I didn't think I would get into the specifics of the local sort atmosphere itself, but I feel there are a few things that should be mentioned.
6:15pm is what the start time was this past Friday, and the shift ended at 9:45pm. The absurd thing about it is that they set break time way too late. I believe according to the contract, break has to be between the 2nd and 3rd hour? Well they had break just shy of 3 hours in at 9:05, at which point there was only 30 minutes left of work after break. Why not just have it half way in? On the preload we run between roughly 4:30am and just about everyone is done by 8:30am, but yet break is around 6:45am, much closer to half way through.
Everyone on the preload was telling me that local sort is easier and alot more laid back. Also they said just don't do the loading of the trailers. When I got to the local sort I was told that I was going to load a retainer truck that gets about 400-500 packages and each needs to be scanned. That sounded pretty good to me, but it only lasted about 15 minutes because shortly after we started they asked me to jump in the trailer next to the retrainer truck and help the other loader. So I never ended up getting back to the retainer truck. The entire 3.5 hours involved someone scanning each package and then just rolling the packages down a couple rollers into the trailer. Then the other loader and myself had to pick every single package up off the ground and stack it. The whole time I was thinking to myself "why do they not have a better setup then forcing the loader to pickup everyone of the 1600+ packages off the ground". I talked to the shift supervisor afterwards and asked him why they didnt have roller stands going under all the rollers so the loader could pickup the packages at waist height and save alot of energy. The answer was something along the lines of packages can fall off the rollers and its a safety issue. As if asking a loader to pickup 1600+ packages off the ground in under 3.5 hours isnt a safety issue. A bunch of the guys didnt speak very good english or garbled alot when they talked, but now that I think about it it only seemed to be the guys that I worked around that where like this. So I can't see myself loading trailers unless they figure out a better setup for getting the packages into the trailer, but then again loading trailers is a little too monotonous and brainless also. Loading the retainer truck and then helping out with the trailer at times, which one guy did, would be fine with me, but I don't think I want to be involved with the trailer loading at all.
So I agreed to go in this coming Tuesday and I requested trying another position. Its the day after Labor Day so apparently its going to be very heavy. Does anyone here have experience with different positions on the local sort? How are they different, slower, faster, less weight, more weight, more or less training needed?
I have almost 12 years seniority so I shouldnt have a problem getting into a "preferred" position. At this point I think I would prefer a position that requires a bit more brain and a bit less brawn.