There was a time when the YYZ food truck operation was not properly supervised, and the day to day operation at the kitchen was left completely to the drivers. There was only a single tin desk and telephone with no way to call anyone other than the Planner at the STOC center. On my first day with the food truck company, I was dropped off at the dock by the ramp supervisor and told to go to the dock office, where someone would instruct and train me. However, on this foggy day around Grey Cup time, there were no AC drivers to be found at the dock. I wasn’t even sure if the room that looked like a closet was where I was supposed to be. The CARA kitchen staff assured me that I was in the right place, but after waiting for an hour, no one showed up.
Finally, a group of men arrived, rolling out of a tobacco smoke-filled royal mail panel truck parked behind the old post office, where they might have had a drink or two. Imagine, as a raw rookie from who knows where, finding these men doing something that could get them fired, and at the same time having to ask them for training on how to do my job. I was paired with the most tight-lipped and impatient of the group, who wouldn’t take the time to show me anything other than the route between the kitchen and the ramp. He said he wasn’t paid to train “bloody rookies.” So, within a day or two of being assigned to the job, I was given my own block to work on my own. Picking up the galley supplies from the kitchen was easy, as was finding the commissary and bond room for additional supplies. The first two galley changes went smoothly, but that was not to last. No one had told me the difference between a standard food truck and one designed for use with DC-9s. When I pulled up to the DC-9 galley door, I realized that the truck I had been using wouldn’t allow me to open the galley door without parking twenty inches away from it. Fortunately, the galley was mostly deadhead stuff and only required me to change one food trolley, the pop trolley, and the bar units. However, unloading the trolleys had to be done by lifting them out of a hip-high door and up to the dock of the food truck, which was a six-inch lift at the full length of my arms. I managed to do it without help, but I had an audience of ramp crew members watching me. Loading the trolleys was easier because I could lower them enough from the outside to be slipped into the galley. I put the heavily loaded pop trolley and one lighter food trolley in first, then crammed whatever was left in behind them. As a result, I had to climb down from the food truck and enter the aircraft through the passenger door to reorganize and stow everything in its proper place. That’s how I learned how to do a DC-9 galley change.
Unless a person had good friends within the airline, this is how it was.
