them than you would be as a salesman driver because of the quality of work and  entry level turnout rate as well with any job makes they're day easier. Theres alot of favoritism among-st management and everything stems from a referral method as who you know supersedes what you know at times.

Frito Lay is a great company with great job security, beautiful senses of humor, great 401k matching and they take care of employee for the most mostly because they are a dominate company to where competition is minimal and can afford to dispense alot of the amenities they have.I would tell anyone to apply there with the intent to make money or build a solid career with a stable chance but dont let DSLs blind you double standards and smokey clouds of contradictions and lies.

Certain types of people flourish and the others perish with this entire field, just to be clear so that frito isn't completely under fire. As this company operates exactly as you would think a former union job would. 

Hope this helps that one who looked or and accurate idea just like i did a year ago. Sorry for typos..I was typing fast.

I am currently an RSR and I love my customers, building relationships with your customers and consumers is an amazing part of this job. Basic shifts are anywhere from 10 to 12 hour days, they used to be 14 to 16 hour days up until they issued the fleet to be DOT certified which restricts us from working more than 13 hours in the handheld(gives you a warning to let you know your hours are coming up). We were on commission for a great period of time up until two years ago the company decided to take a turn and decided to make us salary with a bonus once a month. The bonus provided does not add up to what we were making per week on a commission basis. We were told that we would make more money while working less, well that was a lie. We're working the same amount of hours, if not more trying to achieve the required goals in order to make a "bonus", which is hitting a minimum 93% to sales or higher, 99.8% of service so you can't miss a stop or else you will get dinged on your service which will cause you to potentially fail on achieving a bonus. Working a minimum of 50 hours a week or at least that's what our "true up" paperwork states, and of course having a $0 variance on your overages and shortages from billing customers. Management isn't always the greatest since I've been employed with Frito Lay going on 8 years, every single one of my supervisors have been external instead of promoting internally like a company should do to give its employees an incentive to grow with the company long term. The hardest part of the job is to maintain a sane state of mind, because you WILL be working long hours, you WILL not have a work life balance to spend time with your family(if you have one), you WILL not make much money if you put in 55+ hours on a weekly basis because the overtime pay is based off of your weekly salary divided by the amount of hours you have after 40 will equal your overtime pay which is what managers consider and refer to it as "Chinese Pay". Like I said, up until two years ago this company was decent to work for and the pay was worth the sacrifice, kind of like an equal pay out, you work and push hard, you get rewarded per week on 10% of whatever you sold. Now, its you  work hard for three weeks straight and all you need is one bad week to screw up a little bonus that you may potentially not even get. For what we do and how we operate, yes its challenging but not worth the pay since the area I'm at, we have to load up our own trucks, order for bins, do inventories once a month, sell, merchandise, deliver and try not to work more then 13 hours a day which in the summertime can be rough with a sales increase per week from prior year to be more than 4% consistently. And going to mention this, vacation weeks are planned almost a year in advance, and additional days off upon request with PTO time are always denied because of being short handed and expect to work every holiday.

There is potential to make good money in this role.  However it is likely years down the road.  Starting out they will sell you on a “guaranteed minimum pay” which sounds pretty good and is but then they make it nearly impossible to receive.  All you need to do to qualify is agree to take any run anytime anywhere.  Then they will disqualify you if you don’t respond within 30 minutes and dispatch immediately.  If you need the minimum money you will need to show up everyday and have a bag packed to go anywhere anytime.  Somehow remain rested as you are not on duty and will be expected to work a 14 hour day whenever they say go.
The paid training is nice and the runs pay well enough but you likely won’t get any good runs and not enough to exceed the “minimum guarantee” for several years though there is no limit as to how long it may take to gain some seniority as the guys at the top have no reason to leave. Management at Frito means anyone with a degree no matter how useless or inexperienced.  Management believes the drivers are overpaid (as top drivers make more than managers)and spends a lot of effort making sure you don’t get the minimum.  There is a huge driver retention problem as no one at the bottom can survive and the guys at the top never leave.  If you can stick it out long enough it could be a good job but is really a war of attrition and a lot of those that make it either started before they had a life and bills or are unable to do anything else.
The benefits are good but not affordable.  The West Valley, Utah office is where this information is relative and the traffic/trucking part of Frito Lay is treated totally different than every other role there.  I am pretty sure HR is not aware of much that goes on in traffic.  The dispatchers are under compensated(warehouse graduates)and useless as a resource for drivers.  The whole office staff is there to make sure you won’t get the minimum pay and instead will be paid cases and miles which won’t be enough for your likely time at Frito Lay.
The policy manual for West Valley Traffic is so outdated it won’t support what you are told and hence when your training is over the rules change and you begin the process of attrition.  
You will be told to fill out a pay slip for delays, training hours, most things, only you will receive no follow up on these and can watch your pay to see if you get paid someday for them. Payroll is run through traffic so while you would expect a company this size to be good at it they are not. Payroll is not handled by Frito Lays payroll/accounting dept rather by someone who graduated from the warehouse. You will have to track all the cases, miles, delays, expenses, when and where that you are owed and be prepared to battle weekly for them to be paid. Companies that buy billboards and have permanent hiring signs mean they have constant turnover.  Best of Luck. 

I understand that in a competitive market that cutting cost and increasing revenues/net profits is vital to a publicly traded company.
Frito-Lay has a long history of cutbacks and increasing revenues. Fritolay has grown extensively in the last 30 yrs but their logistics are built on a small format industry. They have tried to make small changes here and there to accommodate its expansion in the marketplace but the real changes necessary to make the delivery system more competitive is at least challenging and capital-intensive. This would not go over well with investors especially when the drink and beverage division of Pepsico is consistently losing market share.

So what did Fritolay do? They made significant cutbacks that hurt their RSRs and just about everyone in the logistics chain. Fritolay product development has plateaued so a lot of the new & temporary items have been hit or miss and so have the force-outs. RSRs are working significantly more for the same pay because they have to try and make an unattainable plan, having to move around force-outs, wasting time checking-in large format deliveries when they could be merchandising, having to deal with a highly disorganized warehouse and picking system and having to built displays on items that aren't great sales in that particular store or location within that store.

I recommend:
a) organize your warehouse based on category and load trucks the same. Keeps all tostitos together, all baked, Doritos, etc. Distribution Centers have been doing this for decades. Why haven't Fritolay figured this out? It's little things like these that help cut costs and improve efficiency.
b) Get rid of super-routes. The days of Ancient Egyptian building brick by brick is over! Loading a super-route truck by hand at the warehouse and then off loading it in the backyard of a grocery store is ridiculously unproductive and backwards! Really?
c) Set realistic sales plan-overselling becomes counter-productive
d) Your failure rate of District Sales Lead are high. I'm sure you can figure out why.
e)Please use the principles of Division of Labor - there is a really good reason for it. It is impractical to have an RSR make his own deliveries in a large format store. That's two separate jobs for two different people if you expect efficiency!
f) When you make cutbacks by increasing work and applying the DOT 14 hour rule, you're guaranteed to have an increase in Over/Shorts and excessive stales. We are human beings so this is what happens when you try to increase productivity over our human limitations.
g) Although the pay is decent, over-working eventually calculates to be minimum wage.  You will eventually damage your health and your family time becomes moot.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Route sales representative 11 salaries reported	$44,336 per year
Merchandiser 1 salary reported	$19.50 per hour
Supply chain specialist 3 salaries reported	$31.25 per hour
Fleet mechanic 4 salaries reported	$33.38 per hour
District leader 1 salary reported	$64,000 per year

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