Anyone Work For: Dollar General (the Company Itself, Not A Contractor) DG Fresh Out Of Ardmore, Oklahoma ?

The DG Fresh warehouse at the DC in Ardmore is pretty new. I am intrigued and have been offered a job. I am really interested in hearing from anyone who works directly for Dollar General, rather than a contractor, and specifically those who work out of Ardmore on the DG Fresh (refrigerated) account.

Where do you deliver? Pros? Cons?

Talk to me, Goose. :)

Delivery to stores, moving trailers from Point A to B?

How much experience do you have?

Delivery to stores, moving trailers from Point A to B?

How much experience do you have?

What I was asking about it which stores? What areas are served from that specific DC?

How are drivers treated?

What kind of money is actually being paid?

Etc. etc.

Hello Don!

I know nothing about that particular job. I remember a conversation about the Dollar General Fresh account once. I looked it up and it has a little information that might help you gather some information. Here it is... Dollar General Fresh Account

I don't have knowledge of fresh deliveries as a DG employee. My son Michael drove for CR England on a dedicated DG Fresh account for 4 or 5 months (team driving OTR prior to that). He did ran into numerous problems with that many of which have nothing to do with him being a newer driver. These are smaller deliveries so you have many stores to deliver to and when one store delays you ("sorry, I'm the only worker here right now and you need to wait until someone else shows up"), it is a domino effect. At least on three occasions rolltainers of milk spilled over because employees at the DC had not strapped them in properly, one time before he even got out of the yard.

Dry van loads for DG have the disadvantage of having lots of "toppers" (more crap stuffed on top of the rolltainers) which never happens with fresh. But the frozen product on the fresh loads are unloaded all by hand out of a front door of the trailer and down stairs and product was often mixed together in tubs that the driver would need to sort through to unload.

With both types of accounts, many of the stores are in very difficult locations to back into.

Run! :)

I did not work for dollar general but was on dollar general dedicated for Werner. I was friendly with a few dg company drivers.I primarily ran dry but had to help out in the fresh account on occasion. Your runs will be from 3-800 round trip and on those you will have from 8-15 stops. There will be a refrigerated and frozen section with about 2-3 rolltainers per store full of milk/ juice/non frozen dairy to be taken off the truck with a liftgate. And about 1full or 1/2 pallets frozen food in the frozen section to be broken down and moved to the edge of the trailer on the side (there is no ramp) to be placed on u-boat and pushed in the store. You will then be responsible to load up as many empty rolltainers of milk crates that you can fit at every stop. Your average load will take you 2 days. And will pull 3 loads on average per week.

As the name says dollar general delivers to only dollar general stores and those will vary from newer stand alone stores, older stand alone stores, dg markets , and the stores that are i the middle of strip malls. IMO it would be better to join a company like Schneider/ Werner etc that runs out of that dc because they have other accounts you can switch to if you don’t like it. So instead of switching companies you can do something else with the company. Dg only offers dry and fresh to dg stores.

In Alabama Werner raised the fresh mileage to around 60 something cpm and 18 dollars a stop for fresh. While on dry I was making 61 cpm , 55 per trailer , and 30 per stop. From what I gathered we were making more than our dg counterparts on both dry and fresh. Different distribution centers have different pay packages. My checks averaged between 1700-2000 per week but I was a runner and knew how to work my clock and manage my time.

I will say that their driver retention rate was not very good . I don’t know if it was due to pay or culture. If you want specific pay for DG at that Dc their recruiters will be pretty honest with you. Don’t ask for the average. Ask what the mileage and stop pay is. The rest of the information I gave you is spot on as far job description (I assure you)lol If you have talked to them what info have they given you so far?

If you have talked to them what info have they given you so far?

Here are the notes I took while talking to the recruiter:

.45 cents per mile 6 months = .46 1 year = .47 1500-2500 miles per week

Traditional: $45 per store unload 12 stores per week

Safety bonus each quarter.

$5000 sign on bonus: 3 mo $2k, 6 mo $3k

Medical benefits on day 1 401k: after 1 year match up to 5% 100% vested

Orientation: In Ardmore - 2 days

Rental car for orientation and training

Hotel every night when training

$200 per day when training $25 per diem for food while training

About a month of training

Automatic trucks

Paid every Friday

Cameras in trucks that are outward facing only

I would call the carrier that also runs out of that dc and see what their pay package is .

If this is your first driving job I do need to warn you that it isn’t easy. Neither the unloading or the backing.