Beer delivery: a cross-cultural experience by Daniel Lanctot During 1996 and 1997, senior Paul Gayler's summer job was anything but typical. Gayler and senior Nate Trueblood worked as beer delivery drivers for the Little Beverage Company in Mid-Central Indiana. Gayler said that he "took the job to earn money, not to get free beer or support a habit." Even if the purpose of the job was the monetary benefits, Gayler said it was a unique experience. "If you can envision that one Miller Genuine Draft commercial in which the deliveryman is driving down the road with everyone waving at him, then you can understand a big part of what our job involved. Everywhere we went the people loved us because we were the beer-men," Gayler said. Their days at work began with loading the trucks in the morning. They "picked the beer" by filling a palette with what the liquor stores or bars asked for on the invoice. A lift truck then bedded the beer into the delivery truck. The rest of the day consisted of delivering the cases and kegs of beer to varying destinations. On average, they delivered about a thousand cases and 10 to 15 kegs, which weighed over 150 pounds, a day. However, this routine was often interrupted by peculiar incidents. One example was the recurring problem of carrying leaky cases. Gayler remembered how "sometimes when I'd carry a case, it'd bust on me and go all over. Then for the rest of the day people would think I'd been drinking on the job. I'd even go home and my parents couldn't help smelling it on me." One memorable moment occurred when Gayler was delivering to a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post. When he was carrying some of the beer inside, he saw a teenage boy grab a case of beer from the delivery truck. Gayler unsuccessfully chased after the thief, who was later caught by the police. Gayler and Trueblood described the job as being a cross-cultural experience. A noticeable cultural difference was that their co-workers had very little educational background. For many of the deliverers, Gayler said, their job was their life. The deep connections Gayler made with his co-workers lead him to believe that he "would much rather work with these people than well-educated rich people." |