After getting rehired by Frigo Cheese in Lena, Wisconsin in 1983 I was pretty much a local driver staying mostly in Wisconsin and getting home most nights. We had a weekly run down to the Milwaukee-Madison area that us four local guys took turns doing. The usual delivery stops on that run included a couple grocery warehouses, one of which was the Roundy’s Distribution center just off Highway 41 and Burleigh in Milwaukee.
One Wednesday, in 1986 or ‘87, I had a delivery appointment at 11am to deliver four pallets of cheese. They were my third or fourth stop and I showed up on time for my appointment, thinking my day was going well. Checking in with security they assigned me an open door and I backed the trailer to the dock and walked into the receiving door at almost exactly 11am. Seeing a receiver standing near the door I pleasantly greeted him saying hello as he stood silently looking at me. I gave him the paperwork and said I had four pallets of cheese for them. He took the paperwork, looked at it, and threw it on the floor saying “I don’t need this shit!”. The papers scattered all over and it took me a couple seconds thinking “don’t throw the first punch”.
It took everything I had but went and retrieved the scattered paperwork and neither he nor I said another word. The receiving office was quite a distance away and I walked down there, going in, and asking for a supervisor. Being very angry, I had to control myself and calmly tell him what happened. His response? “Well, he’s a union employee and there isn’t much we can do about it.” Still trying to maintain myself, I walked out of the office and went down to a payphone to call my boss in Lena. After telling her what happened I stressed that I needed to leave before I lost it saying “I can’t go back and deal with that guy again”.
She told me to wait there and call back in five minutes. As I was waiting by the phone a couple minutes later, some clerk came out of the receiving office and asked me to go back to the truck. She said someone would be right there. I went back and they evidently had pulled that guy off the dock and someone else was offloading my pallets. The supervisor hadn’t bothered to come out to tell me but sent a clerk to do it! Roundy’s Distribution Center, thanks for the memories, not.
A few additional facts about Roundy’s:
In the early 1980’s, at that location they had a serious accident on a receiving dock. The brother of a buddy of mine worked there as a produce receiver. He was unloading pallets of watermelon one day and the truck rolled away from the dock as he was coming off the trailer on a forklift. The forklift fell to the floor with a corner of the dock plate hitting him in the back turning him into a paraplegic. After the lawyers and lawsuits were done he ended up with a settlement of over a million dollars. Of course, no amount of money would make up for what happened to him. But the cash enabled him to buy a handicap equipped van and drive himself. He had a good supportive wife and the strength of character to maintain a positive attitude.
In 2003, Roundy’s opened a new distribution center in Oconomowoc and relocated out of Milwaukee.
In 2021 a janitor went on a rampage killing two employees before running and killing himself as the cops were chasing him. According to a union official, the two men murdered had worked at Roundy’s for at least 20 years. The investigation was eventually closed with no real answer as to the janitor's motive, and I'll just leave it at that.
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