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My title would be Route Sales for a large bottling company owned by an international beverage distributor.

I do sales and presales on my accounts, and also service those accounts. I have 150 accounts ranging from grocery stores to individual vending machines. I basically sell and deliver beverage products to all of my accounts myself. The only ones that I don't sell to in advance are grocery stores and convenience stores; my supervisor presells those accounts.

Yes, usually that happens when I am servicing other accounts. People will see me in grocery stores and approach me to tell me their company is switching over from another soda company, things like that.

Yes, it is what I do every day. I use either a van or a truck, depending upon how many cases I have to deliver that day, and drive to each account.

Yes, I work by myself. Once in a while, I have someone help me out during busy times, like the few days prior to Christmas. If I have a huge day, with a lot of cases to deliver, someone will come along. Other than that, I am on my own.

Yeah, there's quite a bit of heavy lifting involved with the cases of soda, as well as setting up and breaking down displays.

No, there's a pretty good variety. I go to different places and different accounts every day. With 150 accounts, I really can't go to each account every week, so there's a rotation. Grocery stores and convenience stores are our bread and butter, so I visit those most often.

Yes, there's quite a bit of customer service involved. I have to keep all of the managers of the stores happy, while keeping my boss happy there are a lot of different people to keep happy! At the same time, I have definitely made some friendships with some of the people I see a lot in my accounts. I run into a lot of the same guys who work for the other soft drink companies and beer companies as well, so I have gotten to know them pretty well.

Yeah, the daily activities are very similar, whether it is another soda company or a beer company. The pay structure is also similar, though there are some differences depending upon the company.

Actually, my brother saw the position advertised on TV and told me about it. I had been working as a veterinarian, but was between jobs at the time so I went down to this company to talk to them. After filling out the application, it was three or four weeks before I heard anything, so I checked in once a week to let them know I was still interested.

I went to Iowa State University for veterinary school. I worked as a veterinarian in a large animal practice for two years before my company had a layoff. They terminated a couple of guys, and I was their most recent hire, so I was one of the ones to be let go, which was fair.

It doesn't really, it's like apples and oranges. With this job, I'm not on call like I was as a large animal veterinarian. There, I had to work every other weekend. The Route Sales job is less stressful than being a veterinarian, and the salary is about the same.

Yeah, during one summer while I was in veterinary school, I got my commercial drivers license (CDL) and drove trucks part-time for a guy that I knew, just to make some extra money. It was only three months; I never did it as a full time job.

I think it did, because I could get in there and I already knew how to drive trucks, so they didn't have to train me or help me get my license. When I first started I got to run everybody's route because I was filling in for guys on vacation, which helped me get used to the job.

No, I didn't. I got my foot in the door by starting at the bottom, where you aren't doing any sales, and worked my way up to my current position. Doing vacation routes is kind of the beginning, and I proved myself there.

Yes, I have my own route. There are six routes in the area. I was doing the vacation routes when one of the full-time route salesmen quit, and they offered me his route.

Q; Do you ever think about going back to being a veterinarian?

A: Yeah, I think I could get back into it just fine, but in this position there are great opportunities for upward movement, so I am happy with the career path.

Each day is different, because I go to different stops and service different accounts, but the basic daily activities are the same. Usually I am filling the shelves, but sometimes I have to clear out pop that didn't sell or set up or break down displays. I'll run through a Monday. I have to be down at the warehouse between 5:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. to load the truck. I start out at a food processing plant in Oakland (Iowa), where I service the machines and fill their order. I give my paperwork to the vending company. After I am done in Oakland, I drive up to Avoca, which is about a 20-minute drive, and check on my accounts there, servicing machines, delivering soda, and selling to the stores. I drive to Harlan after that, which is another 20-minute drive, where I fill vending machines in the high school, and go to two grocery stores and fill the shelves. When I get done there, I'll stop by the can redemption center (laughs) it's part of the job! Finally, I have my last stop of the day at a truck stop, which is usually one of my biggest stops of the day. After that, I go in and finish up some paperwork, and get prepared for the next day's work.

I keep track of all of the sales on a computer I take with me in the truck or van, and at the end of the day, I run off the records for the accounts I visited, information like the amount of cases I delivered and how much the customer was charged, and the amount of cash brought in. I do a settlement and inventory, and take any checks I get to the bank for a night deposit on my way home. It's usually only 10-15 minutes of paperwork.

Yes, I'll start out around 5:00 a.m., and if I get my work done by 3:00 p.m., I can go home. Of course, if it is a busy day and I don't get in until 5:00 or 5:30 p.m. I'll have a 12-hour day, but that's just how it goes sometimes.

Yeah, but you never know when you'll go into a grocery store or other account and find the manager in a bad mood. Recently, I was making a delivery at a grocery store, and as soon as I walked in the assistant manager told me to break down our display. Since I knew that it wasn't time to break it down and it would have been an extra hour of work I had to call my supervisor, who called his supervisor and got the situation ironed out. It was just a case of a manager who was having a bad day, and that happens from time to time.

Like I said, it is less stress than being a veterinarian. Also, the hours are better; even if they aren't the same each day, I don't have to be on call for emergencies like I did. I drink a lot of soda.

Yes. I started off doing vacation routes, where I filled in for guys who were on vacation. I got to know all six routes, and got a percentage of the commission from each. When one of the guys with their own route quit, they asked me if I wanted the job before looking outside the company. Of course, that meant a full-time position, and better pay so I took it. There is a lot of upward movement. My boss started just like I did, in vacation routes, then moved up to having his own route, then eventually became district manager, just moving up the ladder.

On vacation routes, you are just filling in for people, so it is all delivery and service; there is no sales aspect. When you have your own route, you manage your own accounts, and the work is about half delivery and half sales, which is where I am now. The next step is district manager, who oversees two territories; his job is 100 percent sales.

No, the district manager goes out to all the accounts, he just doesn't deliver or service the machines. He checks out new accounts and visits grocery stores and convenience stores to see what sells best, and of course he sells to the stores.

No, we get an hourly base pay plus commission. The base pay is $9-$10 per hour I punch in and out every day and we get 42 cents per case for everything we sell. Other companies are structured a little differently. One soda company pays a base of $100 per day, so if you have to come back halfway through the day, it works out pretty well. If you have to stay late, it isn't such a good deal. The other companies don't have an hourly rate it is purely commission. One of the beer companies pays much less per case 15 cents but they go through a lot more cases of beer than I do soda. The salaries are pretty comparable in the end.

Actually, salaries differ quite a bit within the same position, depending upon the route. There are better routes and worse routes. If you have one of the worse routes, you'll make about $35,000 per year, whereas the better routes might make $50,000 per year.

Not really, you get appointed routes you don't have much choice. Every once in a while, they restructure the routes and everybody gets moved around. The last time they did that, I kept the same route, which I was happy with because I like the people I work with.

Yeah, and it can affect your income. The best paying route that makes $50,000 definitely wouldn't want to get moved to the $30,000 route, but that is a possibility you don't really have a choice.

My favorite thing about the job is that once you leave the office, you're on your own all day. You don't have to answer to anyone, and I like that. Also, getting to know the customers and the other people I work with is a great part of the job as well. I've gotten to know so many different people in the last seven years, from customers to coworkers to route sales guys from other companies. It keeps the job interesting and fun.

The biggest downside is the potential for very long weeks, and unpredictable hours. Some weeks you'll end up working 65 hours, and then you'll get a week where you only work 45 hours. Also, getting up early enough to be to the office by 5:00-5:30 a.m. (with a 20 minute drive, that's waking up by at least 4:30 a.m.) is not my favorite thing! Also, living in Iowa, fighting the weather in the winter can really be tough.

No matter what. If we have a huge ice storm or the power goes out and we can't get the garage doors open to get the vehicles out, then we have to go home. That did happen once. We were all ready to head home, and the power went back on and we ended up having to go out. Other than those situations, though, we go out in snow, freezing rain you name it. In the case that we have to miss a day due to weather, we'll have to work on Saturday to make it up.

Yeah, we have to work weekends on the occasions that we can't go out because of weather, but we also work weekends around the holidays. When I took the job, part of the agreement was that you have to work the Saturday before a holiday, so whenever Christmas or New Years comes around, I have to work the Saturday beforehand. It usually is just a half-day though. The bonus is that I get all of the holidays off, which is definitely nice.

It is definitely a more secure job. I work for a major company with a lot of resources, and there is a huge demand for soft drinks. We also sell energy drinks, bottled water you name it. There are a lot of different non-soda products, so there's enough variety and innovation in the company to really secure their future.

There is a 401(k) through the company. All of the company's franchises in the Midwest are involved in the same one, so you get a better return on your money. One of my coworkers is about to retire and has been here for 31 years. Before I started working here, they used to offer the opportunity to buy company stock, which he took advantage of, and that has worked out well for them. They don't do that anymore, but every year that the company makes money, they actually put a certain amount into our 401(k), so all employees get a percentage of the profits.

I'd say you have to have a strong work ethic and good communication skills. You can't be lazy because there is nobody babysitting you all day you have to motivate yourself. When you go into a store and encounter difficult situations like my recent issue with the assistant manager at a grocery store wanting me to take down a display you have to be able to communicate and solve problems on your own, and know when to consult someone above you to help out.

Well, you don't need a college degree for this. There really isn't a lot of connection between what I studied at Iowa State and what I am doing now, to be honest. It is just very, very different.

I think having the Commercial Driver's License really did help me, because they didn't have to train me. It's a useful thing to have and might come up and help when you don't expect it. I was a veterinarian who had driven a truck during the summer when I was at school, I didn't think that I'd need the license again, but it ended up helping me get this job.

The benefits are good we get health, dental and vision at good rates and the pay is excellent. You really just have to be willing to put the hours in. The job isn't for everybody; it requires long hours and hard work. It is a career you can go into with a lot of upward movement though, so putting the hard work in will be rewarded.

When I first started, I thought, "What did I get myself into?" You just have so much responsibility that it can be intimidating. If I run behind and don't get some of my accounts taken care of, I have to call back to the office and make arrangements for different days that I can make up those deliveries. We've hired people in the past who only last maybe three weeks, because the responsibility can be too overwhelming.