Job?

As most of you know I've been out of work since June of 2009. After going to Imperial Buffet with a few of my friends on Monday night one of them, Dickie, mentioned I should go drive a delivery truck for one of our other church friends, Sid. Sid owns a business called Wet Towel International. They supply hot towels and wet towels to restaurants and dental offices and other businesses.

I went in briefly to see the facilities off Eglinton, east of the DVP on Tuesday. Sid showed me around then gave me a short "road test". It just involved me driving around the parking lot in the panel van and backing it down the narrow path to the door we pick up cases of disposable towels from.

After that we made a run down to Union Station to drop off 36 cases of cloth towels to Via Rail and pick up the dirty ones. That particular run is a little more involved than most. Not only is the volume of towels higher, but you have to navigate a maze of hallways to get to the place to drop the towels off because of the ongoing renovations there. We brought a heavy duty dolly which allowed us to transport 12 cases at a time. A great time saver for sure.

The next day I made my first solo run. It was out to Stratford and St. Thomas. I was to deliver 15 cases of disposable towels to Kings Buffet in each town. Now I rarely venture out of Toronto, and never in that direction. But, we printed out maps from Map Quest online the day before and I went home and drew some more detailed versions out. It helped a lot. I'm happy to say I didn't make one wrong turn.

The weather conditions weren't great when I went out. There wasn't any snow on the ground, but it was really windy. It pushed the van around quite a bit along the highway (401). And when I got out close to Stratford there was a lot of blowing snow which cut visibility to near zero in places. So that was kind of unnerving.

The first run from Toronto to Stratford took about 2 hours and fifteen minutes. I dropped the cases off in the back kitchen area of the restaurant and had the manager sign a receipt saying he received the goods.

Driving outside of the city can be nice. I really don't like traffic at all I have to say. And being this far out you're able to avoid it for the most part. But, it did get boring at times since the drive was so long. I listened to the radio part of the time. The Toronto FM stations cut out after you got too far from the city. So I had to listen to 680 News (AM) part of the time. It was better than nothing. A CD or MP3 player would have been nice though.

The second run from Stratford to St. Thomas was slightly quicker. It took about 1-1/2 hours. I took Highway 7/8 west to Embro Road and headed south to the 401. From there I traveled west to Exit 177A and got off on Colonel Talbot Road which pretty much went straight to the restaurant some 13-14 kms later.

I dropped the towels off where the waitstaff put the dirty dishes just outside the kitchen. I had to cart all the cases through the kitchen to get there. Three trips with five cases each on a dolly. Again I got the manager there to sign a receipt and I was done. I took ten minutes in the van to eat some noodles I had brought for lunch and set off for Toronto.

According to Google Maps, the drive back is 220 kms and is supposed to take 2-1/2 hours. I was pretty close to it because I had gotten a fairly early start in the day. After loading the boxes onto the truck I was on the road by 9:30 a.m. Still I hit some stop and go traffic near Highway 427 coming back into the city. It was probably about 3:30 p.m. by that time. Rush hour never seems to end. I noticed it was worse going westbound, so I shouldn't complain.

I believe I got back between 4:00-4:30 p.m. Sid was still at the office. His son, Joseph, was there too. He was loading some towels into his car. I suppose he was going to go out to deliver them. Dickie was there too. He was doing some work around the facilities. He's been helping out a bit there since he stopped working regularly at the church.

Before I went in I called the guys out to show them something I discovered about the van. The day before Sid told me to be careful with the doors to the back of the van. He said that if they ever closed on you you'd be locked in. He mentioned that happened to him once. And it happened to his son (I believe) and one of the other workers there. When that happened, he said, you had to bang on the window to get a passerby's attention so they could open the door from the outside to let you out.

Well, after looking at the locking assembly on the back door I noticed you could open from the inside by sticking your fingers on this mechanism and pushing it a certain way. I guess it was good news for everyone. No more worrying about a gust of wind blowing the doors closed and anyone getting stuck anymore.

We went back in after and discussed when I might come in next. Sid said to come back next Tuesday (six days later). He was trying to figure a new route out. This one would probably involve a lot more stops, but be slightly closer to Toronto. I might go up to Barrie and do the Union Station run after that.

Sid's other workers have the two vans on other days to make their deliveries. I suppose I'm sort of the back up guy for now. I don't mind. I guess I still feel like I'm in "retirement mode".