I had the wonderful pleasure of being the first driver in my Center to start a Helper today. I used to refuse one, but they force me to take one now. It was a terrible day to start one, the weather forecast called for five inches of rain and it fell all day. He got pretty wet today. He worked hard, he is a Preload Primary Sorter instead of somebody off the street.
Like stated by others, there are pros and cons. I work better and can concentrate when I'm by myself. I don't like having to tell somebody what to do all day and worry about his safety. I ran my complete route and got extra stops off the next route to build mine up, the volume is still down compared to this time next year. My SPORH was actually down today, and I got an extra hour of overtime.
I told this guy to meet me at 11AM and showed him on a map where the meet point was. He called me at 11:01 and he is still sitting at his house. It wasn't the best way to start out the season. I will give him a day or two to show some improvement. I'm happy to burn my last week of vacation next week. Thirty more working days till Christmas for most, I have twenty-five.