Is it getting that bad elswhere?

[Thebrowntruth]

The years may change, the seasons may change, but people never change.

Vette,

We have disagreed before but i hope you see the problem for what it is today. There is NO substitute for experience and i AM NOT questioning yours. However, one thing you didnt mention that HASNT changed is the starting wages for our P/T workforce. I have been around long enough to say that you would without a doubt be ashamed at the majority of the P/T candidates we have walking through the door today. The only cause...the pay rate hasnt changed in over a DECADE. Another old saying is garbage in garbage out. The pool of talent to sustain our company is not coming through the door as it once did.

Management is leaving the company at an unprecented rate. Facts are facts. People once again need to be the most important asset to UPS. The problems faced today indicate that one of Mr. Casey's golden rules might not be held as high as it once was.

BTW, how were those consistent years of 15-20% return on your stock investment. We are at about 3% over the last 7 years. So much for the same 'ole same 'ole.

 

[Cezanne]

Experience from the current workforce and experience from a retiree are two different stories, generally the retiree has nothing to lose, got their piece of the pie and do not understand why people are complaining about getting the crumbs. Managers and supervisors could be leaving for that very reason, the glory days of retiring early, a millionaire are over now, you will never see the killing that most managers made when the stock went public in the mid nineties. The current situation at UPS is a classic example of the haves and have nots, guessing that vette retired with a sizable pension and obtained a fair amount of stock, the let them eat cake mindset can never understand or relate to those beneath them. Study history and see where that leads, people generally get fed up and start storming the ivory castles. Will trade my current pension benefit with any manager with the same number of years vested, it is a matter of fairness, know without a doubt that both of us worked hard and provided growth and profit to the company. Fact be know that the hourly union employee has provided more service to this company than most of the management, question is who has enjoyed the awards over the years for their service, and who had control over the assets? Could be that we have too many managers and the company is weeding out the field, here is a secret that is know through out the ground levels at UPS. A good OMS is worth more than a fair manager, think of the cost savings, anybody listening

 

[pretender]

I've been a part of UPS for over 43 years as a Driver, a Supervisor, a Manager in Operations and I.E., and finally a Retiree. Believe it or not, the same complaints, and bitches I read on this web site today are exactly the same ones employees expressed in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.]

This thought has also occurred to me recently--I have been around since the 70s, and have heard each of the comments/complaints. However, I do think there are some distinctions today.

1) When I was a package car driver, the part-timers made an excellent wage; and we still had the occasional slacker. However, this is now the norm--with the exception that now they don't have a clue, and they could care less. This is our pool of future drivers and management. However, since almost no driver goes into supervision any longer, you may as well say that this is our future management pool. Almost all the full time sups I work with came straight from part-time. I am fortunate in the fact that they have been around for a while, and are "old school". However, my boss doesn't even know what a twin-screw tractor is...

2) When I first moved from part time to package car driver, it was horrible; but I toughed it out, because I was so grateful to finally be full-time. (You left out another phrase from the past: "You are luck to have a job here--There are 100 people just waiting to take your place"). However, this summer we have had 3 new drivers quit--See labor pool above...

Here is another phrase from the past: "Where would this company be without the driver?" OR "If it wasn't for the driver, this company would have gone out of business years ago." OR "It always comes down to the driver to fix everyone else's screw ups." Given the quality of the labor pool, I think we may be able to eventually retire these phrases, because the level of dedication from us old timers is just not going to be there. Here is a dirty little secret--I don't think UPS is all that concerned about the CS pension plan fiasco, because they don't want us to retire. There is a sizeable amount of people like me (early 50s, 30+ years seniority), chomping at the bit to leave. I think down deep, the company knows that they could be hit hard by the mass exodus. They would rather have us broken down, bad attitude drivers, because in the end, we still have that brown blood that somehow gets the job done.

3) Yes, the complaints about overtime have been around for years. In the past though, there was a line that was not crossed--You didn't like the overtime, but if you got mad/worked harder, you could still get done at a decent time. It has now gotten to the point that it doesn't matter--There is no more personal life. Why run to get home at 8:30pm instead of 9:00pm? Your are just going to eat dinner and fall asleep in front of the TV... You say that people have a naural bias against work measurement. Guess what--I have always thought that whatever standards UPS has given to me were fair! I have never had a problem meeting/exceeding performance measurements. The problem is, IT IS NEVER ENOUGH!! Here is another Golden Oldie: "We are really in a bind today--Can you help us out?" The next thing you know, it is part of your job.

 

[dannyboy]

Guess what--I have always thought that whatever standards UPS has given to me were fair! I have never had a problem meeting/exceeding performance measurements

They used to be fair. Problem is that several times the time allowance just changed. No particular reason, no particular time of year, just one day you start getting beat by 10-15 minutes where you had been beating the standards by 20-30. Then in 9 or 10 months, you start getting beat by 30 minutes every day or more. Nothing has changed, the job is still the same, the routes are still the same, packages still weigh the same, nothing has changed but the pretend allowances by the pretend IE guy that has to justify his job and come up with something new and interesting to watch.

So now a gage that was forged by someone actually going out with the driver, one that was explained to the driver as to how it works, now that gage is meaningless because someone behind a keyboard can manipulate the stats and time studies at will.

So while some of the bitches have been around for years, at least this one has only been occurring over the last 5-10 years, about the time PAS was dreamy up. So many drivers link the two together for that reason.

My personal belief is that UPS is in the critical stage already. Unless Atlanta pulls their head out of the sand, and soon, it will be too late to reverse the trend. A trend of good people leaving, and UPS only having the remnants to choose from.

d

 

[daledog]

What you must remember is that for years UPS managers have had to have better numbers then the manager before them or they did not move up the management ladder. As the standards have shrunk , altho they will tell you they have not , the only way to improve an operation to " cheat " the numbers. So the while there is still the pressure to improve performance in all operations , there is now no room to "cheat" the numbers anymore creating the pressure the sup's are under now. Not that I feel sorry for them , but the sup"s of today are really in a bad spot. The older UPS driver will tell you center managers at one time were able to make decisions on the day to day operations of their centers , now they wait for phone calls on do what they are told and have to beg if they need changes. The way things are going , I hope there is still a company in 10 years when I retire!!

 

[scratch]

In the old days, the Center Manager did have the power to make the decisions to run his Center. IE would come in and do a Time Study, but the Center Manager had the final say on the time allowances on a route. Now he justs sits and waits on that phone call so he can be told what to do.

 

[beentheredonethat]

In the old days, the Center Manager did have the power to make the decisions to run his Center. IE would come in and do a Time Study, but the Center Manager had the final say on the time allowances on a route. Now he justs sits and waits on that phone call so he can be told what to do.

Scratch King;
I've been around close to 20 years. I've done time studies, I've been in centers. I've never heard of a ctr mgr anywhere be able to refuse the allowances give to them by IE. I've seen them point out an error(s) and got them fixed. I've seen them refuse to sign. Didn't matter, they still got implemented. I've never heard of a ctr mgr saying no and the IE dept backing off. I'm sure that there is a district or two this has happened in. But it must have been a district with a weak IE mgr. At the very least, we need accurate up to date studies, so we have every ctr on a level playing field.

 

[over9five]

It's all BS. I've seen the dispatch sup change the PAS computer so it makes an overdispatched route appear in range. Not by actually fixing anything, or moving any work, or by doing his job. He does it by changing the Hi-Lo limits for the route! Talk about integrity issues!

The high-low range is different every day. When they cut a route so that I have more area, the high is raised.
Think about that. Shouldn't it be the opposite? You can do more stops with a tighter area, not a more spread out one!

So even with my new time study, in actuality the dispatch sup decides how many stops I do.

 

[scratch]

Scratch King;
I've been around close to 20 years. I've done time studies, I've been in centers. I've never heard of a ctr mgr anywhere be able to refuse the allowances give to them by IE. I've seen them point out an error(s) and got them fixed. I've seen them refuse to sign. Didn't matter, they still got implemented. I've never heard of a ctr mgr saying no and the IE dept backing off. I'm sure that there is a district or two this has happened in. But it must have been a district with a weak IE mgr. At the very least, we need accurate up to date studies, so we have every ctr on a level playing field.

I have got about thirty one years in now, BTDT, and this is from personal first hand experience. My first route in the early eighties was a Industrial Park delivered out of an old Ford "city van" that had a tilt cab and air brakes. I would go out and deliver 400 and pickup 600 pkgs a day. I always would blow out by 5PM, I had to skip my late closings and usually had several other drivers cover those. My first time study, a former center manager in IE did it. He held the stop watch on me all day and wrote everything down on his clipboard. A few days later, he rides with me again, saying his numbers didn't add up right. This time, I took no lunch, didn't even stop to go to the bathroom all day. (I was young and stupid back then, thought the time study would have some work taken off me). Anyway, the IE guy comes back and agrees that I had way too much work on me and told that to my center manager. Did anything change? Of course not, except for the two hernias I got. That same center manager took an early retirement back when the stock went public. Rumor was he got caught in an audit using "creative record keeping" techniques to make his numbers better than they were.

 

[mittam]

We had an onroad sup take cnt man position in another center he had been there about 6 months and we were just told he quit UPS. He said he does not agree with the way the company is going nor with the management philosophies, he said he could not work that way and wanted a more honest job.

 

[ups_vette]

Vette,

We have disagreed before but i hope you see the problem for what it is today. There is NO substitute for experience and i AM NOT questioning yours. However, one thing you didnt mention that HASNT changed is the starting wages for our P/T workforce. I have been around long enough to say that you would without a doubt be ashamed at the majority of the P/T candidates we have walking through the door today. The only cause...the pay rate hasnt changed in over a DECADE. Another old saying is garbage in garbage out. The pool of talent to sustain our company is not coming through the door as it once did.

Management is leaving the company at an unprecented rate. Facts are facts. People once again need to be the most important asset to UPS. The problems faced today indicate that one of Mr. Casey's golden rules might not be held as high as it once was.

 

[Chronic12hrPlanDay]

Hey all,

I have been watching this site since I was in Preload 2004, I am now a full time coverdriver (If there is such a thing.) I can honestly say that you people especially the veterans here, have proved to be extremely intellegent, experienced, and fed up with the BS that UPS has pulled or in some cases pulling. My center manager has put me through every kind of stress known. I'm not perfect, and made mistakes as a rookie, but its personal now. I'm currently waiting for him to retire, or even just take his millions and go. My point being, if so many of us feel the same way, why can't we do something. We are the main artery that feed their bonus. Personally, I had a pretty good idea about the way corp. runs due to being early exposed at publix supermarkets. pretty much the same, just less cursing. You are all right. 3 On roads have put their 2 weeks in recently as well. Makes me wonder, but then again, I like being in so many different places a day, along with other reasons. Its just a shame there are no humans that can last in management. The ones that do, usually turn into puppets like the rest. Keep it up guys, and girls. I proudly say that from reading all your posts, consider me partly raised by all of you as a driver today.