soberups
Pees in the brown Koolaid
Its all about your mindset.
When I get out of bed on a Monday morning in December, I have already accepted the fact that I am at the beginning of a 60 hour workweek. I am at peace with it. Its what I signed on for; its what we do at UPS during peak season.
On any given day I may wind up with missed packages, or I may not. I have no control over what is put in the truck or how well (or poorly) it is loaded. If my management team sets me up to succeed....I will. If they set me up to fail....I will. I can only do my best, and the rest is out of my hands.
I also keep in mind the fact that, by any objective standard, the peak season of today is far, far better than the peak seasons that I used to work back in the late 80's. Today I have a modern truck with power steering, and a DIAD with EDD that gives me a reasonably accurate stop count. Back then I had a brickloaded P-500 with anywhere from 300 to 500 stops forced into it and no idea of what or where they were. Today when I leave the building I have a reasonable certainty of completing my route or at least coming close. Back then it was quite common to bring 200 missed stops back to the building at 11:00 at night, knowing full well that you would simply be bringing them back again the following night. No matter how fast you worked or how hard you tried there was utterly no hope at all of getting done, and the only thing that seemed to matter to your management team was finding a way to get all of the packages "out of the building" so that they could look at a clean belt and pretend that the "plan" was working. Those days are pretty much over with, and.... barring some sort of weather related catastrophe...I am pretty sure that I will be coming in "clean" on the 24th.
Christmas is two weeks away. That means there are 10 working days or a maximum of 120 hours of peak season remaining. Work smart, work safe, do your best, take it one hour or even one minute at a time, and before you know it it will be over with.
When I get out of bed on a Monday morning in December, I have already accepted the fact that I am at the beginning of a 60 hour workweek. I am at peace with it. Its what I signed on for; its what we do at UPS during peak season.
On any given day I may wind up with missed packages, or I may not. I have no control over what is put in the truck or how well (or poorly) it is loaded. If my management team sets me up to succeed....I will. If they set me up to fail....I will. I can only do my best, and the rest is out of my hands.
I also keep in mind the fact that, by any objective standard, the peak season of today is far, far better than the peak seasons that I used to work back in the late 80's. Today I have a modern truck with power steering, and a DIAD with EDD that gives me a reasonably accurate stop count. Back then I had a brickloaded P-500 with anywhere from 300 to 500 stops forced into it and no idea of what or where they were. Today when I leave the building I have a reasonable certainty of completing my route or at least coming close. Back then it was quite common to bring 200 missed stops back to the building at 11:00 at night, knowing full well that you would simply be bringing them back again the following night. No matter how fast you worked or how hard you tried there was utterly no hope at all of getting done, and the only thing that seemed to matter to your management team was finding a way to get all of the packages "out of the building" so that they could look at a clean belt and pretend that the "plan" was working. Those days are pretty much over with, and.... barring some sort of weather related catastrophe...I am pretty sure that I will be coming in "clean" on the 24th.
Christmas is two weeks away. That means there are 10 working days or a maximum of 120 hours of peak season remaining. Work smart, work safe, do your best, take it one hour or even one minute at a time, and before you know it it will be over with.
