Old days vs. Current day

mattwtrs

Retired Senior Member
how about shelves in the package cars that folded up so that you could get more parcels in them from your p/u's! here is an old one where did al of the z frame trailers go to?
Good question, I usually would take them to Harrisburg, Pa as an MT. No doubles or pups back in the mid 70's in Pennsylvania.
 

dilligaf

IN VINO VERITAS
The old days....
  • Bringing 300 stops back at 10:30 at night.
  • Green and white 50-liner delivery records.
  • Alpha load charts.
  • "Stop counts" that were 50 or 60 off.
  • P-600 package cars
  • Cash for C.O.D.'s
  • Long pants in 100 degree heat, no shorts available.
  • No 8 hr. requests.
  • Peeling the tracking labels off of NDA packages and writing in the consignee's name, date, and time of delivery.
  • Yellow call tags
  • 6-digit shipper numbers on a meter tape
  • AOD's with a postage stamp on the back
I guess things haven't changed all that much, we still have some of these. We didn't get rid of our last P500 until this year.
 

Covemastah

Hoopah drives the boat Chief !!
Ahh, I recall during the cold winter months the first few packages that came down the belts to be loaded onto the outbound feeders were exactly used to stop the cold air from entering the building since there were no cushion around the dock.
Losing your clipboard was like losing your best friend.
The Blizzard of 78 ( in Boston ) ripping the roof off of the building, which put more snow inside then out. The work area consisted of 2x4 frames and sheets of plastic until they replaced the roof.
The old outside carwash building creating long lines each evening as the cars came in ( all that easy ot, just to sit there waiting for your turn ).
Intrastate vs interstate....all of NH's packages had to go out of state every day, just to be sorted and sent back.
 

Covemastah

Hoopah drives the boat Chief !!
i remember the watertown carwash too!!! remember when they found a fully loaded p 11oo inside around 4pm one day with a pair of browns and a ''i quit '' note on drivers seat!!!! we had quite a bunch in watertown
 

Covemastah

Hoopah drives the boat Chief !!
how about those damb consignee billing pkgs with the green bar codes!!! we had to punch in all kinds of info would take 20min to deliver 10pkgs to a dock,,and if you missed 1 # they would be all ovah you the next day..........also the dreaded blue tracers seen many of those lol
 

1989

Well-Known Member
What ever happened to the "z scan" I remember having to z scan everything. Z scan the pick up book, z scan the area before you back, z scan the car on your pre trip. That's why I can't remember the 10 pt comentary I'm going cross eyed from all the z scanning. If I remember correctly we had one tenth the accidents back then too.
 
B

brownandout

Guest
what about the paper time cards ? you had to break down all the deliveries by loop and stops /pieces .......... and if you had a garbage route you had to staple 3 to 4 time cards together...and what about the white out....... the OR was 40 ft long.......the time allowances were incredible.......drivers would help each other out with no problems,you would just have to return the favor.......preloaders who were gone before you got there.and the truck was stop for stop.......next day air by noon and all the nda labels had 11:59 writen in the time box...all pkgs were under 20 lbs on res routes and no bulk,just the occasional NORDIC TRAK !!!!! BRING BACK THE GOOD OLE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!! oh yeah and sups who actually drove for more than 30 days.......and no smalls allowance.........im done now
 

rod

Retired 22 years
Fur tags?

A fur tag was a call tag that the rich ladies in town would get in the spring of the year to pick up their mink coats and other furry things. They would be sent to the big city for safe summer storage in a controlled environment storage area. In the fall you would get them all back.
 

rod

Retired 22 years
When I srarted in 1971 UPS only delivered to states east of the Mississippi. The only western states covered were Calif., Wash. and Oregon. Weight limit was 50 lbs. with no more that 100 lb total going from the same shipper to one consignee per day. Full time driver pay was about $6.75 an hour - that was $3.00 an hour more than my wife made at her state government job. :peaceful:
 
I can remember a few things from way back in 1987 too:

Thrift plan (some years it paid 20+ percent)
Yearly bonus ($500 for PT and $1000 for FT)
NO SCANNING
Company picnics
Overstaffed work areas (good for days off)
Starting pay $8.00 per hour (about 2x minimum wage)
Maximum package weight 70 lbs
 
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helenofcalifornia

Well-Known Member
When I was clerking in a hub and doing damages at the end of the night, we would dump all our "damaged leakers" into one cut-in-half-lengthwise" 50 gallon metal barrel and then drain all that chemical mess into the floor drains that went directly into the river. It's a wonder we weren't killed by some chemical reaction!) Someone finally reported this to OSHA (not me-I was a good soldier!) and a $3 million dollar fine resulted and new damage rewrap procedures. Ah, the good old days.
What I do miss is the comraderie we all had then. Pizza and beer after work, company picnics and outings, etc.
And if I am not mistaken, I think those$500 and $1000 "bonuses" were actually contract signing bonuses. If we voted "yes" to the UPS contract, we got those bonuses. That is why all you part-timers are poorly paid now. Before 1982 part timers and full timers made the same wage. They bought us off.
 
H

hseofpayne

Guest
I was talking to one of our top senior guys today on my break and we got to talking about a couple of things about the past. He told me that progression to top pay was 90 days (I dont remember that). I never drove back when there were no bid routes either. I do remember the Christmas bonus each year though. That's a thing of the past now. Anybody remember sheeting pkgs on paper. 3 copies getting separated into our little folders. Things change so fast anymore I cant keep up with it. What are some other things different now than in the past?

Anybody else do this? We used to use these big ole black or red crayons on the preload to write sequence numbers on pkgs as we loaded them(I still remember those damn sequence numbers!) Once in a while, I would forget to take those crayons out of my pocket b4 I washed my preload clothes. Sure enough, when I would look in the dryer after drying my pants, there would be crayon melted all over anything I had washed plus all over the tub of the dryer! I also think UPSers started the fad of walking around in jeans with big ole wholes in 'em. Every pair of pants I owned it seemed had wholes worn in them from the conveyor belts. We were fashion setters!
 

Leftinbuilding

Well-Known Member
No offence to our preloaders and local sorters, but we had neither. Drivers loaded the cars (higher seniority) and unloaded them in the evening (lower seniority). It was great because you got to load your own route plus one or two others. Stop for stop for yourself and close for the others. All were routes you had driven so you knew the best way to load it. No sequence numbers, no PAS, just shelves 1, 2, 3 thru 8. Last (only) trailer pulled at 18:00. Had to be in by then. I sound like my grandpa.
 

scoobypanda

Well-Known Member
Brown had a great post, I think it was last month. They listed a ton of changes, good and bad. One small, but significant change not on their list was when night time oms was hired. When one of our oncars had to stay until all drivers returned, they made sure loads weren't too heavy or screwed up. When they brought in part time oms at night it became acceptable to leave us out all night.
 
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