Part-Time Supe juggling act

DS

Fenderbender
I suggest a eye opening PCM that makes your problems theirs.
Something like this....
OK people,I'm putting my job on the line for you guys.
From now on I want you to work at a pace that suits you that ensures each package goes in the right car.
Going forward, you will be training yourselves as I will be busy keeping my boss happy doing other things.
If the load quality improves,it will prove that you all care,and I will not be replaced with someone far worse than myself.

On the other hand Tears,if you went full time,you would probably be moved to a different position,which would solve all your problems and create new ones,but they seem to treat FT sups better from what I've seen.
 

Integrity

Binge Poster
You will have to put yourself at grave risk of retaliation and harassment if you want to improve your position.

You seem to be getting your share of intimidation and harassment already.


This would be against the company code of conduct so it would never happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anonymous,

Forgive me for being dense.

Before I comment on your contribution, is this a serious response or are you just poking fun at this discussion?

I don't want to comment seriously if you are just kidding around.

Again forgive me, it is sometimes hard to tell when you are serious or when you are kidding.

Sincerely,
I
 
anonymous,

Forgive me for being dense.

Before I comment on your contribution, is this a serious response or are you just poking fun at this discussion?

I don't want to comment seriously if you are just kidding around.

Again forgive me, it is sometimes hard to tell when you are serious or when you are kidding.

Sincerely,
I
I'm being facetious I we all know ups's main weapon is retaliation. I know this first hand. My god once said "those who live by the sword shall die by the sword". In my region this just happened to a tyrant in management. This man fired many people me included once using lies and conduct that lacked integrity. He is no longer with the firm as of Monday. The funny thing is this man caused me great financial and stressful hardship. The funny thing is all I feel is compassion for him and his loved ones even though he felt none for me.

God bless


407
 

Harley Rider

34 yrs & done!
Sorry to hear of your troubles. Its no fun to go to work everyday and be harrassed. You mentioned in your original post that three supervisors had already quit. Quit is the key word. None of them were ever fired! UPS is constantly begging for PT supervisors so much that they have to rely on new hires that have no clue what they are letting themselves in for. Lets see............. someone goes to work part time for UPS and three months later they are a supervisor. Hmmmmmmmm. Kinda makes you think huh?

I can't count the number of PT supervisors that have come and gone here locally. They all finally got fed up with the BS and promises made that they would get a FT job. They never made full time because management would then have to find someone to replace them. It would be nice if you could make the numbers that they have set for you. Don't think that would be the end of your problems though. There will always be something to take the place of the problem you have solved.

You can only go in and do your job the best you can just like the drivers do. While no one likes the harrassment, in my opinion your job is pretty secure as long as you show up for work everday.
 

TearsInRain

IE boogeyman
The most troubling thing about what you posted was the part about the behavior of your center manager.

Could you please elaborate, in a general way, about what is said and who is present(no names, just job titles) at these daily "ear-splitting" meetings?

Sincerely,
I

well on any given day i have about 3-4 interactions with my center manager (he's much more present than my FT)

the 1st is during the morning meeting, where we'll go over the previous day's performance and depending on how it went, we'll hear a lot of rhetorical questions from volumes ranging to normal speaking to low-level shouting
the 2nd and 3rd will be during the sort, same rhetorical questions, loud speaking volume level
occasionally there will be a 4th, if i didn't get my people out in time, usually at the request of the driver's FT's and the DMS FT (usually because of a cluster:censored2: caused by massive add-cuts), he'll come down and yell at a pretty high volume, again rhetorical questions

the rhetorical questions span the subjects of misloads, cut-off times, scan-checks, and most commonly stacked out packages or accusations of not being on the same program as him

personally, i think the guy drinks way too much :censored2:ing caffeine and it causes him to blow his top over things most people would just stress over
i think this because i used to drink a lot of Monster to adjust to the hours, and i dropped the habit when i realized my personality was becoming vastly more irritable and short-fused

it's hard for me to tell what's right here since i've only been a supe for 4.5 months now, but my time as a preloader tells me he's misinformed at best, and wrong at worse
 

TearsInRain

IE boogeyman
I'm being facetious I we all know ups's main weapon is retaliation.

when i was an hourly belt-splitter, i would talk to the loader who worked next to me about how he had to work hard, but still cover his ass against harassing management, but mostly i talked to him about the contract, what it meant, the history of unions, the philosophy of it all, blah blah

last friday they were going to send him home because he had refused to sign a logbook taking responsibility for his misloads, my center manager saying that made him a "hostile employee", so i had him work on my belt instead

when my center manager asked me why he would refuse to sign if he wasn't hostile, i said, "well why would he sign a document that has absolutely no purpose but to aid in terminating him? especially when he doesn't have to?"

my center manager just stared at me then told me if he'd actually wanted me to answer the question, he would have told me so
:biting:
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
when i was an hourly belt-splitter, i would talk to the loader who worked next to me about how he had to work hard, but still cover his ass against harassing management, but mostly i talked to him about the contract, what it meant, the history of unions, the philosophy of it all, blah blah

last friday they were going to send him home because he had refused to sign a logbook taking responsibility for his misloads, my center manager saying that made him a "hostile employee", so i had him work on my belt instead

when my center manager asked me why he would refuse to sign if he wasn't hostile, i said, "well why would he sign a document that has absolutely no purpose but to aid in terminating him? especially when he doesn't have to?"

my center manager just stared at me then told me if he'd actually wanted me to answer the question, he would have told me so
:biting:

What happened when you told him about his misloads?

Did he take responsibility? Did he make a committement to improve? Did he agree that there is a problem?

Does this employee need to improve?

The issue is not the signature. It the responsibility and committment.

What happened?
 
the problem i have is getting all of this done in the amount of time given to me. the scans, mis-sorts, and add-cuts eat up a good portion of my day, and by the time i've gone through the trucks, i really have little to no time to train people, yet i'm being heavily pressured on misloads

i would do progressive discipline on misload employees, but that leads absolutely nowhere since they won't be fired (or they'll be re-hired) and it just serves to piss them off since none of them are doing it on purpose
Choose the 2 problem employees you have identified and take a week to train them both. Spend time with them each day and make sure they are following the methods correctly. The purpose of circling the PAS label and writing the HIN on the box is to ensure that that packages are loaded in stop by stop order and that the PAS label is not out of sync or a flip.

You mentioned most of the misloads happen at the end of the day. I'm assuming at this point they are being rushed and probably stacking outside the cars. You just need to stay on top of them and start talking it up everyday and all day. Walk up and down and say, "watch the misloads" every so often. I know it sounds stupid, but they are listening and be assured they will be extra focused for the time being.

Discipline does work. Yes, they can be fired if disciplined for the samething over and over. Verbal, Warning letter, 72hour notice, Suspension, Final sit-down, Fired. That's typically how the discipline steps go. Believe me, if you have taken the time to properly train them and they still haven't shown any improvements, then you definitely need to start disciplining. They will get the picture out of fear of losing their job. Only take the discipline route if you have actually trained your employees properly and are still not improving.
 

TearsInRain

IE boogeyman
What happened when you told him about his misloads?

Did he take responsibility? Did he make a committement to improve? Did he agree that there is a problem?

Does this employee need to improve?

The issue is not the signature. It the responsibility and committment.

What happened?

he's a 1st class employee, minus the misload issue, he comes to work, works hard, finds work to do if he's ahead of his own, and is respectful to boot

we just have tons of misloads at our facility, to the point a lot of people have become apathetic from exhausting trying to resolve the problem and failing.

personally, i blame our belt-to-car set up
 

pretzel_man

Well-Known Member
he's a 1st class employee, minus the misload issue, he comes to work, works hard, finds work to do if he's ahead of his own, and is respectful to boot

we just have tons of misloads at our facility, to the point a lot of people have become apathetic from exhausting trying to resolve the problem and failing.

personally, i blame our belt-to-car set up

So, you chose not to discuss the issue with him.

Maybe that is why your center manager is frustrated with you.....
 

evilleace

Well-Known Member
handle around 300 mis-sorted packages that belong on other belts
handle any add-cuts that get handed out (around 3 pages a day)

I am not here to to put you down but if you stopped handling the mis sorted packages you would have much more time especially since that is hourly work anyway, and I don't know if you are pulling the add-cuts yourself but if you are then stop doing that as that is also hourly work also. If you stop these two things and get an extra hourly to help on your belt this will greatly free up your schedule. Just my two cents.
 

Re-Raise

Well-Known Member
when i was an hourly belt-splitter, i would talk to the loader who worked next to me about how he had to work hard, but still cover his ass against harassing management, but mostly i talked to him about the contract, what it meant, the history of unions, the philosophy of it all, blah blah

last friday they were going to send him home because he had refused to sign a logbook taking responsibility for his misloads, my center manager saying that made him a "hostile employee", so i had him work on my belt instead

when my center manager asked me why he would refuse to sign if he wasn't hostile, i said, "well why would he sign a document that has absolutely no purpose but to aid in terminating him? especially when he doesn't have to?"

my center manager just stared at me then told me if he'd actually wanted me to answer the question, he would have told me so
:biting:

Maybe this employee should spend less time talking philosophy with the belt splitter and focus on the pal labels so he would have fewer misloads.
 

TearsInRain

IE boogeyman
So, you chose not to discuss the issue with him.

Maybe that is why your center manager is frustrated with you.....

his misloads have been discussed ad-nauseum with him, and 90% of the building, for the last two years straight

should i lecture him on the importance of breathing while i'm at it?
 

TearsInRain

IE boogeyman
I am not here to to put you down but if you stopped handling the mis sorted packages you would have much more time especially since that is hourly work anyway, and I don't know if you are pulling the add-cuts yourself but if you are then stop doing that as that is also hourly work also. If you stop these two things and get an extra hourly to help on your belt this will greatly free up your schedule. Just my two cents.

i agree completely and this was the first thing i asked for

i was told this is impossible and i "just have to make it happen"
 

washington57

Well-Known Member
ok so you are saying that you have a diehard union employee on your belt but he isn't grieving you for doing all the add cuts??? what a joke.
 

TearsInRain

IE boogeyman
ok so you are saying that you have a diehard union employee on your belt but he isn't grieving you for doing all the add cuts??? what a joke.

i'm in a right to work state, we don't really have any "die hard union employees", just the occasional person who doesn't want to get burned
 

menotyou

bella amicizia
when i was an hourly belt-splitter, i would talk to the loader who worked next to me about how he had to work hard, but still cover his ass against harassing management, but mostly i talked to him about the contract, what it meant, the history of unions, the philosophy of it all, blah blah

last friday they were going to send him home because he had refused to sign a logbook taking responsibility for his misloads, my center manager saying that made him a "hostile employee", so i had him work on my belt instead

when my center manager asked me why he would refuse to sign if he wasn't hostile, i said, "well why would he sign a document that has absolutely no purpose but to aid in terminating him? especially when he doesn't have to?"

my center manager just stared at me then told me if he'd actually wanted me to answer the question, he would have told me so
:biting:

How does it make him hostile when he is just following Art 6 in the contract? I am trying very hard to find a positive spin on this situation, but it isn't there. This person needs to meet their BA(if the BA is worth anything).
No offense to anyone but a manager I respect once told me "There are no bad employees, just bad managers". There is a point to that. I believe if you work a good employee to death, you get a bad employee. We are overworking at least some employees. You can prevent hiring a bad employee from the start by not hiring them, or letting them get past their 30 days. I realize it costs to do background checks, but it costs more in the long run to keep a bad employee.
Micro managing is he surest way to kill an employee's enthusiasm. They need to feel trusted and that their work is valued.
 

CustomerConcern

Well-Known Member
i'm in a right to work state, we don't really have any "die hard union employees", just the occasional person who doesn't want to get burned

I am in a "right-to-work" state and trust me, you would have been fired by now with all the grievences from Preloaders. There is a reason Preload Sups are a dime a dozen, you are the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. Sounds like you are trying but failing. My advice, if you can't find the right balance between your duties then grab the help wanted ads. Furthermore, I love it when former loaders who couldn't do the job move into management thinking its going to be so much better.
 
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