helper boards and helper time

Billy

Well-Known Member
If they dont want the helper to cause me to be overallowed, then they dont need to give me a helper in the first place. Or they could adjust the allowances to where they actually have some basis in reality. Or they can do nothing. I get paid the same no matter what, so it really doesnt matter to me.

agreed, but honestly I don't care about their numbers. I run a 30 year pace and provide a fair days work. I'll take a helper regardless of their planned day. I keep the board moving, and take all my breaks at the contracted times. I am always over allowed, but unless they remove some rules ( methods ) I always will be.
 

The Blackadder

Are you not amused?
I think that IE guys and gals should all be helpers for xmas I think it would do them all well to get out of the office get some fresh air and nice workout.
They could also help me find those packages in the back that according to my EDD are right there in the 2789 section right there.... I mean where else could it be?

Merry Chirstmas.

Or maybe UPS could get me a magic elf like santa has, who can find the packages.
 

tourists24

Well-Known Member
All here are correct that the rule about helper boards is stipid...

However, it does NOT help any metric or make people look better on paper. The reason is even dumber than that.... (Not worth going into).

Now....

In 35 years (and many of them in I.E.), I have created coutless allowances. I have taught scores of work measurement classes. I have audited work measurement in many districts and regions. I have also created many original analysis and implemented allowance variances.

When you assert that work measurement is a 50 year old conspiracy to steal from drivers that is not only silly... Its a charge against many honest UPSers both past and present.

Your word intent is a big one. You assert that this is a criminal activity despite any evidence to the contrary.

I know... You will say that there is no way to fix an allowance. Untrue. Go find out if there are any variances in your district or region.

Is work measurement perfect? No. Is it used properly always? No. This is a long way from an intent to steal.

so YOU are the one in the cubicle.......
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
wait,, im very curious,, i use a pure runner,, he never touches the diad,, there is no reason for him to,, he will be fired the day after xmas,, why vest the time,, or even more important,, why waste the time,,however,, since i do not have the helper use a diad our ojs team creates a board and puts 30 stops into it,,, im curious tho,, who is this meant to appease???

Trust me.... Its a very stupid reason. I will not argue the virtues of ensuring every helper gets a board or the just as stupid rule of how many stops they must complete in the board.

It makes no one look better..... Its a really stupid reason.
 

brownmonster

Man of Great Wisdom
Trust me.... Its a very stupid reason. I will not argue the virtues of ensuring every helper gets a board or the just as stupid rule of how many stops they must complete in the board.

It makes no one look better..... Its a really stupid reason.

That explains why they want a minumum of 41 stops in the helper board. 41 must be the magic number.
 

upsgrunt

Well-Known Member
Trust me.... Its a very stupid reason. I will not argue the virtues of ensuring every helper gets a board or the just as stupid rule of how many stops they must complete in the board.

It makes no one look better..... Its a really stupid reason.

C'mon P man- lay it on us. I'm dying to know the reason no matter how stupid it is.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
in my center we have to put 61 stops in it

In my center they roll four dice and then divide the sum by the number of letters in your last name. The result is then multiplied by the temperature outside, and the result is how many stops you are told to put in the helper board....but only on even numbered days. On the odd numbered days, they use five dice instead of four.

Over the years I have also learned that, regardless of whatever that magic number might be, you wont get in trouble for failing to meet it. And once the sh%t really starts hitting the fan in mid-December they will quit whining about that number altogether and start focusing on the stuff that actually matters, like making service on the packages.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Boy I'm glad I don't have a helper, seems very stressful.


Its only stressful if your management team tries to micromanage how you use him.

We got slammed today and everybody was maxed out. My sup came to me in the morning and told me to use my helper as much as I felt was needed, and to get done early by any means necessary so that I could take stops off of another driver.

Wow. What a concept...actually trusting my judgement to make good and productive business decisions instead of having to micromanage and nitpick every little detail down to the gnat's ass. No quota of stops in his board, no arbitrary limit on his hours, just put the pedal to the metal and get the damn boxes delivered. Peak season the way it should be. It was kind of nice, actually. I am perfectly happy to bust my ass for 11.5 hours as long as I am not having to try and jump through a bunch of stupid hoops at the same time.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
Yesterday both my helper and I had helper boards and our center was unable to download EDD so we went "old school". My helper did struggle with this as he had to first type in the address and then sheet the pkg--we missed a NDA scan because of this. He was sure he had scanned the package but turns out he was not in the shipper number field when he scanned it.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
Wow. You had to use paper???
50 packages per page! No markovers!

No, not that old school. We had to type in each address and then try to find all of the packages for each address. We only had to backtrack a few times. Thankfully we didn't have a lot of bulk yesterday so I was able to sort each section as we delivered. Punched out at 1750 w/165 stops. Used my helper for 4.99 hours.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
"Old school" doesnt involve a DIAD at all.

"Old school" is a brickloaded P-600 with your helper standing all day because there was no jump seat.

"Old school" is a couple of clipboards full of 50-liners and carbon paper. No PAL labels, no EDD, no manifest, a "stop count" that was an educated guess at best, and maybe half of the boxes with an illegibly scrawled sequence number if you were lucky.

"Old school" is bringing 200 missed stops back to the building at 11:00 at night. "Old school" is having several hundred missed stops stashed in barns and sheds all over your route that wont get delivered until the week after Xmas because you were dispatched with 1400 cubic feet of volume per day in a 600 cubic-foot car.

"Old school" also meant not getting pestered with DIAD text messages, no Telematics, and no silly quotas on how many stops go in the helper board. Ah, the good old days!
 

MassWineGuy

Well-Known Member
I just started my second season as a helper. I like the job a lot depsite the very low pay. The drivers I've met have all been great and very helpful. But the DIAD drives me crazy. Last year we were told in orientation that the driver would train us. When I told this to my driver, he started laughing out loud. This year, we spent about 30 minutes on the board during orientation, mostly typing in ficticious delivery addresses.

About six out of 10 times using the board, something goes wrong and I can't complete all the information needed, though I do deliver the package and tell my driver. I think it's nuts for UPS to believe that we can get competent on the board with the near-complete lack of training they give us. At least here in Massachusetts. Also, the helpers here get the older, larger boards and most of the time it takes about a dozen tries to get the scan. Even when my driver tries. It makes me feel very stupid, and I use computers every day.
 

brownmonster

Man of Great Wisdom
I just started my second season as a helper. I like the job a lot depsite the very low pay. The drivers I've met have all been great and very helpful. But the DIAD drives me crazy. Last year we were told in orientation that the driver would train us. When I told this to my driver, he started laughing out loud. This year, we spent about 30 minutes on the board during orientation, mostly typing in ficticious delivery addresses.

About six out of 10 times using the board, something goes wrong and I can't complete all the information needed, though I do deliver the package and tell my driver. I think it's nuts for UPS to believe that we can get competent on the board with the near-complete lack of training they give us. At least here in Massachusetts. Also, the helpers here get the older, larger boards and most of the time it takes about a dozen tries to get the scan. Even when my driver tries. It makes me feel very stupid, and I use computers every day.

Great isn't it?
 

laffter

Well-Known Member
The first couple of weeks this season, they've given me one of the new DIADs, as a helper. Suddenly, last week, they started giving me the older ones. The ones you guys were using last year. Now, last year, they gave helpers the older older ones. The ones that don't have GPS and take about 20 tries to scan. So, while I'm grateful that those are gone, I'm wondering why they're now giving us the old ones and not the new ones.

To the drivers here who have had helpers this season: which version have you been getting as your helper DIAD?
 

brown bomber

brown bomber
old school, is a seasoned veteran "cherry picking" his route, and dumping those stops on the split car, that are a pain in his ass

old school, is being a reliable and knowledgable swing driver...on a non-existent route during peak season.......basically, all the pkgs, that were LIB (left in building), were dumped in your car....this was usually about a dozen tote boxes covering over parts of 3 counties or they would invent a route for you
 

brown bomber

brown bomber
by the way, I used to "forget", to take my helper board w/ me, and when forced to take the board, I would put my 1st dozen stops in before I picked up my helper, then leave it in the back of the pkg. car this system worked out well....I recorded the pkgs., told the helper where to leave the pkgs., I only had 1 helper, that I feel could have operated a DIAD properly, and that was 20 yrs. ago
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
About six out of 10 times using the board, something goes wrong and I can't complete all the information needed, though I do deliver the package and tell my driver. I think it's nuts for UPS to believe that we can get competent on the board with the near-complete lack of training they give us. At least here in Massachusetts. Also, the helpers here get the older, larger boards and most of the time it takes about a dozen tries to get the scan. Even when my driver tries. It makes me feel very stupid, and I use computers every day.

You are correct about the "training" you received being totally inadequate. Dont feel stupid. I have yet to ever have a helper who was proficient enough with a DIAD to handle multiple deliveries on his own. Your computer skills dont carry over well to a DIAD, because the DIAD is a specialized tool for a particular job that you have no experience doing. UPS's expectations regarding helpers and DIAD use are totally unrealistic, because they are formulated by people who have never done the job themselves. A helper can still be quite effective without having DIAD skills as long as his driver can accept that fact and work with it. If I have a helper who cant master the DIAD, rather than getting frustrated with him I just adapt by running both DIADS myself when needed and "setting up" the next stop to where all the helper needs to do is obtain a signature where required. On a heavy DR route like I used to have, the "helper" DIADS wound up getting tossed on a shelf anyway...I never bothered trying to comply with the silly quotas for stops in the helper board that some cubicle drone came up with.

Another issue that gets in the way of a smooth routine is when the driver/helper team is issued dissimilar versions of the DIAD. UPS saves the "older" versions of the DIAD for peak season use as a cost-saving measure, but it makes the job of training helpers far more difficult. I currently have the DIAD V; in a pinch I could revert back to using a IV fairly quickly if I had to, but trying to talk a helper thru a problem he is having with a version that I havent used in a year or more can be very difficult. It would almost be better if teams were issued identical DIADS, even if it meant the driver had to use an older model for peak.
 
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