Production termination!

[tieguy]

His first ojs with his center supervisor he averaged 12 stops an hour. The outside supervisor on his next ojs less than a year later was an average of 14.5 stops. The center manager was on the record saying he didnt have confidence in his center team thats why he opted to go outside the center. I guess you method theory makes you look a bit foolish.

The ojs numbers on his new ojs ranged from 11.3 to 15.9, thats a 4.6 sph gap.

It is what it is.

It was the classic OJS. Driver was screwed up on day one of the OJS. Sup worked with him and got him squared away at which point the guy hits a 15.9 on his third day.

The dialogue here has discussed a lot but not why the guy dropped off and did so poorly without the sup there. Was he doing a lot of union work on the cell phone while out on his route. Or perhaps only did the methods when the sup was there? He made a big drop from his best of a 14.5 and even bigger drop from his best day of a 15.9.

Did he think all that discipline he was recieving was just a bunch of hot air and that he was invincible?

 

[browniehound]

ummm, guys, before you get too excited with the point you feel you have made, might I remind you that being an on-road supervisor, riding on-road with drivers, whether for 3 day rides, safety rides, or training rides etc, IS this supervisor's normal duties.

BrownIEman,
You are making our point my friend. Every sentence that you wrote about our on-road sups. does nothing to create a profit or generate revenue for our wonderful company. It is a waste of company resources. I think the supervisor should be in the office studying volume trends and trying to figure out the most efficent trace for his group's routes.

Training rides? They are necessary to train our new-hires.

Safety rides? They are a waste after the first one. I just experienced my 7th in a row with the same on-road. We talked about everything for the 7th time. I know it, he knows it. What is it accomplishing?

We are in the middle of an economic downturn not seen since the great depression. I think UPS will be OK, but they will have to cut costs. They will start by cutting routes.

Where should they go after that? If I were district manager I would layoff most of the supervisors. We have three in my center. I would reduce it to one. I say this because many of their tasks are non-essential to the viability of the company.

For example, BrownIEman wrote "riding on-road with drivers, whether for 3 day rides, safety rides, or training rides etc, IS this supervisor's normal duties"

Just as you would think its not efficeint to have two drivers in one package car the same applies to management on car. Once management jumps on car its a waste of money. Safety rides and 3-day rides do nothing to grow the bottom line. How can you justify what you are doing?

You are doing absolutely nothing and getting paid for it!

During x-mas however, you won't pay the helper $3 for the ride to the route with the driver but send your $1400/week sup out with the driver to accomplish nothing.

At least the helper is being productive by delivering parcels!

 

[spuman]

IF PAS EDD worked like its supose to would there be a need for a driver sup?

 

[brownIEman]

BrownIEman,
You are making our point my friend. Every sentence that you wrote about our on-road sups. does nothing to create a profit or generate revenue for our wonderful company. It is a waste of company resources. I think the supervisor should be in the office studying volume trends and trying to figure out the most efficent trace for his group's routes.

Training rides? They are necessary to train our new-hires.

Safety rides? They are a waste after the first one. I just experienced my 7th in a row with the same on-road. We talked about everything for the 7th time. I know it, he knows it. What is it accomplishing?

We are in the middle of an economic downturn not seen since the great depression. I think UPS will be OK, but they will have to cut costs. They will start by cutting routes.

Not at all a bad investment.

Where should they go after that? If I were district manager I would layoff most of the supervisors. We have three in my center. I would reduce it to one. I say this because many of their tasks are non-essential to the viability of the company.

For example, BrownIEman wrote "riding on-road with drivers, whether for 3 day rides, safety rides, or training rides etc, IS this supervisor's normal duties"

Just as you would think its not efficeint to have two drivers in one package car the same applies to management on car. Once management jumps on car its a waste of money. Safety rides and 3-day rides do nothing to grow the bottom line. How can you justify what you are doing?

You are doing absolutely nothing and getting paid for it!

During x-mas however, you won't pay the helper $3 for the ride to the route with the driver but send your $1400/week sup out with the driver to accomplish nothing.

At least the helper is being productive by delivering parcels!

Thanks to this supervisors several days of rides, drivers in the center will have gotten the message that laying down on the job can and will lead to being out of a job. Let say only 5% of the drivers in the center were coasting, in 50 car center that is only 2 drivers. So say they step up a bit and we gain back just 2 hours a week in increased production. That gets the company back over $6000 dollars to the bottom line over the course of the year. That does not even count any gain from other drivers in the center, nor any in other centers that might hear this story and be made aware that drivers can indeed be fired for production.

Not really a bad investment for 3 or so days.

As to safety, every year, and every time there is an incident. It has to be done and on the books, or the company opens itself to massive lawsuits were a lawyer to show the company has as lackadaisical attitude about safety as you suggest.

You say the sups should be fixing trace. How, exactly, do you propose that supervisor fix a routes trace, if he does not spend any time out on the route?

We have people studying volume trends and supply that information to the center teams. To get volume trends the on road really needs to do little more than a few mouse clicks.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

I vote that every IE employee must brown up and deliver 2 months under their numbers.




Don't worry, you can play World of Warcraft in the 1 hour between dinner and bedtime.


DIDN'T THINK SO

 

[browniehound]

Thanks to this supervisors several days of rides, drivers in the center will have gotten the message that laying down on the job can and will lead to being out of a job. Let say only 5% of the drivers in the center were coasting, in 50 car center that is only 2 drivers. So say they step up a bit and we gain back just 2 hours a week in increased production. That gets the company back over $6000 dollars to the bottom line over the course of the year. That does not even count any gain from other drivers in the center, nor any in other centers that might hear this story and be made aware that drivers can indeed be fired for production.

Not really a bad investment for 3 or so days.

As to safety, every year, and every time there is an incident. It has to be done and on the books, or the company opens itself to massive lawsuits were a lawyer to show the company has as lackadaisical attitude about safety as you suggest.

You say the sups should be fixing trace. How, exactly, do you propose that supervisor fix a routes trace, if he does not spend any time out on the route? Through our time records. The GPS should show exactly how we run the route everyday

We have people studying volume trends and supply that information to the center teams. To get volume trends the on road really needs to do little more than a few mouse clicks.

BrownIEman,
I want to be on your side and agree with you. I really do, but I can't. The result of your 3-day ride proves an increase in production. Your post assumes the production gain will last for 365 days. I believe thats where you get the 6k/year figure.

The problem with your logic is the driver will not work as fast as he did during 3-day ride the entire year. You get him to work faster (not more efficently) because you are up his rear-end all day. Once you're gone the driver will go back to his previous SPOHR and your 6K in savings is gone.

Now, if the driver doesn't know the methods and you teach him for 3 days then maybe you will obtain a production gain that lasts many days. By this I mean you make him more efficent by following the methods not making him faster by whipping like a horse, lol.

I use this anaology because you will get the production just by standing next to the driver. If you fix his methods then you will recieve a gain that lasts. Problem is most drivers know the methods better than you and the methods are not the problem.

The problem is we are human and we must interact with the consignee. UPS gives us a specific time allowance for it. Its enough time if you want our customers to hate us.

This tarnishes our image I believe. We have a reputation of rushing the customer for a signature or COD check and I think there is some truth to it.

In our haste to make deliveries or obtain COD checks we come across as rude to the majority of the public.

My question then becomes: who trained the driver? This person had 30 days and many days on-road with the employee. The methods need to be taught again for 3 days?

Maybe the original supervisor failed in training the driver. If a new driver needs to be re-trained maybe the blame lies on the training sup.?

 

[Omega man]

It was the classic OJS. Driver was screwed up on day one of the OJS. Sup worked with him and got him squared away at which point the guy hits a 15.9 on his third day.

The dialogue here has discussed a lot but not why the guy dropped off and did so poorly without the sup there. Was he doing a lot of union work on the cell phone while out on his route. Or perhaps only did the methods when the sup was there? He made a big drop from his best of a 14.5 and even bigger drop from his best day of a 15.9.

Did he think all that discipline he was recieving was just a bunch of hot air and that he was invincible?

Do you have any proof that he was on the phone all day? Stop making assumptions. The bottom line here is that SPORH is NOT a fair or accurate gauge of performance. This is why we have an over\under system. If UPS would just give fair allowances for that system then we could judge performance properly. Any thing else is just UPS acting unethically as usual.

 

[trplnkl]

geeez UpState, which side of this debate are you on? This is not a flame, just an OTO (on thread observation), part of your post seems to side with the company yet the latter part insinuates the company is useing unreliable data.

I would see this as an effort to make sure that the supervisor conducting the OJS had no prejudices or preconceptions about the driver in question and was there to make an honest, objective assessment of his performance.
I see this as a smoke screen to try and hide the fact that the visiting sup was biased. We all know that the VS had the same preconceptions and prejudices as his fellow sups, they do talk to one another. If you were a sup in your center and they came to you and told you to go to another center for a 3day lock in ride, you would automatically assume the driver was a slacker and your job was to prove he was indeed a slacker.

This also makes sense as it gives the supervisor conducting the OJS a solid basis upon which to perform his assessment. I am just curious, however, as to why the cover driver did not think to let the regular know what was going on.
Please tell me you don't really believe that. THere are routes in our center that I have spent many more days running than a week and still learn things about them everytime I run them. If you are not still learning on your route you just are not paying attention.

My god. Does it really matter where the supervisor was from? The methods work no matter where the supervisor is from and are not route dependent.

NE, the methods were established for use in all delivery situations, whether rural or urban, residential or commercial; however, having run both, I will tell you from experience that if I followed the methods that I used when on my country run on my current city run I would probably run at least an hour slower than I do; conversely, if I tried using the delivery methods that I use on my city run out in the country I would receive a lot of grief. For example, let's say you are at a pickup out in the country and they ask you to wait 10 minutes and you wouldn't be anywhere near here for the rest of the day. What do you do? You go out and sort you load or take part of your lunch/break and you wait. In the city, what do you do? You come back later, if you can or, more likely, tell them that you have to go and you will be back the following day. There are many more examples of where the methods differ depending on the route but the bottom line is that, yes, the methods are route dependent.

UpS, a few holes in your arguement here too. I do agree that if you wait 10 minutes for a country pickup that it will effect your SPORH and you should (if at all able) wait for them to finish. However if you code that 10 minute wait as meal time the SPORH will not be effected. Meal time is not on road time. However, you probably should call the center and inform them or make a note in your little black book of the time spent waiting. Otherwise I agree with your last paragraph.

 

[trplnkl]

Do you have any proof that he was on the phone all day? Stop making assumptions. The bottom line here is that SPORH is NOT a fair or accurate gauge of performance. This is why we have an overunder system. If UPS would just give fair allowances for that system then we could judge performance properly. Any thing else is just UPS acting unethically as usual.

Omega man, the over/under system is as far away from being a fair judgment of a drivers capability as you can get. The numbers can be tweaked, changed and certain functions can be left out to give false conclusions. There are a mutitude of things that can adversley effect the over/under as well as the SPORH. Hell, I am 15-25 minutes over allowed by the time I leave the building each day due to a preload that isn't wrapped and if you don't code that time in as "inside" your SPORH are hurt also. Just one example
I do believe that the SPORH is much closer to reasonable performance evaluation, however is still not something that should be taken as a carved in stone measurement. If the company wants to look at my SPORH, then look at mine and we can talk about it, what someone else does has absolutely nothing to do with my performance. There is no way on God's Green Earth I can do as many stops as a kid half my age, it isn't even logical to expect it. Age wise I could be the Dad of most of our other drivers.

 

[705red]

Red,

Post everything you claim....

The PM you sent me was incomplete....


Show the case number for everyone....


Hope this person wasn't TDU....



-Bug-

I sent you the case number that was written on the header page.

What does someone being tdu or not have anything to do with a TEAMSTER STEWARD losing his job for production?

If YOUR fearless leader was doing his job, I'm pretty sure the tdu would not have any credit. But since hofffa is a company lackey and has ruined the strength of this one great union, tdu's numbers rise. More people getting involved, why? Because they have been wronged even when they were right or the when the contract language is clear but the teamsters side with the company.

 

[brownIEman]

I vote that every IE employee must brown up and deliver 2 months under their numbers.




Don't worry, you can play World of Warcraft in the 1 hour between dinner and bedtime.


DIDN'T THINK SO

Some of them could. Many IE sups came from operations. In my district, one of our IE sups still holds the record for most stops delivered in one day with no helper. Most of the numbers used were not created by those in IE now, but were created years ago by managers, the majority of whom spent many years driving. There are many in IE who could not run a route anywhere near what you or your fellow drivers could do. Your view of IE is overly simplistic and based on a general ignorance of the organization.

 

[705red]

This steward was fired for production, something that has never happened before in our history. I have researched other arbitration's on this and every other production arbitration has been sided with the union.

So how can this one take such a drastic turn around? Could it be because he was a caring steward who stood up for the contract and the members which elected him?

Did the company dislike him for filing 115 grievances? For calling the nlrb? This company even suspended him while he was acting as a steward defending a member. Which is illegal, were was the union to represent him on these charges?

A new manager was sent to raise production, than why was this steward the only one giving a 3 day ride? Form a sup from the outside? Why did this sup ride the same route with a cover driver before hand? It is a setup, its obvious the company did not like him and wanted him gone.

In the arbitration, the union never rebutted several accusations from ups, which in reality means they either agree with ups or did not properly defend him. These screw ups even i know not to do as a steward, but an agent and attorney with years of experience didn't?

Ups can now terminate any package car driver for production, and at the end of the case ups will give this arbitration win to the sitting arbitrator and explain this is how your fellow arbitrator rules on a similar case. This case will bear weight on all and every future production arbitration's.

The ibt should step in and go through every recourse with this grievant, for the simple fact that this is to important of a case to go unchallenged!

 

[brownIEman]

BrownIEman,
I want to be on your side and agree with you. I really do, but I can't. The result of your 3-day ride proves an increase in production. Your post assumes the production gain will last for 365 days. I believe thats where you get the 6k/year figure.

The problem with your logic is the driver will not work as fast as he did during 3-day ride the entire year. You get him to work faster (not more efficently) because you are up his rear-end all day. Once you're gone the driver will go back to his previous SPOHR and your 6K in savings is gone.

Actually, I was speaking about the specific case that is the subject of this thread. The driver in this case is gone, so there is no production gain from him. My Figure was actually based on a very quick calculation of just shy of 1 stop/hour increase in production from the centers 5% drivers who were coasting until they got the message they can be terminated for that. I based it on a 50 car center, giving 2 drivers, and a 110 stop route. I believe I have used very conservative numbers and still came up with over 6000.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

Some of them could. Many IE sups came from operations. In my district, one of our IE sups still holds the record for most stops delivered in one day with no helper. Most of the numbers used were not created by those in IE now, but were created years ago by managers, the majority of whom spent many years driving. There are many in IE who could not run a route anywhere near what you or your fellow drivers could do. Your view of IE is overly simplistic and based on a general ignorance of the organization.

Considering I'm a union employee now and formerly in management, Ignorance is not part of my vocabulary. I understand the mentality of putting goals higher than you can reach so management is always pushing themselves to acheive. But, when you are out on the road and expected to work like you are a robot, then your goals hurt you more than you think.

People with great work ethics get easily frustrated when a hard days work is shown on a computer to be lackluster. There are only so many ways to wring the driver to squeeze out unreachable goals. Anytime we are not moving a package or driving, we are losing money to the company. That kind of philosophy is going to bite you, when injuries mount up, and a drivers' love for his job becomes lost.

PS - If your IE sup is bragging about his accomplishment, theres no way he delivered safely and took a lunch. But we will never know that.

 

[705red]

Some of them could. Many IE sups came from operations. In my district, one of our IE sups still holds the record for most stops delivered in one day with no helper. Most of the numbers used were not created by those in IE now, but were created years ago by managers, the majority of whom spent many years driving. There are many in IE who could not run a route anywhere near what you or your fellow drivers could do. Your view of IE is overly simplistic and based on a general ignorance of the organization.

Heff's got a great point! How can the people that make the rules, set the stops per hour, time averages, allowances and dispatches do it if they themselves can not meet their numbers?

I have always been a show me kind of guy! Dont tell me, but show me!

Perfect example, last week was very heavy some were going out with more stops then they were at xmas time. Extra routes were put in, but come friday all the extra routes were cut. Volume was down but still heavy for the 1st week in january, and we got hit with a snow storm, ( after it was over 12 plus inches) starting right before rush hour friday morning. Now it takes longer to get out to the route, because of weather. Made my first stops at 1015 compare to 920,925ish.

Needless to say a lot of us qualified for our 9.5 pay on friday, because ups decided it was easier to send out less routes, in bad weather and allow some drivers to go home. Oh yeah my stops per hour were down, but i tried every thing to hit my 19, 20 an hour. Hope i still have a job on monday.

 

[trplnkl]

PS - If your IE sup is bragging about his accomplishment, theres no way he delivered safely and took a lunch. But we will never know that.

PSS, if he holds the record for stops delivered in a day, was he over or under allowed? If under, he didn't use the proper delivery methods.
Next question, can he do it again tomorrow?

 

[HEFFERNAN]

Actually, I was speaking about the specific case that is the subject of this thread. The driver in this case is gone, so there is no production gain from him. My Figure was actually based on a very quick calculation of just shy of 1 stop/hour increase in production from the centers 5% drivers who were coasting until they got the message they can be terminated for that. I based it on a 50 car center, giving 2 drivers, and a 110 stop route. I believe I have used very conservative numbers and still came up with over 6000.

This paragraph also proves my point that you see the drivers as characters in a computer game with finite attributes. Moving things around to try to increase production to make your army more efficient.
The video game realm does not compute in real life scenarios.

I hope one day you can see you are working with real people.

 

[dannyboy]

Coupla things

sups need to stay at the center and go over stats to look for trends.

Well, they do that. And guess what, no matter what they find, the only answer and course of action comes from above. So that would really be a waste.

Any sup can go out on one day and run a route with big numbers. Its called a sprint.

A driver is a distance man, not interested in one day bursts of speed, but instead interested in the whole week, month, career. There is a reason the flash in the pan went into supervision.

Anyway, got some paperwork to digest. Will condense it. Boy a bunch of you all are way off.

d

 

[705red]

Actually, I was speaking about the specific case that is the subject of this thread. The driver in this case is gone, so there is no production gain from him. My Figure was actually based on a very quick calculation of just shy of 1 stop/hour increase in production from the centers 5% drivers who were coasting until they got the message they can be terminated for that. I based it on a 50 car center, giving 2 drivers, and a 110 stop route. I believe I have used very conservative numbers and still came up with over 6000.

When you compute your numbers do you take into account the contract at all? Such as the employees age, ability, etc? If an employee has been hurt, and can no longer perform at his best, yet the company doctor releases him to go back to work, is it fair to hold him to a standard that he can not meet?

Management-Employee Relations
Section 1.
(a) The parties agree that the principle of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay shall be observed at all
times and employees shall perform their duties in a manner that best represents the Employer's interest.
The Employer shall not in any way intimidate, harass, coerce or overly supervise any employee in the
performance of his or her duties. The Employer will treat employees with dignity and respect at all
times, which shall include, but not be limited to, giving due consideration to the age and physical
condition of the employee. Employees will also treat each other as well as the Employer with dignity
and respect.

 

[HEFFERNAN]

PSS, if he holds the record for stops delivered in a day, was he over or under allowed? If under, he didn't use the proper delivery methods.
Next question, can he do it again tomorrow?

And the day after that! and the one after that one !
He just proved to management that he can do the job at a high level. But now he's expected to reach this level every damn day he works for the rest of his life.

You a little under the weather? doesnt matter
It's 10 degrees outside? doesnt matter
It's 100 degrees outside 90% humidity? drink water, doesnt matter
New preloader sucked? DOESNT MATTER

Eventually your almighty IE sup will hate his job and quit, or be fired because he proved one day that he can achieve that goal and failed to attain it again. Does that sound fair? Is that something to brag about?