Schwan's - Schwan's Home Service - Schwan Food Company Life as a Schwan's Man Marshall, Minnesota

First off... I have no axe to grind with Schwan's. I am simply going to tell you about life as a Schwan's man and employee of this company. I started there over a year ago and I am happy to say that I left the company. I hated working for Schwan's and can never imagine working for them again in any capacity.

I left a good job to work there. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. It should have sent up red flags when my job interview with the LGM at Schwan's was trying to sell me on the job, not me trying to sell myself to him. He told me about the great pay, benefits, and job security. He told me about "being your own boss" and "running your own small business". Unfortunately he left out the 65 - 75 hour work weeks. Working every holiday. No sick days (if you call in sick on a weekday, you HAVE to work on Saturday to make it up). And the list goes on.

A typical week for a Schwan's driver is 65 hours. You work Monday through Friday 8am to around 9pm. If you do not make your sales goal by the end of your shift on Friday (your goal is $5,850/week) then you are required to work on Saturday to make up the difference. If you do not meet that goal by the end of your shift on Saturday, which is often the case because of the economy and people cutting back their spending, then you get written up. After a few write-ups you get fired.

You will never have a week that you work less than 65 hours. It isn't the type of job that you make $5,850 early on Friday and you get to go in early, you still have to continue your routes until every customer is serviced. If you get through your customer list early (which is very rare) you are required to go solicit new customers until 9pm. My LGM (Location General Manager) sometimes required us to work til 10pm. I always hated knocking on people's doors that late. They were usually upset, rightly so. I would never want a Schwan's man to come to my house that late. But, we had to.

The turnover at Schwan's is astronomical. In my time at my depot we had 13 routes. During my time we had only 4 guys who have been with the company more than a year. Most people make it about 3 months before they quit. Very, very few make it a full year.

Let's talk about holidays. There are 2 holidays that Schwan's does not run its routes. Thanksgiving day and Christmas day. However, you still have to make up those route days the Saturday following the holiday. So it isn't exactly like you're getting a paid holiday off. Schwan's runs every other holiday. Usually customers are not home and they are mad that you stopped at their house during their family BBQ on the 4th of July. All you can tell them is that you're required to.

Let's say that you read this and you think "hey, this guy just had a bad experience, I bet its not that bad". That is what I did. I read all the negative postings and figured there were a few disgruntled employees who post on all these sites. I went ahead and went on my "ride day". The ride day is basically just that. A ride day. It is where Schwan's allows a potential new hire the chance to ride along with a driver to see if it is a job that would interest them. I went on my ride day and had a blast. We left the depot at 8:30am after we prepped the truck. And the guy I was with dropped my back off at the depot at 5pm. I couldn't sign up fast enough to get this job. Little did I know that this was a set up. The guy I was with was a Chairman's Club driver. That means that he's been with the company a long time and has very high sales. The best in our entire region, actually. Out of more than 100 drivers across our region, this guy just happened to be the best. And this dropping me off at 5pm thing. That was a ploy. He still had to run his route until 9pm that night. But he told me he just had a couple errands to run. They do not want you seeing the real deal until after you're already hired and its too late. This is a common practice with Schwan's. They intentionally send people on their ride day with the best driver at the depot. They tell that driver to drop the person off early. They used to have people ride the whole route day, but it resulted in a dramatic decrease in the quality of new employees. Most were turned off after imagining working 8am to 9pm 5 days a week. Especially if you have a family.

Schwan's does not value their employees. They are only interested in keeping those trucks on the road. They could careless who is behind the wheel and how high their turnover is. I have worked for many companies and Schwan's, by far, treats their drivers worse than any company I have ever seen or heard of.

I left a very good job to work for Schwan's. As I stated earlier, it has turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. I pray every day that I never make a mistake like that again. Here I am a year later and I still haven't gotten my career back on track yet. Althought, I'm definitely trying. I want to put the message out there so that maybe others won't make the mistake I made.

By chance I just happened to run into the driver who replaced me a few weeks ago. When he first started he was so enthusiastic about the job, he really liked it. Him and I spoke for a few minutes and he told me he was trying to find another job. He went through the same list of complaints that I have and that every other former employee has of Schwan's. It was sad to see that a real enthusiastic person like him was reduced to a highly disgruntled employee. I actually had him pegged as a lifer when I first met him at the depot. Obviously I was wrong. Last week I saw his truck running his route here in town, but he wasn't behind the wheel, the LGM was. I guess he ended up quitting since I talked to him.

Don't make the mistake I did. Don't work for this company. If you are a customer of this company then please consider telling them to take you off their route list. Make sure you send an e-mail to corporate to let them know why you no longer want to be a customer.

Until they start treating their people better they do not get my business. That's for sure.