For package car loaders: has peak started where you are? How has it been?

[laffter]

On Mondays here, routes are usually cut. On my belt, we are typically down 3 cars.
Yesterday, not only were no cars removed, but 5 more cars were added. We were short two people at the start of the shift, and one guy passed out in one of his trucks (unsure why) and an ambulance had to be called. But that's irrelevant to this post.
So I guess around here, Monday was the start of peak. My area was very light, however. We were coming in at 3:50, down from 4:20. I didn't leave until after 9.

Today, Tuesday, our start time was 2:30. I think even more cars were added. We literally had our asses reamed. And I'm talking a no-lube sort of reaming. Very unpleasant.

There was an area on my belt with a gap between cars, and packages were being stacked onto pallets... eventually.

From what I have witnessed today, this building, running 7 belts, is not large enough to efficiently handle the volume we just saw.
Not only is it not even December yet, but I don't remember any single day being this bad least peak.

Are you guys seeing the same thing happening where you are? How bad was it today?

 

[Grouchy]

Holy cow!

7 belts!? I guess my center is nothing compared to yours. We are very small and just have one main belt. Peak pretty much started last Wednesday for us but it wasn't till this week that our start time was adjusted. Yeah our volume was ridiculous today. We started at 3:30am and didn't leave till about 9am and there was A LOT left that the drivers had to load up on their own. Everyone who's been there for prior peaks say this has got to be one of the crazier ones. This is my first and it's definitely not scaring me away haha. I actually feel bad for the drivers who have to deal with this on their own. I'm also driver/helping later today on top of this crazy morning!

 

[laffter]

there was A LOT left that the drivers had to load up on their own.

A lot of our drivers showed up around 8 today, I think. They, along with the preloaders, were helping clean up the belt. My drivers helped a lot. I am at the very end of the belt, so I have to spend a lot of time attending to other issues, such as missed irregs, and trying to make sure that missorts get where they are supposed to go, before those drivers leave.

Hm, I'm going to try to explain something else that was going on today. I'm not sure how well I can explain it because I'm not entirely sure why they decided this was a good idea.

I'll start off by quickly describing how our belts are setup. Each belt has an upper and lower belt. Our upper belt does not move during preload (only twilight). We have big slides behind the upper belt where packages for our respective areas collect into. The bottom belt is turned on and is used for irregs. Each belt has a pickoff. The pickoff is fed by a really wide belt, and has to divert each package into our respective areas... where they collect up on the side for us to sort through and load.

So, today, I come to my area, and I'm seeing packages on my slide for routes that belong to other belts, but they are all PAL'd to our belt, and specifically my area. So this is what was happening... our belt sup was up by the wide belt that feeds the pickoff (yes, he was working, the entire shift). He is supposed to pull all of these weird packages off and put them on some other belt that feeds some trailers that supposedly were docked back there. Now, the belt moves too quickly for him to do this. Many, many of these packages are missed. And who gets them in the end? I do, mostly, as they are PAL'd to my area. I'm supposed to toss them onto the bottom belt where they can be recirculated back into the system, and the sup can have another shot at pulling them off. Very efficient, yes. I had to handle the same Weber grill (slightly under 70lb) approximately three times, because he couldn't pull it off in time, or it was too large, heavy, and awkward to move from his position.

I probably spent 50% of my time today, not actually loading my cars, but sorting through the mess on my slide, and tossing these packages on the bottom belt. Along with dealing with other peoples' irregs, and irregs that are PAL'd to my area but don't belong to me because they are part of these weird packages (I don't know what else to call them). Keeping in mind that it was already a heavy day. Two of my cars were "blown out", the third was light, because he's getting a second truckload of crap later on in the day. Oh, I also had to toss crap tons of missorts on the bottom belt as well. Probably because the area they belong to was getting jammed up and backing up to the pickoff, and the pickoff needs somewhere to send to them. I also spent a little bit of time in another area, pushing packages aside, piling them up, whatever I could do to prevent the flow from backing up to the pickoff. Typically, this is something our sup would do, but he couldn't leave his post, or all hell (a worse hell than we were already in) would break loose. In some cases I just had to start throwing packages on the ground. There was nowhere to put them. Absolutely, nowhere. And this wasn't even my area.

I honestly do not know how the other belts in the building were doing today. I'm not sure they were as heavy as we were. But my belt cannot handle the volume it saw today. The events that transpired are not what I would consider "handling". It's more like... "dealing with".

Hopefully some of this made sense. I'm not the best are describing things that I don't know all of the terminology for.

I didn't leave today until 9:32. I fear for the rest of the season.

 

[Brownslave688]

Strap up its gonna be a bumpy ride. I'm going to take a guess that with the back log of service failures we will see peak last until the new year.

 

[UPSmeoff]

Just imagine....UPS has been doing this for over a hundred years!, and every peak is like a surprise to mgmt.....what do you mean we don't have enough pkg cars, hand trucks, preloaders, local sorters, driver helpers.
I have an idea.....let's start early on Monday to help get the volume back earlier, but let's start the preload a 5 and make them do 5 hours of work in 3 so when the drivers start at 8 we can pay the drivers AND the preloaders to load trucks.....
I swear UPS will spend a dollar to save a nickel.

 

[mitchemracing4]

Peak started today for us , I asked yesterday if I could come in early , being a 11 year veteran and knowing how peak is . I was told to come in at the same time 4:00 . I did not leave till 10 this morning . My drivers did not leave till 9:30 . we ran 3 box lines with around 50 routs a piece and 3 Outbound Belts out of 14 with 5 routes a piece . Added 15 routes total from yesterday . I was told to be there at 3:15 in the morning . Still not early enough in my opinion . Just in my loads I add about 50 packages that was either air or commit time stops that did not even get on a car due to the amount of volume that I was still getting .

 

[Scottyhawk]

12:15 start time on Monday finished at 9:15 normally load two straight trucks, ended up loading 4 and working on 2 others with 2 blowing out and having them replaced with 2 rentals to finish the loading, today 12:40 start time, but thankfully was pulled at 6:15 to do EAM, by the time I finished it was a 13 and a half hour day, running air and savers left in the building getting home an hour ago. Tommorow 12:40 start time.
FYI we have 7 main belts running from the unload in our building as well
Gotta love peak

 

[mitchemracing4]

12:15 ? geez , I wish they would let me come in that early ! Kudos to you for makin the money !

 

[arice11]

i helped a seasoned loader try to SPA a heavy truckload of carpets, augers and such. Most of them printed blank tickets. Or no tickets. It was a cluster bomb of disaster

 

[kmac126]

7 belts?! holy . we only have two main belts, start time 230

 

[Anonymous 10]

Yes

 

[tre305]

Lol seven belts doesn't seem like alot but then again my center only has 4 main belts and we're expecting 37k come Thursday. I would love to see our nearby Miami and Hialeah hubs in action, now those places have miles and miles of belts!

 

[Nimnim]

Yep, and somehow they never see it coming. Yesterday the Twilight sort ended up working into the Midnight sort and the Midnight sort working into Preload. I'm not used to getting OT without doing extra work after my normal stuff is done.

 

[cosmo1]

Yes

Pretty much agree.

 

[Macbrother]

We have three belts. Like yours several runs are busted out on mondays, but were in this monday. This week of "cyber monday" however, is one of the worst, tomorrow; in many centers (mine for sure) will probably be one of the worst three days of the year. Our start time is the earliest it will ever be (3:30 am) and mgmt has promised extra trucks on all belts. Even though the volume's WAY up, I may have a slightly easier (but longer) day since I'll have one less truck to load (they're going to add two extra loaders to each belt).

Honestly, everyone's expecting Armageddon tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. But don't think it will only get worse from here, it should slow down somewhat next week, then slowly ramp back up until christmas eve. I believe the estimated $ amount spent on cyber monday was something like 1.8 billion; this is a uniquely high week.

 

[laffter]

Honestly, everyone's expecting Armageddon tomorrow.

Thank you for crushing my hopes and dreams. I was telling myself, this has to have been a fluke. No way in hell this can happen again... *shakes fist*

I driver helped for seven hours afterward. I am ... exhausted. Every time we had the doors closed for any extended period of time, with the heat running, I felt my eyes slowly shutting.

 

[htown0721]

Twighlight-190k Night sort-192k, preload-12 belts 100k...hello peak

 

['Lord Brown's bidding']

:song to tune of "It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Christmas"::It's beginning to feel a lot like PEAK time!On the belts and slides.....

 

['Lord Brown's bidding']

Sigh...songs of the season.....

 

[cosmo1]

We have three belts. Like yours several runs are busted out on mondays, but were in this monday. This week of "cyber monday" however, is one of the worst, tomorrow; in many centers (mine for sure) will probably be one of the worst three days of the year. Our start time is the earliest it will ever be (3:30 am) and mgmt has promised extra trucks on all belts. Even though the volume's WAY up, I may have a slightly easier (but longer) day since I'll have one less truck to load (they're going to add two extra loaders to each belt).

Honestly, everyone's expecting Armageddon tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. But don't think it will only get worse from here, it should slow down somewhat next week, then slowly ramp back up until christmas eve. I believe the estimated $ amount spent on cyber monday was something like 1.8 billion; this is a uniquely high week.

You've been at UPS about a year now, right? And you're making forecasts for peak already. One thing I've learned in my 35 peaks, is never try to predict what's going to happen tomorrow.