Above and Beyond

[Osprey413]

Since we tend to post negative threads about how UPS is mismanaged, has bad employees, is brown in ways that relate to excrement, I figured we could all use a moral boost. Why don't we try posting stories of times you or someone you know has gone above and beyond the call of duty with UPS.

I'll start with some brief stories about how I have helped customers who have either made mistakes, or have had to deal with us making mistakes.

Story 1: When I was first promoted to p/t management I was still working for a small ASO in Dallas. There was a small boutique next to us who shipped out prom dressed through us. This particular instance they shipped out a prom dress to a sorority girl at TCU in Fort Worth, but the girls mother (who ordered the dress) gave us the wrong address. The package was sent out Saturday delivery, but since the address was bad UPS couldn't deliver it. The prom was that night and the girl was in tears because UPS couldn't deliver the dress. I drove on my day off to Fort Worth, searched through the hub, found the package, and delivered it to her in the early afternoon so she was able to wear the dress to the prom that night. Happy shipper, happy mother, happy sorority girl. And I got a $100 tip in the mail from her mom. Everyone happy.

Story 2: While still working in the Dallas building we had a NDA envelope that was misloaded when it went out for delivery, so the driver was unable to make an attempt on it. This particular package contained an American Express card for a Microsoft executive who was flying to China the next day at 9AM. I finally found the package at about 10PM after it was loaded into an air can. I met the exec at DFW the next morning at about 6AM, before he started his check in at the airport. Customer wasn't exactly thrilled that we misloaded his package in the first place, but was atleast happy that UPS had gone out of it's way to make sure he had his Microsoft AmEx card for his business trip.

 

[pudg00]

Nice job Osprey. We should all take care of the people who pay your salary no matter how messed up UPS might be! That is the effort that is lost in today idea of customer service!!!!

 

[UPSer21]

Excellent idea for a thread! The man who has stuck out to me the most was the man who promoted me. The hub manager had sat down with me in his office for my interview, and asked me my age. I told him I was 17 years old. He had faith in me, and faith in my work ethic. (I don't need people to jump on the bandwagon and tell me I'm way too young to be in management. Part time supervision only really requires common sense 90 percent of the time. Just trying to avoid a pissing contest on here.) Anyway he was a young supervisor himself, and took the chance of promoting someone as young as me. Most managers wouldn't think twice about promoting someone who isn't even out of high school. So far my experience as a part time supervisor has been a good one. I have expanded my knowledge of UPS and love working with people on a daily basis. I know that because this man promoted me, that I will have many more doors open to me in my future (due to management experience). Be it at UPS or any other corporation.

 

[BLACKBOX]

is brown in ways that relate to excrement, /QUOTE]

You would have had more posts if you had just stuck with this part.

 

[helenofcalifornia]

I helped out a customer with some packages one day, no big. Told him since I am so old and uber production rate is not in my charts these days, I give the customer some old time service. We all should, so no big. I do it for a lot of customers which is probably why I am off on my SPH. Not every day, just some days.

Anyway, this guy came into the building personally and told my center manager what a great job I do, etc., etc., etc. I found out from a carwash guy who told me. Never heard a word from the center manager about the guy coming in or what a fine job I was doing. Thought I would have heard something, but no. Go figure./

 

[ups2000]

fed ex delivered someones pay checks to the wrong buisness i was nice enough to take them to the right people. hope in return they rember this when there contract with fedex is up.

 

[over9five]

OK, other than the far superior job I do EVERY day, this is all I could think of!

One bright sunny day as a young cover driver, I'm delivering out in the middle of nowheresville. Cruising down this lonely residential road in my P8, when SUDDENLY.....!!!!

To be continued...

 

[cachsux]

My Division Mgr survives his trip through the pedestrian crosswalk every day while I sit only feet away from him with one foot on the clutch and the other over the gas pedal. Nuff said.

 

[NHDRVR]

Since we tend to post negative threads about how UPS is mismanaged, has bad employees, is brown in ways that relate to excrement, I figured we could all use a moral boost. Why don't we try posting stories of times you or someone you know has gone above and beyond the call of duty with UPS.

I'll start with some brief stories about how I have helped customers who have either made mistakes, or have had to deal with us making mistakes.

Story 1: When I was first promoted to p/t management I was still working for a small ASO in Dallas. There was a small boutique next to us who shipped out prom dressed through us. This particular instance they shipped out a prom dress to a sorority girl at TCU in Fort Worth, but the girls mother (who ordered the dress) gave us the wrong address. The package was sent out Saturday delivery, but since the address was bad UPS couldn't deliver it. The prom was that night and the girl was in tears because UPS couldn't deliver the dress. I drove on my day off to Fort Worth, searched through the hub, found the package, and delivered it to her in the early afternoon so she was able to wear the dress to the prom that night. Happy shipper, happy mother, happy sorority girl. And I got a $100 tip in the mail from her mom. Everyone happy.

Story 2: While still working in the Dallas building we had a NDA envelope that was misloaded when it went out for delivery, so the driver was unable to make an attempt on it. This particular package contained an American Express card for a Microsoft executive who was flying to China the next day at 9AM. I finally found the package at about 10PM after it was loaded into an air can. I met the exec at DFW the next morning at about 6AM, before he started his check in at the airport. Customer wasn't exactly thrilled that we misloaded his package in the first place, but was atleast happy that UPS had gone out of it's way to make sure he had his Microsoft AmEx card for his business trip.

I appreciate what you are trying to say here, metaphorically speaking, but understand that the drivers do this stuff all of the time, every day we work. Even the ones with bad attitudes.

Almost every driver will adapt their deliveries to help out customers because, in turn, it will make our lives easier. We have all tried to be somewhere earlier or later to help out a customer. Some of us go 'above and beyond' because it's how we do things. It has nothing to do with the damn shield on my chest.

Our new UPS motto - "If you are not carrying cardboard than I am carrying you"

 

[code5]

I was at a scheduled pickup and the fed ex ground driver was picking up at the same time like usual. He was a pretty good guy and we got along pretty good.

Anyways this day his truck had broke down and he was doing pickups in his own personal vehicle. The shipper had some really big boxes he couldn't fit into his car. He asked me jokingly if I could take them back to the his depot for him.

I laughed it off, then threw them in my package car and told the shipper I was doing this for them, not FEDEX. It wasn't fair to the shipper that FedEx put their driver in a position where the customer would have to sacrifice for it.

I got quite the ribbing when I drove the UPS package car into the Fedex depot and dropped the packages off.

We are in a small city and everyone knows everyone. That shipper appreciated the fact that I got those packages where they needed to be and credits UPS, not FEDEX for that shipment. They would have used UPS in the first place, but they are a pack and ship company and their customer demanded FEDEX.

 

[NHDRVR]

I was at a scheduled pickup and the fed ex ground driver was picking up at the same time like usual. He was a pretty good guy and we got along pretty good.

Anyways this day his truck had broke down and he was doing pickups in his own personal vehicle. The shipper had some really big boxes he couldn't fit into his car. He asked me jokingly if I could take them back to the his depot for him.

I laughed it off, then threw them in my package car and told the shipper I was doing this for them, not FEDEX. It wasn't fair to the shipper that FedEx put their driver in a position where the customer would have to sacrifice for it.

I got quite the ribbing when I drove the UPS package car into the Fedex depot and dropped the packages off.

We are in a small city and everyone knows everyone. That shipper appreciated the fact that I got those packages where they needed to be and credits UPS, not FEDEX for that shipment. They would have used UPS in the first place, but they are a pack and ship company and their customer demanded FEDEX.

We would be fired for doing that up here, no joke...

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I was at a scheduled pickup and the fed ex ground driver was picking up at the same time like usual. He was a pretty good guy and we got along pretty good.

Anyways this day his truck had broke down and he was doing pickups in his own personal vehicle. The shipper had some really big boxes he couldn't fit into his car. He asked me jokingly if I could take them back to the his depot for him.

I laughed it off, then threw them in my package car and told the shipper I was doing this for them, not FEDEX. It wasn't fair to the shipper that FedEx put their driver in a position where the customer would have to sacrifice for it.

I got quite the ribbing when I drove the UPS package car into the Fedex depot and dropped the packages off.

We are in a small city and everyone knows everyone. That shipper appreciated the fact that I got those packages where they needed to be and credits UPS, not FEDEX for that shipment. They would have used UPS in the first place, but they are a pack and ship company and their customer demanded FEDEX.

This is definitely going above and beyond but, as NH said, could land you in a lot of hot water.

My last P/U is an MBE store and a customer brought in a FedEx Express envelope just as I was loading my last box. FedEx had already made their P/U and their station is right on the way back to our center so I offered to drop the letter off on my way back.

I don't think I would have gone to the lengths that code 5 did.

 

[tworavens]

I was at a scheduled pickup and the fed ex ground driver was picking up at the same time like usual. He was a pretty good guy and we got along pretty good.

Anyways this day his truck had broke down and he was doing pickups in his own personal vehicle. The shipper had some really big boxes he couldn't fit into his car. He asked me jokingly if I could take them back to the his depot for him.

I laughed it off, then threw them in my package car and told the shipper I was doing this for them, not FEDEX. It wasn't fair to the shipper that FedEx put their driver in a position where the customer would have to sacrifice for it.

I got quite the ribbing when I drove the UPS package car into the Fedex depot and dropped the packages off.

We are in a small city and everyone knows everyone. That shipper appreciated the fact that I got those packages where they needed to be and credits UPS, not FEDEX for that shipment. They would have used UPS in the first place, but they are a pack and ship company and their customer demanded FEDEX.

I guess I don't see how this benefits the shipper. The customer demanded Fedex, if they got crappy service then so be it. You said yourself that the shipper would have used UPS if it were up to them, so it seems to me that the only one who benefited here was Fedex and the Fedex driver.

Don't get me wrong, it was a nice thing to do, but in the long run it seems like it would be a poor business strategy.

 

[Dustyroads]

I try to provide a level of service for my customers, above what UPS offers, every day. I used to have this lady, she was in her 90's that lived alone, in the house where she was born. I delivered her "breathing medicine" and other medicine from AARP to her two or three times a month. One day she told me that she liked to take a little nap around 2 pm...just before when I usually arrived. And, she wondered if I would just come on in the house and put her medicine on her dining room table. And, if I had the time, could I open the box, because her hands were so arthritic that it was difficult for her to open the boxes. So, I did that for many years. It was much quicker for me, because she was slow to come to the door, and might never see the package if I dropped it at the door, could never bend over to pick it up if she saw it. It was interesting, her house was like a museum, it looked like it was stuck in the year 1940. The furniture, piano, even the music on the piano were really old. The tv was an old black and white that had a round shaped screen. Anyway, she lived alone there until she was 99 years old, when she went to the nursing home there in the same town. On her 100th birthday, I sent flowers to the nursing home and stopped in there for cake. She was a really good customer, and she counted on UPS to take care of delivering her medicine.

 

[NHDRVR]

Everything you did; checking in on her, opening her medicine, the flowers, are all excellent examples of you being a decent person who is doing a responsible thing. There should be more of this...

But, this is you being you. It has nothing to do with the company because you damn well know that you are losing PRECIOUS SECONDS and affecting your sporh and on an OJS it is unacceptable to do all of that.

It sucks that our jobs are based on fabricated numbers...

 

[BLACKBOX]

Code 5..should have turned in a sales lead. Let BD know what happened. Since you use the term "depot" you must be overseas. Over here we don't let FDX ground "eat our lunch".

 

[morgahorse]

The other day an old guy gave me a small box left on his porch that went to a house down the street and asked if I could make sure it went to the right place... the thing is the mail man left it there.

I can't remember how many times I've done stuff for people while delivering and even if I did some would think I'm crazy for wasting time instead of hitting my "numbers."

I just try to treat people with politeness and a little respect.

 

[Mike23]

Likely UPS would have happier employees if they actually passed on the compliments that were given by customers instead of only the complaints. You know, positive reinforcement, the #1 rule of being loved by your followers when you're a leader?

Anyways, my story...

The guy beside me on my route's my hero. The guy pounds out 120ish stops and has been doing the run for years. He used to have my route but hated it. Anytime I've needed help, if he was able to, he would come to my rescue. The guy's Superman with a cigarette to me.

 

[rocket man]

your a grievience waiting to happen

 

[Mike23]

your a grievience waiting to happen

First, it's YOU'RE a GRIEVANCE waiting to happen.

Second, it doesn't make sense since I'd have to be management to be grieved against. You could say I'm 'a firing waiting to happen' though.

Please try to make your limited english more sensible in the future.