sales representative

forklift operator

merchandiser

route driver

human resources specialist

Viking Coca-Cola Bottling Co.

In my experience, the position was significantly oversold. The workload and expectations did not align with the compensation being offered. Employees are expected to work roughly 50-hour weeks or more on a salary without overtime compensation, while handling responsibilities that would realistically require multiple positions. The insurance offered is a sham. While health and dental insurance are technically available, they are entirely employee-paid, and family coverage costs were extremely high. The pay structure tied heavily to case sales and margins also created frustration, as much of performance is dependent on factors outside an employee’s control, including demographics, weather, seasonality, and territory assignment. I was also informed that margin incentives were largely unrealistic to achieve consistently. The role itself is extremely demanding and honestly feels much more like a merchandising position than an actual sales role.

Things expected of you:

-Greeting customers
-Checking stores for outdated product
-Processing credits
-Stocking and rotating shelves
-Putting away product left on the floor
-Checking inventory
-Writing accurate orders
-Setting up displays and promotional items
-Managing display ordering

All of this was expected while managing large territories and unrealistic stop counts. There were days with 18 stops located an hour away from the office. The routing and scheduling systems were often inaccurate. Stops appear on incorrect days, and sales reps are expected to manually track weekly, biweekly, and monthly accounts to avoid missed deliveries. Employees are also expected to use personal phones for work-related communication and received calls outside of work hours, including nights, weekends, and just recently; Mother's Day! Mandatory events and additional route-related responsibilities outside normal hours were also expected without additional compensation.

My biggest concern was the disconnect between upper management and the reality of the job in the field. Many of the individuals making decisions regarding routes, expectations, and workload were rarely present or directly involved in daily operations. Interactions with upper management often felt focused solely on performance metrics rather than understanding the operational challenges employees were dealing with. They are clueless to the day-to-day reality many employees are facing.

That said, I want to specifically recognize the River Falls sales team. The team worked hard to support each other under difficult conditions. The branch sales manager, was understanding, supportive, and did his best to prepare employees for the role. The OPAM account manager, was also exceptional and clearly cared about both customers and coworkers.

What I love:
Great people (for the most part), exciting fast-paced brands, your communication skills will be tested daily, some management is trying really hard to help any way they can, decent experience for starting out. 
What makes me scratch my head:
you get what you pay for; meaning if you don't offer competitive wages you're not going to get quality employees that want to stick around long enough to make any progress for themselves or the entire team.  Sales positions and driver positions are constantly turning over which ends up being destructive to everyone else as your customers get sick and tired to dealing with new people on a constant basis and therefore don't trust you enough to complete basic actions to meet their needs in order to buy more leading to declining sales which leads to your pay declining. 
Operations is in constant turmoil and operations managers are always out delivering (due to not offering competitive pay/constant turnover).  This is primarily a distribution company that can barely distribute; between their low pay, low-standard equipment, and lack of training one cannot blame drivers for leaving before they even can get into a rhythm.  
Sales positions aren't much better as most goals are incredibly difficult to obtain to start with then if you add the prior issue stated an uphill battle is putting it lightly.  The lack of decent wages leads to the hiring of people that are either disinterested, green(new) to sales, or when they start out strong they quickly get burnt out on the uphill battles.  Put simply the pay is not competitive with the other distribution centers who constantly take advantage of Viking Coke dropping the ball. 
Cost of living is not the same for all the areas in Viking Coke's territory but for a company that is not entirely invested in it's people it's not surprising this is an issue.  You want the best out of your people?  Invest in them and they will break their backs for you and you can hold them to a higher standard leading to better sales leading to more profits.  CEO seems to either not be interested in this fact or is being fed skewed numbers and is oblivious to any problems.  
The sales job on paper here is amazing and don't get me wrong if the process went as it should be it would simply be the best job ever...sadly that is not reality.  You end up doing more and more with no compensation which leads you to start doing things outside your job description.  I hope someone who makes the decisions sees this as those of us working here can see what this company can be (and what fun it can be) but the company is constantly tripping over itself and we are all suffering from it as a team.

I worked with coca cola for about 3 years now as a merchandiser on the weekends. I also worked as a truck hand and week days merchandiser. I found that the job was physically demanding, pulling 250lbs on a lift jack, or carting product to the shelf. It is a great place to work because the people are all responsible adults and know how to have fun with their job. The work was not stressful, and for the most part pretty relaxed. However it is a job where you are responsible for your own part. Showing up on time and getting it done. You are your own boss when it comes to the tasks of merchandising and self motivated individuals would thrive in this type of job. You can see your work and see your success through how much time you put into completing your tasks at the job. It is a satisfying job that shows how much work you put into doing it. The pay is competitive and working hand in hand with other competitors such as Pepsi and 7up. This job was a good self motivated, easy,  just got to do it job. Anyone looking to be hired should apply as soon as they can. It may be stressfull at first but if you like filling shelfs, delivering product to locations and meeting customers who live in the area this is a job right up your ally. The Management communicates well, they say their expectations and hold you to it while explaining and developing you as not only a team member but as a person. Paying time to detail is a must. This is not a tedious job unless you make it that way. It can be a bit repetitious but that's the simplicity of it. I liked this job and feel sad I have to leave.

Supposed to be a Sales Manager job but turns into more of a do everything for everyone, including controlling  of Merchandisers and actually being one . You will find yourself not enjoying your life more and more each day when you realize you’re not just a Sales Manager but also the Merchandising Supervisor and Operations leader of the branch. You’ll find yourself with a lack of support from upper management , whilst being told to fix this , fix that, etc without a whole lot of guidance. Controlling merchandising hours is near impossible according to the   “budget” so you end up having to merchandise 15-20 hours per week while trying to keep up on everything else.


Your phone will basically be going off from 6 am or earlier until 8 pm at night almost every weekday so not entirely a great work life balance job. Overall , lack of resources , lack of training and support had made it an insufferable job . Company is moving more and more towards constant micro-managing of employees and had openly encouraged and pressured managers to micro manage every aspect of what team members are doing and managers had also gotten micro managed —being required to send weekly calendar snips that outline every aspect of what we intend to do , where we will be , forcing meeting times to be the same at every branch (even if it is inconvenient for some sales teams), etc. 


The company used to be tolerable(ish) for a sales rep but even that is getting pretty bad now. It is no wonder why the turnover is so high and the ratings are consistently low . At one time I thought the job was sometimes tolerable , but then soon realized the truth of the company. 

In my branch and department the main part of the job and direct management are good. Upper management has that typical lack of understanding of how the company functions at the ground level that you get with most corporate businesses.

Usually have plenty of information for doing the installs or repairs we are tasked with. The department works as a team with service lending a hand to install and vice versa when needed.

I actually enjoy the job and could see myself staying long term but upper management has taken the approach that they want access to  an extra 60 on-call hours every few weeks but only want to pay a flat fee for it whether we work calls or not. It's a mandatory function of the job, the company just doesn't want to pay for the employees to do the work when it comes about.

Other than that, the pay is on the lower end, but within an acceptable range for my area - it would be on the upper end if they didn't have a psuedo pension system you are required to opt into that they put half your certification/training raises towards. The benefits package is also pretty bare bones but at least slightly better than self-funding.

- Primary job is installation/setup of beverage and vending equipment. Some repair and maintenance work on both as well. 

Enjoy the work and the people I work with, its just their decision on the on-call policy that will eventually have me moving along.

You get service calls over your company provided cellphone through email which doesn't always notify you. You also get a fully stocked service truck that you maintain the inventory. The service truck is 2wd and is a handful in the winter. Your basically on your own doing service calls which very each day. Some tools are provided and you're on call Monday through Sunday night m-f 5p-11pm and Saturday through Sunday 7am-11Pm. Hardest part of the job is dealing with customers that no matter what you do are always blaming you cause their machines are broken down. There's no satisfaction or resignation from the leaders. There's no company paid training for their equipment or the machines they sell. Getting information from senior techs is like pulling teeth. They don't give you the resources needed to do your job and that's why there's high turnover. If you have a technical college degree (hvacR) this job will be boring for you as you do not touch any of the refrigeration components or replace any of the sealed system. No matter your skill set you start out at the bottom of the pay scale until you take their none related training through corporate. If you need experience for another job, this isn't the place for you.

First off, production starts at 6am so be ready for an early morning and prepare for a long day. The work itself isn't too bad, but when you have hours upon hours of downtime because something broke, it's mind-numbing.

Don't plan anything after work because your 8 hour day could easily become a 12+ hour day. Expect at least an hour or two of downtime every day - yes, EVERY. DAY.  -  because some machine broke. There might even be days where production is shut down completely and you don't work at all because, for example, a water main bursted the night before or too many people called in "sick" since no one enjoys working there. A day where nothing went wrong was a rare treat. 

Holidays, Summer especially, are easily 50+ hour weeks, whereas you might barely hit 30 hours in the off season.

The work itself isn't difficult or hard, but can become repetitive. Nothing to do except clean during downtime. Some days, they may ask you to "repack" which includes taking cans of pop out of cases and putting them back onto the line to be put into different sized cases because of over production.


Production manager was snarky and sarcastic.

If it isn't the salesmen mouthing off about how they had to baby-sit drivers all the time, it's them automatically assuming you are less then them because they sell the product and you just deliver it.  Pay isn't bad considering it's commission and flat rate. Overall it is NOT worth the pay to be walked on. 
They say they care about there employees but I felt like I was a number and not a person. They went through 4 employees within the 6 months I was there. Sometimes it seems like management goes out of there wat to make things as inconvenient as possible for you. For example, I will drove past an account 3 times in a week just to double back and deliver it on a day when I am not even in the area.
They do not care about your time, all they care about is the number of cases sold. And no one wants to work with you. 
I didn't even get a train in period, I was handed the keys and sent out the door, just to be lectured about how I did everything wrong. I go out of my way to turn people from this company. 
If you plan on interviewing,  ask them about there turnover before accepting any position. That is if you actually get an interview. They just automatically hired me only an hour after I submitted my application. 

The culture of the position is very fast paced. There is not a day that goes by without opportunities to learn new things, be challenged, and help my team reach their goals. The days can be long, but you are home daily and there is a nice work/home balance within the company.

The compensation is solid and competitive in the beverage industry. There are always incentives and ways to make above and beyond what the salary is.

The company is family owned and all positions have been very stable during trying times, which is a major plus.

The management team is dedicated to helping people grow within the company, as well as training them for new positions. Very goal driven with clear expectations for what the goals are and the numbers that need to be delivered. 

Our team has been involved in several community based events sponsored by the company as well. This leads to a great team environment and allows all team members to have fun outside of the office. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales representative 10 salaries reported	$49,900 per year
Forklift operator 10 salaries reported	$1,673 per week
Merchandiser 9 salaries reported	$19.53 per hour
Route driver 4 salaries reported	$24.50 per hour
Human resources specialist 6 salaries reported	$21.00 per hour

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