dealing with center managers

[DS]

We had one about 3 years ago that we refered to as Little Hitler.He made it a point to try to fire every driver that stood up to his intimidation.One time shortly after he arrived,I called for help and he answered the phone and asked why I needed help.I told him I was overdispatched and had every intention of taking my break nonetheless,
and that if I did not get help,I would have missed.He informed me that they were understaffed and that there was no help available.I was quick to suggest that he should brown up and come and get 20 stops off me.
At that point he laughed heartily and said he'd get back to me.I did get
my help but he managed to fire me 3 months later.
He got canned shortly after for falsifying time cards.
Now he's a manager for DHL in Calgary.Good riddance to him.
I've never hated anyone so much in my life.

 

[LPGuy]

Folks,

This is my first posting on this website. I am an LP person who has been in management at UPS since many of you were in grade school. Security gets a bad rap because, unfortunately, we are often in the position of dealing with problems that center management teams do not have the tools to address. I, too, have had a manager, similar to this one. He was fired several years ago. UPS seems to be good about weeding out potential management candidates during the process when the candidate is trying to obtain a supervisory position. Unfortunately, politics plays a big role when promoting supervisors to manager. It is very important to UPS to have bragging rights to "the best company for advancing _______ minorities. If you look at the data, you will see that UPS likes to promote minority supervisors to the position of manager. If you look more closely, you will see that UPS does not tend to like too many minorities achieving staff, or division level managment positions, or higher. The exception to this rule, is the occasional person who is sent to the district from corporate headquarters to "get her ticket punched." These individuals are typically only assigned to a business manager position for six months, or less. They are then returned to corporate to reside among the ranks of those whom UPS cam claim bragging rights for their "accomplishments." My advice to the person with this particular business manager is to ride it out. Before long, this person will likely be "getting it on" with an OMS or will make unauthorized charges to his AMEX card, and will be terminated. This will happen, only when he has outlived his usefulness.

Regards,

LPGuy

 

[Just Lurking]

My current center manager is probably the best one that I have had in 20 years. He will actually try to work with everyone, sometimes to his own determent. Although when I first met him I did not believe that he would be. I spent 20 to 45 minutes / 3 weeks in the office with him and probationary driver. He had yellow legal pad with 3 pages of single spaced, bulleted and highlighted issues.

In case, someone from corporate is this reading post. He still manages our center this way. Please take him away. We can stand another day with him.

 

[DS]

Hi LPguy welcome to the browncafe.
I'm a driver,but if I ever wanted to go mngmt,I think LP would be my choice.Nothing would satisfy me more than weeding out the lowlife miscreants that think that ups is an easy target.
Your post was well written and credible.
Please post more often,we could use your opinions on other topics.

 

[brownman15]

My center manager got transferrd to california, real piece of work! Complaints to the 800 number had alot to do with it, but we all gave our names which validated the complaints! If someone gets fired for bs stand tall and dont buckle by excepting a suspension or time served, make sure you get every penny of missed time for that period you were fired. Once a couple of us made that stand the bs firings stopped because it added up to some nice back pay checks!

might have been my center manager tried to fire me for truck abandoment for leaving my truck to take lunch

 

[Coldworld]

so in regards to production, can a driver get fired for not, lets say running scratch or better and instead being over allowed. I know the union has a great record of getting peoples jobs back unless your fist-fighting customers or drinking on the job. It seems that "proven dishonesty" is so vague a term and is where most managers who want a driver gone will do their searching. I mean, what happens if you leave a package at the front door and it was really left on a "porch." every driver interprets situations differently. If I was a center managers boss and I knew there were many drivers at a center that were trying to be fired for anything and everything, I think I would start to look into the center managers past dealings with other centers and check him out.

 

[UPS Lifer]

As far as being "fired"...it goes both ways. A non-mgmt person may be able to hold on for awhile...but if you are doing something wrong you could eventually lose your job depending on the skill of the manager and Labor Manager that are involved as well as the skill of the Business Agent that may represent the non-mgmt person.

Unless you are dealing with a cardinal sin - rule of thumb - Discipline is like a bell curve - the people at the very bottom are at risk - If you are in the middle of the pack you should be OK. But mgmt goal is to continue to improve the bell curve. This goes for any business or any goal. Always remember that.

For the record....vindictive management folks make me sick. They don't represent my values as a management person.

 

[Coldworld]

I am talking more about allowances. I know that past management know that the alowance system is the most unfair thing about ups. In my experience, unless your cutting some major corners, or have a route where your picking up and delivering large number of packages, most drivers are over allowed 30min to 3 hours. I am one of these people, but dont have any other issues with mgt...never had hopefully never will. I know the union doesnt recognize the production bonus, but what happens if I get a manager who starts riding people about the numbers. Has anyone here had the same experience? Ups pushes safety and safe work methods....which is great, but then trys to fire you for being 2 hours out???

 

[UPS Lifer]

I am talking more about allowances. ....

Got to agree with you on that one. The only mgmt folks that agree with the allowances are the IE folks. I was always at odds with them.

When it comes to numbers and production - a fair mgmt person will get out and ride with the driver or route in question. If it takes 3 rides or whatever to come up with the right performance than the route or driver is held to that performance level. If the manager gets on the car and verifies the best demonstrated performance and it does not meet the allowance. The driver has nothing to fear.

As a supervisor (way back in the stone age) I had a driver that was 1.5 hours in the hole daily - The center was underallowed so he stood out like a sore thumb. He knew the methods and was the perfect example of what is "by the book". It took awhile, but we finally got a TS and he was close to scratch after the TS. I did my job and he did his job and nobody ever lost their job because of it. There was a lot of pressure on both of us!!!

He always met his best demonstrated performance.

In the last few years, there have been a lot of advances that can be analyzed without getting on the car. It is hard for a driver to hide a performance problem and allowances can be fine tuned using the same technology.

 

[Fnix]

I thought they dont fire drivers but send them back to PT

 

[Hangingon]

Our new (or rather retread) DM had the center manager hand out new TSP papers to sign. They state that you understand proper methods mean making 9.5 no matter what time you leave the center or how many stops you have. When most of us refused to sign the center manager threatened to fire anyone who did not turn it back in w/o a signature, but he said we could write we disagree with the policy but still had to sign it.
The center manager has also been handing out automatic warning letters for anyone who is over 9.5 and more then 2 hours overallowed. Every driver who averages over 2 hours has had at least 1 full days ride and in most cases the overallowed with the supe on the car was at least as high as when the driver is alone. Not sure how this will turn out, but I have never seen the morale at my center (15 year employee) so low.

As far as firings, we had one of our drivers fired for calling in sick. His supe called his house at 6 am and reminded him his PH had been disapproved and that if he did not come to work he should consider himself terminated. The call so upset him that he called in sick... Wonder how that will go over at the board hearing.

 

[dudebro]

I'm in IE, so, I know how the allowances are developed and what they contain. Believe it or not, we develop methods by watching real UPS drivers who were pretty good at their job out on the road, making sure it's a safe way to do it (no repetitive end range motions, at risk behaviors, etc.), and writing it down. Then we tell everyone to do it that way, watch about 10,000 people do it, throw out the top and bottom quartile, average the remaining middle 50 percent, and use that time for the allowance. Normal conditions, NORMAL EFFORT, by trained people following the METHODS. That's where all these numbers come from, the 2 walks, the ring bell wait, etc. All of them. Not measured with LaDainian Tomlinson doing it at full speed, or by an office worker with a protractor, but thousands of real life average UPSers. Moreover, when I do the time study, if there's a judgment call where I could or couldn't give the driver the allowance, I ALWAYS gave the allowance as long as I was within the methods. Hey, some day I might be an on-car sup in that center and have to HIT that number.
Usually, when allowances are that far off there's a pretty good reason, but you need someone with proper training to recognize it. One obvious one is new housing or industrial complexes. They change an area in such a way as to require a new time study, but we don't always have the staffing to do it, so it stays out of compliance for a long time.
When I could get a day in here or there as a package IE I would ride drivers to find out what's happening. The stories are endless, and there's always one or two that don't make sense, but here are the most common:
1) The driver spends 10 minutes sorting the air in a tote at the building. You don't get time for that. I understand, the driver doesn't trust the preload and the preload has stuck the driver with out of area airs many times, but THAT'S NOT HOW WE SHOULD RUN THE BUSINESS. The preload should put the right air stops in the 1000 section of the car. And the driver should be able to trust his/her EDD. When that's not the case, we need to FIX IT, not change the allowance to allow for screwing it up.
2) We drive 15 minutes out of trace after the air is done to get the rear door center stop off. "I don't want that in my way all day". It won't be. Deliver all of the packages on the 1000 shelf and the 2000 shelf, which you can reach, and get the bulk stop off when you get there in trace. "I don't like to do that". I understand. You feel better emptying the center of the truck, but you cost yourself a half hour a day with this ONE decision. I'm not talking about SSI accounts or other time commits. Just your standard bulk stop.
3) We spend 45 total minutes a day stopping 4-5 times in a parking lot to "re-sort" the truck. Why are you doing that? "The preload sucks." Are they following the chart/PAS label? "No, that hasn't been right for 4 years." or, "Yea, they tell me to do it one way, but I got my special super secret way to do it I like much better. I make all LEFT turns "
The driver I'm portraying above, is at no time ever "lazy". On the contrary, they're usually drenched in sweat all day, and still come in over an hour overallowed. No wonder they feel the allowances are impossible. They're not trained, or when they are, we in management DON'T CREATE the environment that driver needs to succeed. What I find is that if we follow the METHODS, from 4 AM to the check-in, both with the inside ops and the center, these things get resolved. It's a failure of both the driver and management that we don't insist on getting these things fixed. I'll stop a driver out on the road with the on-car sup and say, what is that driver doing? The driver will stick his head out and look at me like I have 3 heads and say, sorting my truck, what do you think? And his on-car sup will look at me the same way. This is when I go nuts, toward the on-car. You're telling me, this driver sorts the truck all day, you know about it, and you think that's the way it should be???? No wonder you OJS the driver for 3 days and the driver comes in more overallowed than when he/she went out alone.
This is where most people tell me, well, be realistic. You're never gonna fix the preload. Fine. I wouldn't give up like that, but fine. Don't come tell me there's something wrong with the allowance after that though. The allowances HAVE to set the standard for PERFECT METHODS. If they don't, how will we know when we're doing something wrong??? The allowances don't always point to where we should work harder, but also, smarter.

 

[705red]

I'm in IE, so, I know how the allowances are developed and what they contain. Believe it or not, we develop methods by watching real UPS drivers who were pretty good at their job out on the road, making sure it's a safe way to do it (no repetitive end range motions, at risk behaviors, etc.), and writing it down. Then we tell everyone to do it that way, watch about 10,000 people do it, throw out the top and bottom quartile, average the remaining middle 50 percent, and use that time for the allowance. Normal conditions, NORMAL EFFORT, by trained people following the METHODS. That's where all these numbers come from, the 2 walks, the ring bell wait, etc. All of them. Not measured with LaDainian Tomlinson doing it at full speed, or by an office worker with a protractor, but thousands of real life average UPSers. Moreover, when I do the time study, if there's a judgment call where I could or couldn't give the driver the allowance, I ALWAYS gave the allowance as long as I was within the methods. Hey, some day I might be an on-car sup in that center and have to HIT that number.
Usually, when allowances are that far off there's a pretty good reason, but you need someone with proper training to recognize it. One obvious one is new housing or industrial complexes. They change an area in such a way as to require a new time study, but we don't always have the staffing to do it, so it stays out of compliance for a long time.
When I could get a day in here or there as a package IE I would ride drivers to find out what's happening. The stories are endless, and there's always one or two that don't make sense, but here are the most common:
1) The driver spends 10 minutes sorting the air in a tote at the building. You don't get time for that. I understand, the driver doesn't trust the preload and the preload has stuck the driver with out of area airs many times, but THAT'S NOT HOW WE SHOULD RUN THE BUSINESS. The preload should put the right air stops in the 1000 section of the car. And the driver should be able to trust his/her EDD. When that's not the case, we need to FIX IT, not change the allowance to allow for screwing it up.
2) We drive 15 minutes out of trace after the air is done to get the rear door center stop off. "I don't want that in my way all day". It won't be. Deliver all of the packages on the 1000 shelf and the 2000 shelf, which you can reach, and get the bulk stop off when you get there in trace. "I don't like to do that". I understand. You feel better emptying the center of the truck, but you cost yourself a half hour a day with this ONE decision. I'm not talking about SSI accounts or other time commits. Just your standard bulk stop.
3) We spend 45 total minutes a day stopping 4-5 times in a parking lot to "re-sort" the truck. Why are you doing that? "The preload sucks." Are they following the chart/PAS label? "No, that hasn't been right for 4 years." or, "Yea, they tell me to do it one way, but I got my special super secret way to do it I like much better. I make all LEFT turns "
The driver I'm portraying above, is at no time ever "lazy". On the contrary, they're usually drenched in sweat all day, and still come in over an hour overallowed. No wonder they feel the allowances are impossible. They're not trained, or when they are, we in management DON'T CREATE the environment that driver needs to succeed. What I find is that if we follow the METHODS, from 4 AM to the check-in, both with the inside ops and the center, these things get resolved. It's a failure of both the driver and management that we don't insist on getting these things fixed. I'll stop a driver out on the road with the on-car sup and say, what is that driver doing? The driver will stick his head out and look at me like I have 3 heads and say, sorting my truck, what do you think? And his on-car sup will look at me the same way. This is when I go nuts, toward the on-car. You're telling me, this driver sorts the truck all day, you know about it, and you think that's the way it should be???? No wonder you OJS the driver for 3 days and the driver comes in more overallowed than when he/she went out alone.
This is where most people tell me, well, be realistic. You're never gonna fix the preload. Fine. I wouldn't give up like that, but fine. Don't come tell me there's something wrong with the allowance after that though. The allowances HAVE to set the standard for PERFECT METHODS. If they don't, how will we know when we're doing something wrong??? The allowances don't always point to where we should work harder, but also, smarter.

Hey ie pal, the little perfect world that you just wrote about DOES NOT exist! When you jam 30 plus stops for 50 some pieces in each of the thousand shelves you have to sort your truck. Just because you think that we dont have to sort because you once read a how to book on delivering does not make it so. Its real easy to tell us how you feel the job should be done but until you perform it and i mean not a 1 day ride or even a 3 day ride, do it for 7,8,9 years and then come back and tell us your thoughts. Heres my favorite saying, they are your numbers not mine, i provide a service to the customers while you provide a pick pocketing approach to us the service provider!

 

[upsgrunt]

Couldn't agree more- There's the way it should be and the way that it is. They are so far apart and for the life of me I can't figure out why UPS can't concede that they are wrong and FIX problems instead of masking them or making up excuses.

 

[BigBrownSanta]

dudebro - I have a few time study questions. You don't have to answer them if they are UPS top secret material...

1. If I, as a driver, do not use all the proper methods during a time study, but I beat the allowance, will I still get the full allowance for each stop or do I have to fully demonstrate every single method to get the full allowance?

2. If I have a late pickup at the end of the day, and I have to wait 30 minutes until I can make the pickup, how does that affect the time study? (This actually happened on my last time study).

3. I was told that mileage has no affect during a time study, is that true?

 

[helenofcalifornia]

So we are not supposed to check our shelves before we leave???? I always have to check shelf 1 to make sure that the air that is in my board is in my truck. Or that it's the right air and doesn't belong to another truck. Yeah, and I have one of those stops where I have to close out the UPS store and I am usually waiting around 30 minutes. I am always over.

 

[dudebro]

Hey ie pal, the little perfect world that you just wrote about DOES NOT exist! When you jam 30 plus stops for 50 some pieces in each of the thousand shelves you have to sort your truck. Just because you think that we dont have to sort because you once read a how to book on delivering does not make it so. Its real easy to tell us how you feel the job should be done but until you perform it and i mean not a 1 day ride or even a 3 day ride, do it for 7,8,9 years and then come back and tell us your thoughts. Heres my favorite saying, they are your numbers not mine, i provide a service to the customers while you provide a pick pocketing approach to us the service provider!

In your world, if everyone drove for 10 years before they could say a word to anyone, we wouldn't really have enough management. I respect the seniority and the time you put in that puts wear and tear on your body, but I drove for over a year through 2 peak seasons, and I did run scratch more often than not on a route or two once I knew them, not to mention driving school, pkg ops sup training, IE training, and time study training, so I think I understand the job as well as anyone. 30 stops on each 1000 shelf doesn't happen too often. This would be a 240 stop dispatch not including pickups. My district ran 131.2 stops per metro driver LAST WEEK, and that includes the pickups, so the deliveries are less than half that. I look down a lot of cars in the morning and they're not all bricked out like that. So yea, you could walk down the line and find me probably one car out of 50 like that, but most of them aren't. And they CAN, 95% of the time or better, be loaded in stop for stop order. Just because we put PALs on packages, things don't get better until we stop allowing the preloader to fling the package with HIN 1718 on it in the general vicinity of shelf 1000 from outside the car.

 

[dudebro]

So we are not supposed to check our shelves before we leave???? I always have to check shelf 1 to make sure that the air that is in my board is in my truck. Or that it's the right air and doesn't belong to another truck. Yeah, and I have one of those stops where I have to close out the UPS store and I am usually waiting around 30 minutes. I am always over.

I'm sure you ARE supposed to check your 1000 shelf because you're instructed to by your management team so you do it. They feel that the 5 or 10 minutes overallowed they incur is worth the double check on the preload.
But the standards allow only for reviewing your air stops in EDD and checking to see that you're not overdispatched. This is the standard we should be striving for, and on a few cars where there's strong trust between the drivers and a good seniority loader, it works this way. Most of my own building does what everyone else does, though, and sorts through the airs manually.
But consider some of your financial buildings. We have a couple in my building that get 150-200 airs alone. The driver goes out early to those buildings and it's a big issue on the preload when he finds a misloaded air in their mail room. He doesn't have time to do it any other way. If we can take 200 airs to a huge financial account without checking, why are we checking the usual 15-20 stops like this?
I know most drivers sort through airs prior to dispatch. But we SHOULD be able to trust the preload. This is my point about FIXING the problem upstream vs. putting a band-aid on it.

 

[UPS Lifer]

dudebro - I have a few time study questions. You don't have to answer them if they are UPS top secret material...

1. If I, as a driver, do not use all the proper methods during a time study, but I beat the allowance, will I still get the full allowance for each stop or do I have to fully demonstrate every single method to get the full allowance? See answer below. Don't shortcut the system. Park in the closest, legal position. Take the shortest legal, safe path. A good TS person will or should know if you are pading your walks. They will give you credit for what you should have done. Same thing for short cuts. They will give you credit for the proper walk or drive path that should have been used.

2. If I have a late pickup at the end of the day, and I have to wait 30 minutes until I can make the pickup, how does that affect the time study? (This actually happened on my last time study).This does not affect the TS but will show on your performance

3. I was told that mileage has no affect during a time study, is that true?

- Mileage does not affect your TS. It does affect your planned day. If you get caught padding miles you could lose your job.

Dudbro may be misleading you just a little.... The allowances are not based on your performance....They are based on the area, type of buildings, density, walking distance, parking distance (and this is not based on how far you walked or parked but where the closest legal parking that was available), type of streets and traffic, etc....

Where the driver gets confused is when the study is reviewed and the ie or mgmt person tells them where they lost time or gained time. That part of the study just shows what you did in comparison to the proper methods.

One other thing - If your area is way out of wack from what is considered normal or average for the area, a "variance" might be attached to that particular area.

This is only an example to demonstrate how or why a variance might be installed. Variances can also be taken away ...another reason folks get upset!) You have a residential area - houses are 10 feet from the street and are perfect for DR maybe this is an island and no matter what time of day you go to the island you have an hour wait for the ferry. You would get a variance for that area based on the average wait time. 3 years from now they build a bridge and there is no more wait...the variance would be pulled and you would lose an hour for that area. I have seen stuff like that happen with highways going in or where speed limits and additional lanes were added to increase traffic caacity and improve the time.

Hopes this answers your questions...

 

[dudebro]

dudebro - I have a few time study questions. You don't have to answer them if they are UPS top secret material...

1. If I, as a driver, do not use all the proper methods during a time study, but I beat the allowance, will I still get the full allowance for each stop or do I have to fully demonstrate every single method to get the full allowance?

Time studies are not top secret. Remember I'm still just a supervisor (I can't relocate) so I'm not going to see very much information that IS top secret. I tell every driver I time study how it works (even though 10% never believe me anyway). I study the route, not the driver. The route ALWAYS gets the full allowance for every activity it requires by ALL of the methods. For example, if it's a 3-walk (51-100 feet long) to the door, you get .258 minutes to traverse it. You get that allowance whether you run, trot, walk, monster-mash, or drag your leg to the door. You get that allowance even if you stop half way to the door and throw the package the rest of the way, because the study is based on it's distance you SHOULD walk from where you SHOULD stop the car FOLLOWING the methods. Of course, I'd note that you threw the package and discuss it as a separate issue, but it wouldn't affect the study. You SHOULD however, use ALL of the proper methods during the time study, because when you don't, the observer has to rely on his/her own experience as a driver to figure out what SHOULD have happened and put that into the DAD unit they're using. This leaves a lot up to the observer. If it's a crusty old guy who seen this and done that, it'll probably be ok. If it's one of the new college folks with a crash course, well....

2. If I have a late pickup at the end of the day, and I have to wait 30 minutes until I can make the pickup, how does that affect the time study? (This actually happened on my last time study).
It doesn't. You'll get time based on the inside and outside walks to the pickup area, a standard customer contact time (the wait will not be recorded), time to scan the pickup barcode and/or sign the book, and a per piece allowance for each package picked up. Pick up one piece, and you get a certain time. Pick up a thousand, and you get that time x 1000. The observer should note the extended customer contact (wait) time and review it with the center team back at the building. This is when a judgment call based on the local conditions will have to take place. Management basically has to act to find the root cause of the 30 minute wait and eliminate the not ready situation while considering how each possible decision affects volume, revenue, cost, driver performance, volume availability to the hub, etc. In no case should a driver wait 30 minutes at a stop by plan. Someone from the center or BD needs to visit the account. But now lots of variables come into play. Is the driver on his / her 11th hour by that time? Is the car full? Do we move that pickup to a different driver? Move the time back? etc. If there really is NO OTHER OPTION, you can get a "variance", get the 30 min in the allowance, and have the driver wait there by plan. This would be like an act of congress, you won't see it happen much. But the short answer is it doesn't affect the study and you don't get credit for the excessive time.


3. I was told that mileage has no affect during a time study, is that true?

No. Sure it does. Part of the center standard is the "to/from" part of the day, listing the miles and hours to get to and from the area, which is apart from delivery and pickup on area. THEN we note the mileage of the on area travel and whether it's in 25, 35, or 65 mph zones and there's an allowance for each of those.
The reason you may have heard this, though, there's that 10% of drivers who decide they're going to "take the observer for a ride". I usually start waving to people. When the driver asks if I know that person, I usually answer, "Well, I've seen him on his porch 4 times today so I feel like I know him". The six hundred miles we travel THIS day will NOT affect the study, because we'll go back and try to figure out how far the driver SHOULD have gone, and like I said before, now you're up to the mercy of the observer's experience, and legitimate route conditions could be missed. So when asked, some observers just say mileage doesn't matter to try to discourage this behavior, it wastes everyones time and can lead to a bad allowance. Same with "flagging" pickup stops. You know, the driver has the customer leave a NDA letter in the second floor window IF they have anything, otherwise the driver knows to sheet the stop and keep driving. I tell drivers not to do this because when the secretary forgets to put the letter there and gets his or her butt chewed out the next morning, what do you think they'll say. "I put it in the window but he never came". I can tell this goes on when I follow the driver to the stop and the customer asks "What are you doing up here, I didn't put out the letter" and the driver is trying to discretely point his thumb at me. Please. No games. Do the route like the methods tell you to when you're on a time study. We disallow all the other stuff.