FAIR WARNING.

[HuckToohey]

As an employee with over thirty years service and close to retirement, a cautionary word to all who entertain the thought of working for FedEx Express. This company has changed from compassion to callousness. And does not resemble in any fashion the Federal Express by which I was hired. 1996 was the turning point. No longer are you a person with human limits. You will become a hostage who will be required to solve all problems of overwhelmed sort facilities, division in-fighting and miscommunication, lack of equipment, improper vehicles for the terrain you service, management abuse and favoritism. These will all land in your lap. And you will be held accountable for solving all these problems for the customer. And if you don't? It will be your fault for not doing so. We've all read the headlines over the past three years? Terrible service? Packages taking several days to arrive to the recipient? Packages going undelivered on their commit day? It will be your duty and yours alone to rectify this.
In years past there was a true pride working for Federal Express. Getting a Federal Express delivery was something special and reserved for important shipments. Over the years with FedEx always playing catch-up to U.P.S., this has changed. It started with L.L.Bean. Now? Breakfast cereal, diapers, dog food, office furniture, mattresses and trampolines via Amazon to those who choose to point and click instead of leaving their home. It will get worse not better, until robot technology renders you obsolete.
And if you incur and injury while working long hours in sometimes dangerous weather and working conditions? Nine times out of ten it will be judged, yes...judged, your fault and it will count against you. Rarely, very rarely FedEx will assume responsibility for the injuries sustained while performing your work duties.
If you absolutely must work for FedEx Express? Here is a tip. Stay part-time and go to school on the tuition reimbursement programs. Stay part-time and find another job to supplement your income. Do not. I repeat do not accept any full time courier positions. You will regret it. You will lose precious time with your wife, children and family. You will be stressed out and over worked, your body and spirit broken. Say goodbye to holiday family functions, school plays and spur-of-the-moment gatherings.
Still determined? I submit the U.S. Military, law enforcement or firefighting is a better choice. Or U.P.S. The hours are all the same, but the future, retirement and your self esteem will be much, much better.

Good luck and God Bless.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

Add delivering 150 lb boxes and you can scratch FEDEX off and substitute UPS

 

[HuckToohey]

Add delivering 150 lb boxes and you can scratch FEDEX off and substitute UPS

Indeed.

 

[dmac1]

Same goes for ground/HD but all that for lower pay for the drivers. And the drivers' direct managers mostly have ZERO management experience.

And I get a lot of stuff delivered from Amazon, cheaper than I can buy it locally, but I never order overnight. so all deliveries are by ground/HD/UPS/OnTrac. No actual Amazon drivers here yet.

 

[MAKAVELI]

Add delivering 150 lb boxes and you can scratch FEDEX off and substitute UPS

We get a lot of 150 lb crap as well. You'd be surprised at how willing some shippers are to spend big $ to send their crap through our system.

 

[1989]

 

[Gone fishin]

Welcome to the USA

 

[Duckwithapipboy]

We get a lot of 150 lb crap as well. You'd be surprised at how willing some shippers are to spend big $ to send their crap through our system.

Not to mention how cut and dry the auditors are with the 150 lb+ packages. When I first started we had a sweeper lift up a irreg that fell apart. Listed as 130 lbs that had three 70 lb weights fall out. All they do is charge the shipper a nominal penalty fee and then ship it anyway without labeling the correction.

 

[Route 66]

HuckToohey, you sure painted a very bleak and unflattering portrait of this company - a company which has received countless "Best Places To Work For _____" awards






Unfortunately I can't disagree with a single word of it.

 

[!Retired!]

You will lose precious time with your wife, children and family. You will be stressed out and over worked, your body and spirit broken. Say goodbye to holiday family functions, school plays and spur-of-the-moment gatherings.
Still determined? I submit the U.S. Military, law enforcement or firefighting is a better choice. Or U.P.S. The hours are all the same, but the future, retirement and your self esteem will be much, much better.

I have NEVER missed a family function, recital, time with my wife and kids because of work. Sure, PEAK is PEAK. We (my family) allow for the 3-4 days I come home later. But, even then I'm home for dinner. I'm able to take my youngest to volleyball practice and, when she was swimming, the oldest to swim practice and her meets.

UPS hours are not even close to being the same as ours. I see the driver by my house delivering at 6:00, 7:00 and, sometimes even 8:00 at night. FedEx equivalent to UPS hours would be like doing a double everyday with a later start time. Ask UpstateNYUPSer what his hours are. Sure, the pay and benefits are better. But, it can't replace the time missed at home or with the kids.

P.S. My kids are now 16 + 18. So, if I had the opportunity, I might switch to UPS. But, I could NOT afford to start as a handler/loader for 2, 3, 10, whatever amount of years it takes to get a driver position.

 

[Sign___Here]

The Federal express culture change indeed started in 1996-1997. The purchase of Caliber Sytems was huge for Fred but the writing on the wall started for all of us at express. The first buyout of Salaried Positions in the early 2000's was the next big change. We lost almost double what they expected (mainly management positions that had great knowledge,experience, and wisdom) of the Federal Express that was the once great company. As time has gone by the company has failed Express employees by hiring/adding new management that really are clueless and do not deserve the positions they have. Its too bad that Fred and his boys chose RPS over his own employees at Expess.Corporate greed is at an alltime high with all the policys that have changed Express like breaks, reaatempt P-1s, micro managing at every station!! THey wan us to be like UPS so bad but they would never pay us or give us great benefits. Thanks Fred you once had a Great Company, but now $$$ and shareholders destroyed many of us at Express.

 

[CJinx]

Not to mention how cut and dry the auditors are with the 150 lb+ packages. When I first started we had a sweeper lift up a irreg that fell apart. Listed as 130 lbs that had three 70 lb weights fall out. All they do is charge the shipper a nominal penalty fee and then ship it anyway without labeling the correction.

We've had this happen in my station before. We repackaged the items into separate, manageable shipments and charged the shipper for the additional parcels and weight. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to know that you shouldn't ship 150+ lbs of freight in single-wall corrugated cardboard boxes that are only rated for 65 lbs, and that adding plastic straps doesn't magically make it acceptable (they only really make it more susceptible to damage when people attempt to lift by the straps and shred the carton).

 

[Operational needs]

I had an interesting discussion with a newer manager at my station yesterday. (Hopefully he doesn't see this and I get fired. Lol). Our freight came in late...once again. He said, FO would go out with everything else. I told him that once again we are failing our customers and it's sad. He responds with (I you not) Of course we are going to practice Customer Service Integrity by making sure businesses are delivered first as well as bulks. Wut??? How is it practicing Integrity by delivering resis late? I remember when it was imperative that EVERYTHING was delivered on time. He said, Do you think Jane Doe knows whether her Amazon box is delivered on time while she's at work? My response, Integrity is doing the right thing whether anyone is there to see it or not. Don't even talk to me about CSI when we're not practicing it. He actually sounded like he was reading from a script. Lol.

 

[Oldfart]

I had an interesting discussion with a newer manager at my station yesterday. (Hopefully he doesn't see this and I get fired. Lol). Our freight came in late...once again. He said, FO would go out with everything else. I told him that once again we are failing our customers and it's sad. He responds with (I you not) Of course we are going to practice Customer Service Integrity by making sure businesses are delivered first as well as bulks. Wut??? How is it practicing Integrity by delivering resis late? I remember when it was imperative that EVERYTHING was delivered on time. He said, Do you think Jane Doe knows whether her Amazon box is delivered on time while she's at work? My response, Integrity is doing the right thing whether anyone is there to see it or not. Don't even talk to me about CSI when we're not practicing it. He actually sounded like he was reading from a script. Lol.

It has been common practice for my entire 40+ years to concentrate on business stops over resi. While Jane Doe might track her package at work and know her Amazon box was delivered late, in most cases no harm is done by delivering it late. She isn't even home. A business delivery might include a contract bid, a machine part to get a factory running again, or even hot paychecks for anxious workers. While resi deliveries are a part of the equation, business deliveries are always gonna take priority. Why do you thing we went with the later commit time on resi SOS? I would imagine 75% of my resi deliveries are not even home when I deliver to them. I know when we have a disruption and straight line, I do 99% business and throw in an occasional resi. As far as bulks, I guess you are just to naive to know why they too take priority. 150 piece bulk or a Amazon box with a widget in it. Which do you think is more critical in the big picture? Nobody likes late deliveries but when they happen, you try to minimize the disruption that late delivery will cause.

 

[Operational needs]

It has been common practice for my entire 40+ years to concentrate on business stops over resi. While Jane Doe might track her package at work and know her Amazon box was delivered late, in most cases no harm is done by delivering it late. She isn't even home. A business delivery might include a contract bid, a machine part to get a factory running again, or even hot paychecks for anxious workers. While resi deliveries are a part of the equation, business deliveries are always gonna take priority. Why do you thing we went with the later commit time on resi SOS? I would imagine 75% of my resi deliveries are not even home when I deliver to them. I know when we have a disruption and straight line, I do 99% business and throw in an occasional resi. As far as bulks, I guess you are just to naive to know why they too take priority. 150 piece bulk or a Amazon box with a widget in it. Which do you think is more critical in the big picture? Nobody likes late deliveries but when they happen, you try to minimize the disruption that late delivery will cause.

Duh! Obviously I know why bulks take priority, Einstein. My point WAS that EVERY customer is paying for their package(s) to be delivered by a certain time and that by us (Fedex) not fulfilling our end of the bargain, we are failing our customers. It's just that simple. Got that?

 

[Purplepackage]

It has been common practice for my entire 40+ years to concentrate on business stops over resi. While Jane Doe might track her package at work and know her Amazon box was delivered late, in most cases no harm is done by delivering it late. She isn't even home. A business delivery might include a contract bid, a machine part to get a factory running again, or even hot paychecks for anxious workers. While resi deliveries are a part of the equation, business deliveries are always gonna take priority. Why do you thing we went with the later commit time on resi SOS? I would imagine 75% of my resi deliveries are not even home when I deliver to them. I know when we have a disruption and straight line, I do 99% business and throw in an occasional resi. As far as bulks, I guess you are just to naive to know why they too take priority. 150 piece bulk or a Amazon box with a widget in it. Which do you think is more critical in the big picture? Nobody likes late deliveries but when they happen, you try to minimize the disruption that late delivery will cause.

Service disruption for me is deliver everything in the fastest order possible, if 1 buisness is at the end of the route and they just so happen to get their delivery at 5pm they should complain to corporate about it. We had a disruption almost everyday last week and the weather really wasn't bad, at that point it isn't my problem

 

[Operational needs]

It has been common practice for my entire 40+ years to concentrate on business stops over resi. While Jane Doe might track her package at work and know her Amazon box was delivered late, in most cases no harm is done by delivering it late. She isn't even home. A business delivery might include a contract bid, a machine part to get a factory running again, or even hot paychecks for anxious workers. While resi deliveries are a part of the equation, business deliveries are always gonna take priority. Why do you thing we went with the later commit time on resi SOS? I would imagine 75% of my resi deliveries are not even home when I deliver to them. I know when we have a disruption and straight line, I do 99% business and throw in an occasional resi. As far as bulks, I guess you are just to naive to know why they too take priority. 150 piece bulk or a Amazon box with a widget in it. Which do you think is more critical in the big picture? Nobody likes late deliveries but when they happen, you try to minimize the disruption that late delivery will cause.

Another thing I just thought of and yet another reason why resis can be just as important as businesses.... I had a FO last Friday, for a town farthest away from my station, that I delivered at 1730, because once again, we had late freight. The old man came out and asked me a bunch of questions. Come to find out, it was an expedited passport that his daughter SHOULD have had by the 10:30 commit so, she could go to the passport office and be ready for her flight on Monday. But because I didn't deliver it until 1730, she probably had to change her flight to Tuesday. FAIL, FedEx. Who are we to judge what is more important? What if a package for a resi contains something someone needs for a funeral that morning and they don't get it until that evening? Or something for a morning wedding that doesn't arrive til afternoon? What happened to every package being a Golden Package??

 

[vantexan]

Another thing I just thought of and yet another reason why resis can be just as important as businesses.... I had a FO last Friday, for a town farthest away from my station, that I delivered at 1730, because once again, we had late freight. The old man came out and asked me a bunch of questions. Come to find out, it was an expedited passport that his daughter SHOULD have had by the 10:30 commit so, she could go to the passport office and be ready for her flight on Monday. But because I didn't deliver it until 1730, she probably had to change her flight to Tuesday. FAIL, FedEx. Who are we to judge what is more important? What if a package for a resi contains something someone needs for a funeral that morning and they don't get it until that evening? Or something for a morning wedding that doesn't arrive til afternoon? What happened to every package being a Golden Package??

In fairness to FedEx there are a lot of variables factoring into why a pkg is late. Which is why I think the company focuses on RDL's over WDL's. Most people, shippers and recipients, understand that things like bad weather and mechanical failures happen and are ok as long as they get their pkg same day. It's when important pkgs are delayed til next day or beyond that they get upset mostly. The small percentage that get angry over a pkg arriving a few minutes past it's commit time aren't worth worrying about IMO. I always tried to get business P1 off first, especially hospitals and other medical offices. I always tried to get all P1 off on time but I've had enough customers be real jerks about my arriving at 1025 that I stopped caring. Quite a few out in 1630 commit areas just can't grasp why I don't arrive before 1445, especially if they moved there from 1030 areas. I've literally heard it all. And I've heard the incredibly nasty abuse mgrs have to repeatedly take from customers on the phone in some areas of the country who see every delay, every mistake as a way to tear someone a new one. It's no wonder so many mgrs jumped at that buyout years ago. And believe me, I've dealt with some real jackass mgrs over the years. But the flip side is ops mgrs have it coming at them from every direction. They've got unhappy couriers, angry customers, demanding bosses. Constant paperwork, constant hiring issues. Constantly putting out fires. Doesn't bring the best out of many of them. If you've got a good one who keeps it together and makes good decisions be thankful.

 

[Purplepackage]

In fairness to FedEx there are a lot of variables factoring into why a pkg is late. Which is why I think the company focuses on RDL's over WDL's. Most people, shippers and recipients, understand that things like bad weather and mechanical failures happen and are ok as long as they get their pkg same day. It's when important pkgs are delayed til next day or beyond that they get upset mostly. The small percentage that get angry over a pkg arriving a few minutes past it's commit time aren't worth worrying about IMO. I always tried to get business P1 off first, especially hospitals and other medical offices. I always tried to get all P1 off on time but I've had enough customers be real jerks about my arriving at 1025 that I stopped caring. Quite a few out in 1630 commit areas just can't grasp why I don't arrive before 1445, especially if they moved there from 1030 areas. I've literally heard it all. And I've heard the incredibly nasty abuse mgrs have to repeatedly take from customers on the phone in some areas of the country who see every delay, every mistake as a way to tear someone a new one. It's no wonder so many mgrs jumped at that buyout years ago. And believe me, I've dealt with some real jackass mgrs over the years. But the flip side is ops mgrs have it coming at them from every direction. They've got unhappy couriers, angry customers, demanding bosses. Constant paperwork, constant hiring issues. Constantly putting out fires. Doesn't bring the best out of many of them. If you've got a good one who keeps it together and makes good decisions be thankful.

One time my station literally lost a package.

A courier took the letter out of his bucket and sent it down the belt to B courier. Somewhere I between the package went missing, only scan on the package was a sip no van and no POD, how do you think the customer felt about that?

 

[Operational needs]

In fairness to FedEx there are a lot of variables factoring into why a pkg is late. Which is why I think the company focuses on RDL's over WDL's. Most people, shippers and recipients, understand that things like bad weather and mechanical failures happen and are ok as long as they get their pkg same day. It's when important pkgs are delayed til next day or beyond that they get upset mostly. The small percentage that get angry over a pkg arriving a few minutes past it's commit time aren't worth worrying about IMO. I always tried to get business P1 off first, especially hospitals and other medical offices. I always tried to get all P1 off on time but I've had enough customers be real jerks about my arriving at 1025 that I stopped caring. Quite a few out in 1630 commit areas just can't grasp why I don't arrive before 1445, especially if they moved there from 1030 areas. I've literally heard it all. And I've heard the incredibly nasty abuse mgrs have to repeatedly take from customers on the phone in some areas of the country who see every delay, every mistake as a way to tear someone a new one. It's no wonder so many mgrs jumped at that buyout years ago. And believe me, I've dealt with some real jackass mgrs over the years. But the flip side is ops mgrs have it coming at them from every direction. They've got unhappy couriers, angry customers, demanding bosses. Constant paperwork, constant hiring issues. Constantly putting out fires. Doesn't bring the best out of many of them. If you've got a good one who keeps it together and makes good decisions be thankful.

I understand all that, but they shouldn't be preaching to us about Customer Service Integrity on the front line when some stations are having late freight EVERY DAY. That starts at the top. These stupid motivational slogans they come up with are just so it appears they care. Obviously, FedEx is having serious manpower issues and they can't get the planes out on time. No way anyone can convince me that daily late freight is mechanical or weather related. Only occasionally.

BTW, I've been very fortunate with managers through the years. Only one or two jerks. My manager now is the best yet!