(Lack of) Pepsi deliveries

[Frank Cox]

For as long as I've had this theatre, there's been a weekly Pepsi delivery. Not that I ever needed a delivery every week but there's always been one day every week where, if I place my order at least two days beforehand, I can get a delivery.

For the past few years I order Pepsi on Sunday night and the delivery is on Wednesday.

The second last time I ordered, the webpage said, "Order scheduled for delivery on.." Wednesday two weeks later. What? I sent an email to the Pepsi sales guy that I (rarely) deal with, and he replied and said that I've been put on once-per-month delivery schedule but if I need Pepsi on any of the other weeks just enter the order and usual send him an email and he'll move the delivery day to that Wednesday. Which seems like an ongoing pain in the butt for him, but whatever.

I sent in another order last week, sent him an email, got no reply and didn't get any Pepsi on Wednesday. Which might leave me short until next week when the "scheduled delivery" is due.

When he was here a few weeks ago, the truck driver asked me what made me "unscheduled" on his delivery list. It's just a regular Wednesday delivery. I told him about this once-per-month thing and he said, "I drive right past your front door every single Wednesday", which I already knew.

Any of you fine folks having "fun" getting Pepsi delivered? It's never been any kind of an issue for me before and now suddenly it is.

[Marcel Birgelen]

What was the given reason behind this "cost-cutting measure" that really isn't one? Shortage of truck drivers?

[Mike Blakesley]

No issue with deliveries here. We don't have a website to order from though, we have an actual human salesman who comes through every week and takes my order, and it is delivered the next day. I can text our sales guy with my order if necessary, which is handy.

Our Pepsi distributor's team is remarkably stable. We've had the current sales guy for at least 10 years now, and the service rep just retired after 45 years with them. It's been a family owned company for about three generations so that may explain it. Even their bookkeeper has been there a long time.

[Frank Cox]

There's no dealership or agency for this area. I get my stuff directly from the Pepsi Cola Company which is, of course, such a huge outfit that a little movie theatre like mine doesn't get any kind of priority. But that's how it's always been.

I've told the story here before, though, about when I first opened my theatre. I wrote a letter to Coke and a letter to Pepsi saying, "Opening a new movie theatre, come and talk to me". The Pepsi salesman was here two days after I mailed the letter.

The Coke salesman showed up FIVE YEARS later.

[Van Dalton]

It's been a family owned company for about three generations so that may explain it. Even their bookkeeper has been there a long time.

Is it Corwin Beverage?

Swire Coca Cola are our CC distributor and the most part they're terrible. The salesman is a great guy (been there almost 30 years).

SCC have, to date, have missed their deliveries for two weeks now. They usually deliver on Thursday afternoon. They'll make their delivery to the Arco station across the street, on time, no problem. I wish they'd get off their asses because the Monster Energy and Powerade racks in the walk-in and the back of the store are getting awfully bare.

Corwin (local Pepsi distributors) are great. In the 10.5 years I've been at the store (I had been a restaurant worker earlier) I only remember them missing their Wednesday delivery once, because the truck was robbed. Otherwise they're always there on time, every time. The last time there was trouble with the Coca Cola fountain (CO2 line had been leaking and was venting into the store) it took them three days to finally get out there and fix it. That's three days with no fountain pop, period, because the pumps are pneumatic, running off the same CO2 tank used for carbonation. When the Pepsi fountain (a Cornelius) started leaking water last month they were out there within about three hours with a whole new machine, then had it hooked up and running in about two hours.

[Randy Stankey]

...CO2 line had been leaking and was venting into the store...

That's a hazard! I know that what I'm saying contains a lot of dramatic emphasis but leaking CO2 can kill!

At only 20% concentration v/v of CO2 in air a healthy human can last 30-60 seconds before passing out.
If the person is not rescued and brought to fresh air and, in severe cases, given oxygen, he will be dead in approximately five minutes.

I know that there are a lot of variables, here. As they say, mileage varies but CO2 is invisible, is not detectable by smell and an affected person might not realize it until they start to get light headed. Even if the person does realize what's happening, they might only have seconds to get to safety before passing out.

If CO2 leaks into an open area like a lobby, concentrations might not get high enough to kill but people might feel woozy without knowing what's wrong.

Often times, CO2 cylinders are kept in a storeroom or basement that doesn't have ventilation. If that's the case an employee who innocently goes into that storeroom to change out a BIB or switch CO2 cylinders could be walking into a death trap without knowing it.

The first person (a concession worker) goes in to do their job, they pass out and end up lying on the floor for fifteen minutes before anybody notices that they are missing. Another person goes to investigate and finds their friend, dead on the floor, but, before they even figure out what happens, they are overcome, too.

I know that I am painting a grim picture but I'm doing it on purpose to highlight a hidden danger that many people don't even know about.

If memory serves, there is a Film-Tech member who, once, went downstairs to change out a CO2 cylinder, didn't know that there was a leak and barely made it out before being asphyxiated. I think it was Mike B. Mike or whoever it was should be able to verify this story.

What I'm trying to say is that, if you called your beverage service company to report a gas leak and they didn't respond before you, one of your employees or one of your customers got sick from leaking gas, there would be BIG problems!

The minute you called in, the person on the other end of the line should have said, "Okay! We'll send somebody right over!"

I would be very circumspect about doing business with any beverage company that displayed an attitude like you described.

At the very least, I would have been on the phone reaming somebody a new ass hole!

[Van Dalton]

100% agree.

Thankfully the supervisor dude and I caught it in time. It's not a very big store either (a large convenience store) and I was standing not far from the machine when I started hearing a loud hissing noise coming from the cupboards under the counter, where all the bag-in-boxes and the pumps are located, about a minute after the customer got their orange Fanta. It wouldn't have taken long, at the pressure level that system runs at, to fill the store up with enough CO2 to be problematic. Maybe about 20 minutes.

The CO2 gas is stored in a huge tank about the size of a large water heater, in a closet in the back of the house and the shutoff valve is right there and easy to get to, so after super and I realised "ohhhhh... shiiiiiit", after isolating which pump had gone bad I rushed in the back and shut it off. I think it had only been leaking for maybe a minute and a half by that point but yes, if it had been left longer, e.g. if neither of us were there and it was just my coworkers, most of whom can't count to one with all their fingers right in front of them, it probably would have been disastrous. The store has a fryer line with an overhead vent but it can't be counted on to ventillate the other end of the store where the fountains are. You also can't always rely on customers to report when something seems a little off.

The worst that happened, thankfully, was we couldn't sell any fountain drinks for a few days since with the CO2 supply shut off, both fountains are effectively broken down.

The Flomax pneumatic pumps CC use are generally fairly reliable but the shoddy, cheap chinese spring clips they use to secure the hoses to them fail all the fucking time, leading to loose seals. Most times it results in nice sticky little puddles in the bottom of the cupboard. You have only one guess as to whom usually gets the honor of wiping up that stuff and the ants that inevitably find it.

[Randy Stankey]

I found the post I was talking about in the archive: http://www.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/f8/t007508/p1.html

It was Mike B. who almost bought the farm.

Cylinders of gas are one thing but those dewars like you use in your store are a horse of a completely different color.
A cylinder might leak but it holds a comparatively small amount of gas. A 100 liter dewar at 20 atm. pressure can hold enough compressed gas to completely fill a room to saturation in only a few minutes.

If you had a major release of gas from one of those things, even if you detected it at the moment it happened, you still might not have enough time to shut it off (if that would even be possible) before the gas concentration rose to deadly levels.

Did you ever notice that, in places like McDonald's and Burger King, the CO2 storage is in a separate walled-off room that is only accessible from the outside?
There's good reason for that!

If you ever have that kind of leak again and it's anything but the most minor mishap, my advice it to evacuate the store, post-haste, and call the fire department.

[Mike Blakesley]

If memory serves, there is a Film-Tech member who, once, went downstairs to change out a CO2 cylinder, didn't know that there was a leak and barely made it out before being asphyxiated. I think it was Mike B.

Yeah, that was a scary incident. Looking back on it -- there were a couple of other times in life that I had passed out. Once when donating blood, and once in a doctor's office. I think I remembered what I'd felt like just prior to those incidents and just knew I needed to get to fresh air. Either that or God planted a "GTFO" notion in my head. Whatever, I'm thankful to be here to remember it today.

Since then we have relocated the soda system to another storage room which is right next to the auditorium hallway. Besides being a lot easier to get to, it's NOT in a basement and has a door that I keep open whenever changing a CO2 tank. Our employees go in there to get concession supplies but they're never in the room more than a few seconds, so they usually leave the door open, too.

[Randy Stankey]

After working in a plating shop where there is a possibility of inhaling fumes from any one of a number of toxic substances from hydrochloric acid, nitrogen dioxide or even hydrogen cyanide I developed an instinct where I automatically held my breath, turned my head and backed away from the area any time I smelled something that signaled danger.

Fumes of HCl burns the nose and immediately makes you cough. NO2 chokes you and makes you nauseous. You learn to recognize different substances.

Although CO2 is odorless, it does mix with the water in the lining of your respiratory tract to make carbonic acid. In small amounts, it'll probably go unnoticed but, at high enough concentration, it creates a burning sensation in your throat and lungs. Even at moderate levels, the pain might be enough to instill a sense of panic and cause the "fight or flight" instinct to kick in.

I bet that's what happened to you, Mike. You were self-aware enough because of past experience. That and the flight instinct is probably what put that message from God in your head.

Good thing it did!

I agree with you. A "keep the door open" policy is a good idea. Placarding the area with one or more signs that say, "Danger of Asphyxiation" might be a good idea.

When you train people to change BIBs or switch CO2 cylinders, it's probably a good idea to give them a brief lecture on the subject as well.

I don't know how much a CO2 detector would cost but it would be a good idea to get one, if you can, and install it in the room where your gas system is.

[Van Dalton]

As of about 4 or 5 years ago the county fire marshalls started requiring CO2 detectors in storage areas. This is the meter they have in the back at work. It runs about $100:

https://www.amazon.com/CO2Meter-AZ-0.../dp/B001PDGFR8

Thankfully the closet is next to the back exit, and the back of the store is quite small so it doesn't take long to bring it down to ~=>500 PPM by propping the door open for a few minutes... but then it also doesn't take long for it to completely fill up with gas. The connection to the tank itself has also been known to have slow leaks (requiring service from NuCO2). Problem is, this installation was an afterthought. The building/company owner/my former boss is a cheapskate and generally does or approves the bare minimum possible to satisfy county inspectors in the name of saving a penny, and tends to run equipment into the ground. They used to use cylinders until that got too expensive (for him) so about 20 years ago he had it converted to the bulk tank system in the closet.

I've tried to pressure him to get warning signs for that area. So far he's declined to do so because signs cost money. Yes, that's his universal copout for everything. I've been tempted to get onto Amazon and order some myself then stick the company with the bill! (A tactic I have used in the past, several times.)

The place was built in the late 1980s so I suppose it may have been acceptable under the county building codes of the time. Christ knows how they even pass their building inspections these days. I've been there almost 10 years. The building is so shoddy that not a day goes by when I don't wonder how it hasn't (literally) collapsed on itself.

[Randy Stankey]

I've tried to pressure him to get warning signs for that area. So far he's declined to do so because signs cost money.

What? A piece of cardboard, torn off the flap from an empty carton and a Sharpie marker is too expensive?
Not exactly spec. but, at least, there's a sign. You could download a picture from the Internet and print it on your laser printer, for cripe's sake!

[Mike Blakesley]

Yeah, there's really no excuse these days for not having signage, even if you have to make it yourself or have your high school kid make it for you. However, people who don't own businesses shouldn't complain when a business owner balks at spending money on some sort of equipment that doesn't seem urgently needed. You can't understand unless you're in those shoes.

[Randy Stankey]

...You can't understand unless you're in those shoes.

People often don't understand me when I tell them that I think something needs to be done. I almost never intend to say that we should run right out and spend money on some solution without considering the budget and it bugs me when people blurt out, "We can't afford it," even before I finish the sentence.

I am only trying to start a conversation about something that I think something is important. The reply I'm looking for is whether the other person also thinks it's important and to discuss ways that we might fit it into the budget. Maybe there's another way to do it without spending a lot of money. Maybe there's a stop-gap measure that can be put into place until we can afford a better solution.

There can never be a good solution to any problem if the first answer you hear is, "wecantaffordit."

An acceptable answer would be something like, "Let's look into it and find out how much it costs."

[Mike Blakesley]

It's all in the approach. If you come off as condescending, that's when you get stonewalled.

That said, the cost is usually the first question I ask if somebody suggests an improvement around here. Usually a business owner will have a pretty good idea right off the top of his head if he can afford to do a project. Of course there are some things that have to be done, cost be damned. But using this CO2 hazard as an example -- unless the equipment is in an enclosed space that isn't easily ventilated, a detector might not really be necessary.