Missort Policy in SoCal?

[Bolshevik]

This is my first post on Browncafe and while I am new here I have been with UPS working on Preload Bulk for nearly 10 years. Recently however, I was granted a transfer request to Intra-sort (a night sort) and was given the job of loading outbound trailers. While most would cringe at such a job, I took it as a challenge and something new. Ive now been loading these trailers for 2-3 weeks and just yesterday was told by management that I had 2 missorts in one night and that disciplinary action can be taken against me.

This shocked me completely. I understand why UPS would want to cut out all the missorts, I really do. And I had zero complaints in my firs 2-3 weeks in my new area. But according to my management team, they chose not to discipline me because A) I received ZERO official training and have had to learn as I go by basically being thrown into a trailer, with a scanner, and told to load and B) I am a good worker (their words not mine) and they would let it slide this time.

While no disciplinary action has been taken, I want to know what protections I have against any draconian punitive measures management can take against me. As I already stated, I received ZERO training on proper loading methods, safety protocol, smart scanners, etc. I actually had a friend who transferred from Sort aisle into revenue audit and he received a whole week of training on how to face labels to scanners. I on the other hand did not get any whatsoever. Also, another way of looking at it, while a missort did occur in my trailer(s), what led to that missort wasnt just my fault, but very likely a sorter messed up, or maybe even the pickoff up top committed a mistake, so why should I as the loader bare all the responsibility?

For what it counts I have good attendance and a good work ethic but I am just really bummed about this scenario. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As an aside, I also contacted a couple of my Steward buddies but since they are not loaders they could not immediately tell me what to do or what I can expect off the top of their heads. Which is why I've come here for advice. Anyone?

 

[ChickenLegs]

very interesting you ask your steward buddies and they cant help you......dont make it an everyday problem and you have nothing to worry about.

also demand to be trained for your safety. refuse the work if you want to make a big deal about it, youll get a trainer real quick

 

[Bolshevik]

very interesting you ask your steward buddies and they cant help you......dont make it an everyday problem and you have nothing to worry about.

also demand to be trained for your safety. refuse the work if you want to make a big deal about it, youll get a trainer real quick

Its not that they didnt help, but because they themselves are not loaders they said they'd get back at me. They did however call BS on the whole subject, but still, I am a bit concerned.

 

[ocnewguy]

walk every misload out of the trailer. every single time. don't just throw it halfway down the side of the trailer. they won't say a damn thing to you for doing this and misloads will no longer be a problem.

fwiw i had like 6 or 7 in my first 30 and they said crap about i could be let go if i get anymore but nothing ever happened.

 

[Bagels]

Few employees ever go misload free. I regularly unload a CACH load that has a listing of every employee, misloads & misload frequency (with the particular employees' performance who built that load highlighted) and nearly all of them have misloads every single day -- and there's hundreds of them, working in a fully automated hub with the scanners that are suppose to identify misloads.

Do you best. If you get a warning letter, do not hesitate to file.

 

[Brownslave688]

Im not telling u to flat out dog it but you go as slow as need be to be certain u have no misloads.

 

[cynic]

Im not telling u to flat out dog it but you go as slow as need be to be certain u have no misloads.

Yes, exactly. Check and double check your load chart. I used to load air cans and rarely mis-sorted but when I did I never signed the mis-load paper, I'd decline and request a steward. I would not even RTS the mis-load - I requested a steward - go fetch one for me ya PT sup or I'll be glad to grieve you. Which meant I never signed a mis-load paper over 5 years of loading.

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

Yes, exactly. Check and double check your load chart. I used to load air cans and rarely mis-sorted but when I did I never signed the mis-load paper, I'd decline and request a steward. I would not even RTS the mis-load - I requested a steward - go fetch one for me ya PT sup or I'll be glad to grieve you. Which meant I never signed a mis-load paper over 5 years of loading.

LOL. They just RTS'd it for you man.... see it happen all the time, they don't even show people their misloads sometimes. It's all about keeping up the illusion of accountability on paper. Most people don't care, because they know management can't do a damn thing to you because of misloads. Unless you are missing the salts they throw, that's a different story.

 

[Bagels]

LOL. They just RTS'd it for you man.... see it happen all the time, they don't even show people their misloads sometimes. It's all about keeping up the illusion of accountability on paper. Most people don't care, because they know management can't do a damn thing to you because of misloads. Unless you are missing the salts they throw, that's a different story.

While you use to be able to sing "Can't Touch Me," (to the tune of Hammer's Can't Touch This), that hasn't been the case in recent years -- in my building, they've fired plenty of people for misloads. Everybody's who've grieved has had it reduced to a working suspension, and generally wind up working a different area. We did have one person fired for loading a 2-Day ORM-D package without hazmat papers into a Ground load (!) bound for Chicagoland. Apparently, it made it to & Rockford loaded it onto the airplane that way, and while it sounds like their problem, he was fired under Article 7. From what I understand, UPS was somehow caught & fined, thus the union told him it wasn't likely he'd get his job back so he resigned.

 

[cynic]

LOL. They just RTS'd it for you man.... see it happen all the time, they don't even show people their misloads sometimes. It's all about keeping up the illusion of accountability on paper. Most people don't care, because they know management can't do a damn thing to you because of misloads. Unless you are missing the salts they throw, that's a different story.

Yeah, I know, or they likely signed it for me - but it's the principle.

Never missed their salts - besides the fact we always signaled each other on the belt when they were doing it. Wow, talk about slow loading when we did our 12-sided checks.

 

[OPTION3]

ARE you there when they seal the load?....If NO they can do NOTHING about it....As a feeder driver I have seen them send the loader home and then put someone else in the load to "wrap it up"...the next guy just CHUCKS packages in without looking....Check around ...it happens DAILY!

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

While you use to be able to sing "Can't Touch Me," (to the tune of Hammer's Can't Touch This), that hasn't been the case in recent years -- in my building, they've fired plenty of people for misloads. Everybody's who've grieved has had it reduced to a working suspension, and generally wind up working a different area. We did have one person fired for loading a 2-Day ORM-D package without hazmat papers into a Ground load (!) bound for Chicagoland. Apparently, it made it to & Rockford loaded it onto the airplane that way, and while it sounds like their problem, he was fired under Article 7. From what I understand, UPS was somehow caught & fined, thus the union told him it wasn't likely he'd get his job back so he resigned.

I only know of 2 people here who got a letter of intent to terminate for misloads.... One was missing a lot of salts, the other missed A LOT of bags, I'm talking 1-2 a week a few weeks in a row. They really crap their pants over bag misloads, ruins their numbers in one fell swoop.

Both grieved it down to a suspension.
I know at least one of them already had a target on his back for mouthing off to upper management.

 

[Bagels]

ARE you there when they seal the load?....If NO they can do NOTHING about it....As a feeder driver I have seen them send the loader home and then put someone else in the load to "wrap it up"...the next guy just CHUCKS packages in without looking....Check around ...it happens DAILY!

Misloads are cut & dry: if you scanned it & misloaded it such that it resulted in a service failure, you're held accountable.

What you're referring to often results in "missed scans at origin," - that it, the packages are loaded onto a truck (right/wrong) without being scanned. These are usually tested by having a supervisor simultaneously scan the same packages as you & see if you missed any. If you're a habitual offender, they'll avoid having anybody but you wrap up the truck. This is more difficult for the company to prove than misloads.

There's also another term for when you bounce between trailers, but forget to toggle your scanner, resulting in a bunch of packages from one load being entered into the system as being sent elsewhere. This is usually corrected when they're re-scanned.

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

ARE you there when they seal the load?....If NO they can do NOTHING about it....As a feeder driver I have seen them send the loader home and then put someone else in the load to "wrap it up"...the next guy just CHUCKS packages in without looking....Check around ...it happens DAILY!

That's the daily routine here for wrap up. Except the next guy who just CHUCKS packages without looking is usually the supervisor.

 

[cynic]

ARE you there when they seal the load?....If NO they can do NOTHING about it....As a feeder driver I have seen them send the loader home and then put someone else in the load to "wrap it up"...the next guy just CHUCKS packages in without looking....Check around ...it happens DAILY!

Excellent point - I used to pull the manifest and cross my name out as the person sealing the air can if they sent me home. I got to the point where I wouldn't seal the cans and had the PT sup seal them. They used to want us to leave ourselves signed in to the scanners as well.

 

[Bagels]

I only know of 2 people here who got a letter of intent to terminate for misloads.... One was missing a lot of salts, the other missed A LOT of bags, I'm talking 1-2 a week a few weeks in a row. They really crap their pants over bag misloads, ruins their numbers in one fell swoop.

Both grieved it down to a suspension.
I know at least one of them already had a target on his back for mouthing off to upper management.

I haven't seen a "salt test" performed in at least 10 years. They just go off the misload report now.

In the last several years they've become (in my facility) more assertive with terminations. Every year since 2009 they've fired more PTers than the first 8 years of my career combined.

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

I haven't seen a "salt test" performed in at least 10 years. They just go off the misload report now.

I wish that was the case here, for some reason we have a lot of gung-ho go-getters that insist on throwing the salts they're supposed to. It's really annoying walking 5-10 salts out of the truck everyday, in addition to all the mis-sorts that make it into the truck without that BS.

 

[Indecisi0n]

I wouldn't demand to be trained. You can use that in your favor at your next hearing.

 

[cynic]

The most fun is placing the "salt" under the belt and keep on loading and don't even acknowledge it. You look down and they're just waiting and watching - I wouldn't acknowledge it until they got off their ***** and started to walk toward me and I'd pick it up, hand it to them, and tell them quit playing games.

 

[DriveInDriveOut]

The most fun is placing the "salt" under the belt and keep on loading and don't even acknowledge it. You look down and they're just waiting and watching - I wouldn't acknowledge it until they got off their ***** and started to walk toward me and I'd pick it up, hand it to them, and tell them quit playing games.

I just throw them in the huge pile of mis-sorts outside my truck that came down the chute because we're pushing too much volume through the system too quickly all day everyday. They come in and say "did you catch my salt". I say, "I dunno was it one of those? >>>point towards mountain of mis-sorts". I think they like the scavenger hunt.