local driver

truck driver

order picker

sales consultant

fleet technician

Sysco

When you get there you stretch as a team, which is cool. The boss goes over how many cases that shift need to be picked altogether, how many workers there are, and the warehouse damage that's been accrued from the night before. 
This job is very independent in work. Meaning you are in control of the rate you go and pace you work. If you work faster, you will get paid more, but that's really hard to master and takes weeks/month(s) to accomplish... so don't let others speed deter you away form keeping the job.
The employees are very nice and friendly, yet not the most outgoing. I'm assuming... this could be because a lot of the people don't stick it out at this job because it is very physical work, so maybe there are some trust issues with getting to know people. 
I am sore every day I wake up, but that's what being a dedicated athlete is. After about week three it gets easier and less soreness on the body. (I did have like a lot of bruises from this job at first though). If you haven't been on a sports team before, Sysco will show you what the physicality of being on a sports team feels like. 
It's independent work but together you accomplish great things for your personal life$ and skill set! 
This Job is demanding on the body and is honestly quite scary if you're not experienced or used to driving a pallet jack. But that's what is fun about the job, is the use of getting to drive something totally different. 
I told a co- worker that I feel like I work in the Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter Reference). 
I also told them that I am just an able body. Basically what I mean is that this job takes organizational skills, and being physical able to perform the action of putting together a pallet effectively. 
Also needing to know how to be able to comprehend 123 and ABC. 
This is how the warehouse is set up. 
And the pallets too. 
And the slots where the item(s) are stored.
Everything is assigned via computer system scanner on your arm that will tell you where you need to go, and how many items you'll grab, and what pallet to put them on. 
Basically you're doing the grocery shopping for restaurants/ school / hospital / 
There is a pick stick provided that is available on the pallet jack to get items that are far away. 
If you get good at driving the machinery, the work is do-able and fairly easy and simple. 
When I say demanding what I mean is there are times in a shift where for example; you'll have to load up 24 oil containers for a restaurant on your pallet(s), and then in that same run, having to pick up 20 cases of potatoes and 4 bags of flower and the list goes on, where it gets the most frustrating for me is at the end where the big boxes are, because then you'll have to load on like 8 of those of Styrofoam cups, and by that time the pallet stack gets pretty tall. But with experience the stacks get shorter, in time with stacking and reorganizing. 
It's best and most efficient if all the boxes you fit, to make a leveled surface area. That's where your organizational skills will have to kick in, because you'll have to do some rearranging of boxes sometimes. 
When you're selecting the items you don't think about it at the time of working because you're just completing the task at hand and stacking boxes to the best of your ability to make everything fit some what decent. 
So the work doesn't seem that tedious or hard. But trust me it is felt later after the shift. And the next day when you get out of bed. 
There is a way to tell the most cases you will have of a specific item. And everything is mapped out in the way where you can find things easily. The most problems I've come across have been with my scanner not wanting to scan items as fast as i would like... Or injuring myself by making dumb mistakes like not wearing gloves. I have smashed my fingers a few times between boxes, and cut my hand on a piece of paper board that is between certain items on shelves, while sliding my hand toward my body with a box in it (but that's because I wasn't wearing gloves). Overall it's a good/rewarding job, and dropping the pallets off at the doors they go to on the truck loading dock is always a fun time because everyone is dropping off their pallets and there's people also loading the trucks, so it's always busy an active out there. 

Let’s start with what position I hold. I work at the bottom level of IT, a little above help desk and remote support. I work on site and there are zero options for me to work from home. The excuse, “the position was designed for on-site, it will stay on site.” I will say that I’ve gotten a single raise in the 4 years I’ve been here. I’ve tried to move into different positions but the requirements are so outrageous that unless your an external candidate, you won’t have a chance. Expect to see 10+ years of required experience and a masters degree for $70,000 per year as a Security Analyst. Do not expect to receive training as they ask you to volunteer on different teams so you can do their busy work while never being invited to an open role on their roster. Another item is never to ask for a certification to promote your career, they will give you the “because you don’t do it in your current role, you don’t need it, therefore we won’t reimburse you for it.” They do not like spending money on their employees. If your in a specialized role, you can expect some sort of commitment but not much. If you do choose Sysco, make sure you come in with a specialized role or you will be stuck in the same mud I’m in. Now at the site level its a bit different. People can be promoted within a year if you make good with the managers in those departments. Warehouse is it’s own arena too, everyone is looking to stop having to do backbreaking work to be a supervisor. Transportation is pretty easy, get your CDL and your making tons of money, but your also hand trucking the product to customer’s. Some key items for warehouse and transportation. Warehouse is really hard work, a lot of butting heads and some people are really touchy. If you choose this path, make sure you can bend, stoop, lift, move for long periods of time to make your numbers or be prepared for a PIP. In transportation, you want to make sure you dot every i and cross every T consistently in everything you do, too many mishaps and its the chopping block for you. I’ve seen drivers been chopped in the first two weeks. Let’s talk at the manager level, expect to have 3-5 managers above your manager title. The structure is impossible. So back to IT. Information Technology in Sysco is so segmented that getting a ticket done on time is like pulling teeth. You have contractors who are trying to keep their SLA’s under a certain number and they will put it in a state that pauses them and they won’t pursue the ticket until you respond, which could be weeks or months. If your ticket requires multiple teams to be part of it, expect a huge delay because it has to be assigned for anyone to actually see it. Not all tickets are this way but expect a 7 business day delay if you need something. Sysco is a place that is too big to fail, they pay the very minimum they can get away with and as soon as they get you locked in, don’t expect more money because they would rather give the managers 30-50k bonus’ than pay the workers who keep the machine running. Would I suggest a friend to work here, no way. If your a manager or in a specialized field, definitely will have better success. If you want to work the warehouse, it’s a good place to start but its hard work, same for being a driver. They do not care about their people, they only care about their bottom line, like most corporations.

This company is only good for the money. I was one of the fastest workers in this place and I was treated like an average worker. Most of my nights involved being targeted by an old, jealous manager with horrible breath that had nothing better to do with his life than to bother me. I was constantly called to the door and told to not pick on blue pallets. I believe I was targeted because I was always picking at 170%, making $43/hr, and getting paid more than the managers who have gave their lives to the company LOL. I was told I could not pick on blue pallets, but the other lazy workers that do the bare minimum every night were allowed to do that. This company definitely doesn't have it's head in the right place if it will just get rid of hard workers like that. They always threatened me and said what would you do if you didn't have this job??? I own property so I don't need this job as bad as you make it out to be. In retrospect, I should have went to HR and filed a complaint against the manager that was targeting me. I still to this day would have my job, but at what cost?? $200 in gas each month and 2,000 miles a month wear and tear on my vehicle is quite a bit to take in. The employees are equally as bad. Don't get friendly with a lot of folks here if you are making high rates consistently. I found out often that many people I was ''friends with'' would talk about me behind my back when I wasn't there. This revolved around jealousy because I was outworking circles around everybody and they were just jealous they couldn't keep up. One particular Friday night myself and a bunch of other selectors were told to move our cars to the other side of the parking lot. I heard my name called twenty times to move my vehicle. When I finally moved it, there was another co workers vehicle there who did not move. Not to my surprise at all, he didn't get called twenty times like I did. That guy must have been lazy, that's why he got away with it. The job/work life balance is horrible. Almost nobody lives close to this warehouse. You average 8 hours a day but if you take into account the hour commute to and from, it's actually closer to ten hours a day more or less that you work. The $43/hour pay is the best in the business and was the only thing I miss from this toxic place. Management overall is horrible, selectors were told to sequence every little box correctly so that the drivers have it easy. It doesn't quite work like that at all. The pallet is going to be built how its going to be built and that is that. Hate to break it to you, but the drivers will have to move some boxes around too.... I don't see how you could target one guy and tell him to not pick on blue pallets, but once that employee points out other blue pallets used by other selectors, you just tell him "worry about yourself". It was tough for me to worry about myself when every other co worker is getting away with what I am getting in trouble for.  No room for advancement at all unless you want to give your life to the company and pick for fifteen years... I could barely last two years going through the mental abuse and mistreatment by this greedy company. If management across the whole plant is as awful as the warehouse team, STAY AWAY!!!

As a professional truck driver, everything is subject to change without notice. Management does not care if you have anything going on and all they care about is getting the truck unloaded. Trucks are delivered late to the shuttle yards and loaded improperly all the time and all they do is blame the driver of the truck. Management never takes any responsibility and always blames their truck drivers which they called delivery partners. They call it a team, but it is not a team. as long as they have the opportunity to keep hiring, they will always blame the warehouse, delivery, partners, and sales people. Supervisors are the delivery partners who did not make it on the job. It’s all about the “Bubby Buddy” system in the office. if you’re not a buddy/friend with the supervisors in the office, be prepared to look for a new job. They hire within because it’s a “BuddyFriend” system. I don’t use these terms lightly. It’s actually a really easy job delivering food to restaurants/schools but they make the job extremely hard with a time system. You have to deliver within their set windows that they give you or you will be punished. For an example you may have 42 pieces being delivered to a customer. Your paperwork says you have 17 minutes to do this stop. This may be your third stop of the day. You have to find them pieces in three different departments on the truck. You have to dig them pieces out and then you have to deliver them inside. So many things can go wrong with this process. So say it took you 31 minutes to do the stop. That put you behind for the rest of the day as you keep moving forward. Towards the end of the day you’re able to catch up on your time because you don’t have as many pieces on your truck to go through. But after a period of time of doing this, you’re supervisor will come out and write you up for being late to stop. You may have never even been to this customer before. You don’t know where anything goes. You don’t know how to get in and get out so everything takes extra time. Management does not Consider any of that. It’s extremely frustrating. You will have good days and bad days. Some days feel like it just runs smooth and some days feels like one bad stop put you hours behind for the day. No matter what they will always blame you as the delivery partner.  Another headache with the job is you have to wait for the schedule to come out around 7 PM in the evening to even know if you’re working the next day. That is subject to change without notice some days you won’t receive your email until 9 PM. And then you will have a start time at 3 AM.  When you live 45 minutes from the yard , it is extremely tough when you consider a work/life balance. If you work at a tourist area, expect a lot of downtime during the off-season. That is something they don’t explain to you neither. The hiring managers are fantastic and really nice guys on this location. Have no issues with them. But if I did a ride along from the get-go to see how this job actually was, I would not have took it. A lot of wasted time. 

I took this hob as an "Order Selector" and found that it consisted of me unloading trucks. THIS JOB IS NOT DIRECTLY WITH SYSCO!! You work for a service known as "Best Loading". They supposedly train you to be a "Lumper". You work on a loading dock taking products off the trucks, and putting them on pallets according to your "Pick" sheet. You are assigned with another "lumper" with Best Loading to train you. It is not as simple as it sounds. After you get assigned a bay and lumper to work with you have to choose "LongWood" or ShortWood" pallets to stack materials. Then you have to position those pallets "Frontways" or "Longways" Now comes the more interesting part. The sheet will tell you what "Tie" to put your products on the pallets, for example, if it's 10 x 5 with a total of 50. your stack will be 5 layers high with 10 items in each one. You may stack 6 facing one direction, and 4 under it, to total 10, and thn reverse each layer until you get 50. You do as many as the list says.

The job starts out at $10hr, and later you start getting paid by how many jobs you complete. Since the lumpers training you are paid by the job, speed is a critical factor. i have ADHD so doing things in sequence can be a challenge for me at times. The lumpures quite often would go two or three stacks ahead of me to get finished fast, and I would lose my sequence. They werent being jerks, but just wanted to make as much as possible. They also doin't like the fact that they are slowed down when training new people and get no more money for the work. Once the person gets the system down, they are put into a freezer to work on their own.

After about a weeks, all the new hires including me were called into the office and written up, for being "Too Slow". I have trained people in various jobs, and my philosopy is that I want them to do it "Right" first, and then we focus on "Speed". If you are doing it wrong, "Speed" actually ,makes things bad faster. So after another week I decided that it was not for me, and said I was going to resign. I was then offered another job as a maintenance wiorker at $10hr. Stupid me assumed that I would be an employee of SYSCO, but found out later that I would not be. I would be under "Best Loading" and had no benefits or any chance to become a SYSCO employee.

So in effect, the other guys doing my job got paid more money, and had benefits, but all I got was $10 and was doing the same work they were. That's not a good setup. When I was being intervied by the SYSCO maintenace manager I was told that if he was "Mad" because I forgot something, or did it worng, he would not speak to me until I figured out what I screwed up. That is really immautre to me, and overall I felt like I was being used. He also said that many people are too arrogant to do the job, and quit quickly. I don't think he was correct in his analysis. No one likes being a flunkie.

The "Best Loading" and SYSCO managers were really nice people. As a lumper you can make in excess of $1000 week once you are with SYSCO, but the path is rather muddled

Let me start this by saying that this job COULD be the best job ever, but unfortunately everything about it just sucked. They sell you the biggest bill of goods ever and pretty much do the complete opposite of what they sold you on. First off the management is absolutely atrocious, they could care less about you or your life outside of sysco, the cases that are on the truck is the only thing that matters in their eyes and if you cannot get it handled than your completely expendable. As a truck driver, you always like to see a good strong structure in terms of how your trucked is picked and loaded, and especially how it is routed but at this place it is the worst you could ever imagine. The truck is a complete train wreck, you open the back door and all of your first stops product is on the bottom of the pallets so you have to spend an extra hour just breaking it all down in your truck just to get your first stop off, and that pretty much continues the whole day, you will literally spend an extra 3 hours of day digging for product and reorganizing your truck over and over throughout the day..the loaders are just as horrible, they just throw product wherever they want to and you have to constantly climb over product to get to what you need or they just bury it all together to where you have to take everything off your truck and reorganize it yourself which eats up a massive amount of time. The routing is hideous, they don't care where you are, if they need a stop done they will send you to it, even if its an hour off your route you have to go take care of it or you get wrote up. Speaking of wrote up, you get written up for EVERYTHING here. Don't even think about getting hurt here or your wrote up, even if your just walking back to your truck and someone hits you with a car its your fault and your wrote up, freaking joke. if your ill and call in, your written up, 2 more times your fired..all they preach is safety yet we are required to pull 300 lb 2 wheelers up and down flights of stairs all day long no matter how bad that is for your back, yet if you hurt your back doing it its your fault and your written up..multiple DOT violations that are overlooked and not followed like they're supposed to be by management, all they care about is getting those cases off the truck no matter what..its a guaranteed 14-16 hours of work a day, forced to work saturdays with only 1 day off mid week which can be a violation because you need a 34 hour stretch off at some point during the week. People always rave about how great the money is but the money is great anywhere if your working a guaranteed 70 hours a week and have no life outside of work! Plus they mess up your pay and try to cheat you out of money if you don't pay attention and catch it and call them out on it, its ridiculous..if you value your life at all, stay as far away from this place as you can!!

Where do I start. Start time for driver shift was at 4am. So, you’re up at 3:30am. Shuttle driver brings your trailer and better pray your pallets aren’t flipped over or your TK is working. Or you’ll have food getting spoiled and smelling all day. My first 4 stops were always stop that didn’t open until 10 am. Must I remind you we start at 4am. Your supervisor response for that will be, “just move the those stops to the side and write down how you want your route.” Which I complained numerous times to main office and to supervisor. They tell you they will check into it, then when you bring it back up they will tell you it’s not up to them. It’s up to sales rep to set your times. Your routing just sucks. You’ll have a stop on one block then make you go to next stop across town then make you go back to a block you were just on to deliver another stop. Had supervisor and sales rep call me nonstop asking where I was and I’m not allowed to skip stops. Then call next week and say I need you to skip stops. Oh, and this always happens. Say they want it all then you take in all products and when finished they’ll say, “we don’t want half of it. Whoever placed ordered messed it up.” Then will have that stop again tomorrow. They want a 95% scan rate when labels aren’t on boxes or ripped and will call you to see why your scan rate is low. Then ask to take pictures of ALL damaged scan labels and send them to supervisor. Make you drive to a stop four times a week and it’ll be for 5 items. Sometimes the stop will be 45 minutes away too. I won't get off till 7pm when I’ve been working since 4am. Had weekends off but always had to work Saturday. You finish early and they’ll add more stops to your week. A lot of times you’ll have one stop on a front pallet with the other half, two pallets behind it so you will have to break down all of those pallets. Pay was only 1600 BIWEEKLY. At the end of the day you have to put your empty pallets into the first returned trailer at the yard. And put all returned products in that trailer as well. When I quit their response was, “ you’re not going to find another job with weekends off.” Drug test is urine for those who want to know. And oh yea, a lot of trailers are the ‘28, ‘36. So, a lot of times you’re won’t have room to put your dolly,stairs, and curb ramp in trailer. It will be in your passenger seat. All freezer items are out of a side door so you will be throwing a lot on the floor but can’t let customers see you do that or they will not want it and call to complain what they saw you do. ELog always shutting off so be prepared for those constant phone calls to reset your tablet while you’re too busy working.

A typical day at Sysco:: if you set your self to auto pilot and flip that switch to don’t care you could probably survive. If you work in/with operations - no work life balance ( that’s only for those in the ivory tower in Houston or if you get to work from home). Long hours of impossible goals to meet. Departments work against each other not with each other. Loads get loaded awful, selection is hit or miss. Trucks are packed to the brim, beware for your safety when try to make your first deliveries you have room just for your toes on the truck. You have to toss product onto the ground as it is the only way to get the product out the truck- but don’t damage anything because now your trouble for that. Equipment is old and breaking down so your units won’t maintain temps for the amount of loading. Now you will get yelled at for damage of that product. You have no reliable management anymore, there is no follow through when you bring them an issue. You get the corporate read response that they have to give… HR- non existent. They are either always behind closed doors in a meeting, or they’ve left for the day. When you do get someone your met with attitude and eye rolling because you’ve interrupted payroll. Region HR- who’s that? Very unfriendly and non approachable. 
You will work 6 days a week so tell your family goodbye. You will be told you have to take off weeks at a time without pay, can’t go anywhere you need to be on call, no using sick or vacation time. Routing- the worst I’ve ever seen at this company- that’s been over 20 years. Routing makes no sense what so ever, you will have 3 trucks crossing paths at the same time in the same area.. one truck has 600 pieces, one has 900 and the other 1200… one of those trucks had to back track to make the delivery completely out of the delivery area. Building conditions- joke in a half- falling apart dock doors always broken- 
This is a Toxic place to work. And don’t be fooled by the robot responses you see on here from (Sysco)- the garbage they are saying if farthest from the truth. Yes there are Sysco surveys.. they are not anonymous.. they have ways of knowing who you are… ( coke one you have be logged into your is to complete it) and they find the easiest path with the least affective fix to respond to your issues. Just to say - see we heard you we listened we acted. 
Workplace culture: get the groceries on the truck at all cost. Doesn’t matter how, customer service and a not number one.. it’s all about the cost of shares
Hardest part of the job: EVERYTHING
MOST ENJOYABLE: when I leave to go home

Sysco used to be the best in the broadline industry, but has tanked since covid. An easy visual aid to demonstrate this is Sysco's stock performance over the past 5 years when compared with their main competitors - performance food group and US foods (ie - don't take my word for it - look yourself). The training was virtual for a job that is very tactile and people oriented - that needs to change. Additionally, they sell over 200k products, and you don't get to taste, feel like, or see the difference in Sysco's product, which just makes it that much harder to sell with confidence. Bonus/commission comp is entirely based on yoy case and gross profit growth. That means, if you get a tough route that is very negative yoy in the beginning, you're at a disadvantage vs your colleagues with respect to earning potential. Let's say I sell $1M in product for sysco, but don't "grow" my route you - I will not make a cent of commission or bonus. The challenge with this system is that there aren't controls in place to limit the size of a new person's route, and it is decided purely based on manager's discretion. To put numbers to this - I am about 4 months into my route, and I have an average monthly deficit of 1,300 cases based on messes in accounts I didn't create - an average customer gets about 35 cases per week. I have to fill that gap before I can even get on the grid for bonuses. Makes it pretty hard to be motivated when:
 a) I know that other new reps started with a route that was positive, and 
b) I would have to perform at a top sales rep level throughout the year to even have a chance at bonusing, when I'm brand new to both sales and the restaurant industry.

Additionally, Sysco has no culture. They lost their identity in covid, and it's clear to me that they haven't gotten it back amd are not trending in the right direction. Ive seen 5 veteran employees go to direct competitors in the last 2 months and they are reasonable folks who are far happier where they went. 

All that said, Sysco does have potential. They still have the best products in the market. Their systems, ops lags, and lack of training/culture will be the death of them though. If you want to be a part of "fixing" something, this may be the place for you.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Don't say your a hard worker because they will be sure to give you all the hard word to make sure the job is better for the veterans who have been there for years. And don't get on anybody's bad side because everyone who has been there for years are clicked up and if they don't like you they will have you on what's called max cubed. Basically giving you the stores with  highest height pallets or most items. This is so the people who have been there for years get the easier work and won't quit meanwhile the newer people have to almost kill themselves just to be treated fairly. they get you in the door with hopes of making good money but it's only possible once you've been there for years. Prove me wrong...

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The lies and misinformation. To be honest the only way to really know how stressful it is is to try it. If you don't get hurt before you actually figure it out and are able to make good money, they will keep you at base rate and make excuses for why you don't deserve the max rate. Also the more you complain the worse your experience will be. Until you quit. They don't mind that either because people quit or get hired all the time. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
They try and make it seem like it's a family but it's not. Don't ever get on the bad side of a manager or someone with pull. There's many ways for them to manipulate your work load and make it seem like your incapable of doing your job.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Imagine your working, pulling cases and then you have to use the restroom. Now you have to go all the way to the front of the warehouse to releave yourself. But every second is accounted for. So now you go to the restroom and the whole process took 5 mins. But your load that your working on was supposed to take you 30 mins. Now because you had to go to the bathroom you won't make rate.and they will say ask the manager to give you the 5 mins back. But who's to say they are giving you all your time back. And what if you have to use the bathroom multiple times. At that point your day is completely over.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Local driver 86 salaries reported	$110,477 per year
Truck driver 99 salaries reported	$108,641 per year
Order picker 37 salaries reported	$26.39 per hour
Sales consultant 4 salaries reported	$70,000 per year
Fleet technician 67 salaries reported	$33.03 per hour

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