just curious. Where, exactly, do you feel the responsibility for YOU working safely should be placed?
You really don't understand his point? UPS trains us how to do the job safely in order to reduce or eliminate injuries (a good thing even though it may have nothing to do with compassion but definitely has everything to with economics) but also, and this is important, to reduce their liability if you get hurt.
If you get hurt running off stops, it's your fault. If you get hurt picking up packages the wrong way, it's your fault. If you get hurt doing anything and you are not using UPS' safety methods it is your fault. This sounds totally reasonable, and it is. The problem is not only does UPS expect you to work safely, they also expect you to work at a pace that is not conducive to safety. In fact, I am of firm belief from 21 years experience with the company holding multiple job titles, it is nearly impossible to perform any UPS job using the methods they provide and do it in the time that is allotted you.
What does that mean? A lot of employess will skip methods they feel hinder their meeting UPS' unrealistic production goals. Especially if they are being harrassed over production.
Now I said it was nearly impossible to reach both UPS' safety and production goals simultaneously. For those that try, the speed in which you have to work to attain the goal is such that you can easily stress your body (or mind) to the point where even doing the job using the correct methods can cause the body to break down and an injury can occur.
What should employees do? Use the methods no matter if you meet production goals or not. Remember, the UPS' system is setup with production goals that are not reasonable, on purpose, in essence setting everyone of us up for failure no matter how hard we try. I think it was Jim Casey who made a statement about always being dissatified with our performance so that we constantly strive to improve it.
Think of it in terms of the speed limit. The government sets the limit at say 65, because they think everyone will do 75, which is what the government really found to be a reasonable limit in the first place. But now they have the bonus of being able to ticket people now and than to produce revenue. They never ticket enough to really slow everyone down, just enough to prove that the limit is real and they can arbitrarily enforce it any time they want.
It is the same with I.E.'s numbers. If it takes, say 10 minutes to do a pre-trip, they give us 5. They know it takes 10 in the real world but by raising the expectation they make sure you will do the job as fast as you can. The bonus is they can always harrass you because you are not fast enough even though they know you could never be fast enough. Well, unless you simply don't do the pre-trip in the first place! Now you have met your production goal and also assumed complete liability for not doing the job safely. The company wins either way except for the fact that the vehicle is not inspected. The customer will be the loser if your truck breaks down and they don't get their delivery on time!
Until UPS changes corporate policy from one that expects their employees to take advantage of them if the company doesn't express constant dissatisfaction with our performance, to one that understands that most employees do try to do their best and will be motivated even more when the production goals they are expected to meet actually can be met and are rewarded and congratulated for meeting them, until we change from negative reinforcement to positive, we will always have a problem making UPS a safe place to work.
by safety training us to death. This way they have a leg to stand on when it comes down to brass tacks in a law suit situation. 
. Thank you for the compliment 
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