UPS completely shut down in Seattle

[Aiken]

trplnkl--

Wow, thanks for the detailed response. It's always helpful to understand the ins and outs a bit better. For instance, not that I particularly want someone working more than 60 hours a week, but I didn't know there was a law specifically against it. Funny enough, when you're not on a clock, they can routinely get more than 60 out of you, since your hours aren't tracked.

If it's any consolation to you guys, even a little additional info like that actually helps us customers understand the logistics, and thus how to plan deliveries in the busy season better. After all, TV commercials are probably our prime source of information about the company, and they're pretty glowingly and optimistically confident about the ability to deliver, no matter what. That's probably part of the problem. Someone at my own work recently noted, "Expectations are pre-meditated resentments." Seems true with shipping.

Thanks also for the contact info. I'll probably write a letter when all is said and done. Email, not so much. I never expect anyone, at any company, to respond to email.

Cheers...

 

[Aiken]

dannyboy--

Well, I wasn't on quite the same tack as the other guys, so I can't say what they expected. They probably didn't really expect anything. I've made a number of blog comments along similar lines myself... that's got to be even less useful, really. It's just hard to be essentially impotent in the face of a problem like this. I'd have to guess that what you've seen is much more along the lines of lashing out at anything resembling a target, and you guys here are unfortunate enough to look like targets because of the emblem on your uniform. If you've ever had a hormonal wife or girlfriend tear you a new one because of Something Some Idiot Man You Don't Even Know did, then you might have an inkling of what I mean. Sometimes it's better just to hunker down and weather the storm.

(By the way, I've been browsing around out of curiosity, and I have to say... this forum is fascinating. It's so interesting to hear about a totally different line of work. I wonder if anyone's done a behind-the-scenes show about shipping companies, kind of like Airline and Airline UK did for flying/airports.)

 

[trplnkl]

dannyboy--

Well, I wasn't on quite the same tack as the other guys, so I can't say what they expected. They probably didn't really expect anything. I've made a number of blog comments along similar lines myself... that's got to be even less useful, really. It's just hard to be essentially impotent in the face of a problem like this. I'd have to guess that what you've seen is much more along the lines of lashing out at anything resembling a target, and you guys here are unfortunate enough to look like targets because of the emblem on your uniform. If you've ever had a hormonal wife or girlfriend tear you a new one because of Something Some Idiot Man You Don't Even Know did, then you might have an inkling of what I mean. Sometimes it's better just to hunker down and weather the storm.

I do understand what you mean, sometimes it is just better to say " I'm sorry for your difficulties" and walk away. However it seems that most UPS drivers are not of that type of person, or at least not the vets. We have a tendency to dig in and fight. As someone else eluded to in another thread, I can say all kinds of nasty things about my Uncle Ned, but you'd better not.

(By the way, I've been browsing around out of curiosity, and I have to say... this forum is fascinating. It's so interesting to hear about a totally different line of work. I wonder if anyone's done a behind-the-scenes show about shipping companies, kind of like Airline and Airline UK did for flying/airports.)Anyone wanting to do a behind-the-scenes would have to be very careful and very secretive, UPS would never allow any such "non-sense". They only let out what they want out. As a viewer of any such, I would only see it as an expose' of what the director/producer wanted to say. I have no confidence in documentaries anymore, Thank you Micheal Moore.

Oh and Danny, Aiken isn't one of the guys that came in here crapping on our company(US).

 

[BigBrownSanta]

To add to dannyboy's excellent post, most routes are set up to deliver businesses first. When you have record ice and snow conditions like this, businesses don't open. Those packages don't get delivered. The problem then becomes, where do you put those packages when your truck is already crammed full? Your ability to make deliveries becomes harder and harder with each undelivered business package because you are wading through all the closed businesses packages to get to the residential packages.

IMO, Fedex doesn't have this problem simply because they don't have the same number of packages and deliveries on their trucks.

 

[dannyboy]

Big

Thankyou. That is a correct observation. The average Fedex driver has between 45-75 deliveries, and between 120-200 packages on their truck when they start. Usually, they can deliver their first bulk stop out the back door by walking through the truck from the front.

I dont know, what, maybe 5% of ours go out empty enough to walk through, and they are the way out back routes that dont usually have many businesses.

They are crammed every day. Large businesses up the middle, smaller businesses on the shelves and floor.

Most of our routes go out with 350-800 packages, 125-300 stops.

When you finally get to deliver the home deliveries, you are crawling up the shelves to try to get to some packages. For every foot of space you make, you have to cram other packages you could not deliver into it.

Oh and did I mention, where to put the pick up pieces?

d

 

[sortaisle]

you guys ought to see spokane's situation. Everytime we think we're going to get caught up one day, we get another storm. We're running a full package car today. something like 18,000. That'll get us caught up one day. However, we're expecting another 8 inches of snow this weekend, and that'll get us right back to being gehind again. We have had near 5 feet of snow so far this winter and there's still 3 months of winter left! We are easily going to surpass Denvers storm of last year at this rate. We had record snowfall on just the first week of this storm. There are packages still here in the building from the 18th. The bright side is, little Jimmy will have a second christmas! The bad news is all the Monavi and wine leakers popping their corks from freezing. It's a nightmare.

 

[sortaisle]

wescaddle and UPSsucks425, The post office has to deliver to every house everyday. That's a given and they are always set up for every house everyday. UPS is not set up for every house everyday. We do not deliver lots of letters and such, most of our volume varies from the size of a brick, all the way up to the size of a 52 in. tv. Sometimes larger. FedEx has made their business the small envelope. If you need a letter mailed fast you FedEx it. They don't have the same amount of packages on their cars as we do, and their average delivery is a small box, mostly envelopes, and the occasional Dell. It's not that they're better managed (although that could be true, but I doubt it...) they just have far less volume per car than we do. So it really doesn't kill them to have an extra 30 or 40 per car. Instead of getting off at 5 (like everyday over here) they actually have to work a 12-14 hour day. Not to mention that FedEx has 3 different divisions that work independently of each other, Freight, Express, and Home. You have moved your beef from the realm of pissed off customer which I completely understand, to being bitter with some of our members here. You might understand, but I'm going to repeat it anyway, when you came in here pissing about having missing packages, you were not in the least considering the ass kicking that the drivers and the warehouse workers have been taking in trying to deliver the stuff they could get to. It wasn't enough to explain to you that the logistics were impossible to deal with, our area grew almost 1000% percent by the time the storms were done. Yes, your streets might have been plowed and cleared, however, we have to wade through 1000% percent more volume before we can even get to your area, and DOT says 14 hours a day and 60 hours a week or you get fined if you go over. We don't just put anybody in our package cars to deliver, it's much harder than you think. We have a week long course we have to take and pass before they will let us off UPS property in a package car. That is why we have less accidents than any other delivery company, because our drivers are trained to be better than the average joe. I'm sorry your package didn't get delivered on time, however, UPS doesn't gaurantee your package delivery time during the holiday season anyway, but the way you went about bad mouthing UPS and INSULTING our company just goes to show that you expect the impossible, are completely ignorant of how UPS, FedEx, USPS, or the all but defunct DHL works. I am sorry that you are taking UPS off your vendor list. I would be interested to see if you are completely satisfied with FedEx or whomever you decide to go with during the other 3 seasons. The fact remains that FedEx and DHL simply cannot do what UPS can year around. We had a winter storm gaff this year, but the fact that we have more deliveries per day than FedEx does during the year is a testament to the fact that we are simply better than they are at the shipping game. You've had a bad time with a few posters here, but we are simply stressed out from the bs we get from our corporate and the weather. And if you remember Spokane (which is where I work) then you know Spokane can't keep up with the plowing. Idaho can. We are in a worse situation over here in Spokane than Seattle is.

 

[wescaddle]

sortaisle, good point about the USPS delivering to every house every day. I had not thought of that.

dannyboy, please show me where I "craped on your drivers".

BTW, do you even work for UPS?

 

[cosmo1]

Do the mods have the power to lock a thread or ban a poster. I would be interested to see how many of the recent "new" members are using the same IP address, a no-no on most forums.

 

[scratch]

Do the mods have the power to lock a thread or ban a poster. I would be interested to see how many of the recent "new" members are using the same IP address, a no-no on most forums.

Yes, we can lock a thread, and I have thought about doing just that. These "recent new members" have IPs out of Washington, not like a certain member in Philidelphia, like a few of you keep referring to.

 

[Leftinbuilding]

wescaddle and UPSsucks425, FedEx has made their business the small envelope. If you need a letter mailed fast you FedEx it. They don't have the same amount of packages on their cars as we do, and their average delivery is a small box, mostly envelopes, and the occasional Dell. It's not that they're better managed (although that could be true, but I doubt it...) they just have far less volume per car than we do. So it really doesn't kill them to have an extra 30 or 40 per car.

"Peak Day" in the industry, is the heaviest (volume and stops) day of the year. Typically 3-5 days before Christmas. FedEx "peak" day was less than half of UPS's daily, year round, avg volume. That is like comparing Wal Mart to your neighborhood variety store. Similar, but worlds apart.

 

[Highwayman]

Where is the LOVE!

 

[Channahon]

I haven't take the time to read all of 122 of these posts, but I have read some of them.

Let me just say that as a retiree of UPS and in management most of my career. UPS does not like to see a backlog of packages in any building in any part of the country.

Our drivers are the best in the industry, and I can say from experirence, that during bad weather our drivers know where they can and can't make it in bad weather. They also are very in tune as to where their customers work and live. And if they could deliver a package during bad weather to where they know their customer works, they would do that. Drivers would also suggest meet points in town, such as a restaurant, fire or police station to have customers who live out in the country, pick up their packages on their way home. And most customers, who know how treacherous some roads can be, are happy to do so, out of respect for the driver and to get their packages.

UPS has been in business over 100 years, because of the dedication to all UPS employees, mangement and union.

 

[Aiken]

dannyboy, BigBrownSanta, sortaisle, et al--

Thanks for the additional insights. Overall, it kind of sounds like a lot of companies, where the suits make baaad decisions, based on marketing and economic trends, and it's the people who do the real work who pay dearly for them.

As I said earlier, to a lot of us outsiders, the shipping business is basically a magic black box. Or maybe a magic brown box in this case. Package goes in at one end, and comes out at the other. We're not so naive that we really think it's that simple, but nobody's ever explained it to us before. With the info provided on this thread, plus things I've learned reading other threads, I probably now know 10000% more than I did yesterday about how UPS accomplishes things. I'd have to bet that corporate would rather we didn't know these details, and that might be why we don't. Knowing them makes a huge difference, though.

For what it's worth, I just got off of the phone with someone else who's been waiting, and I told her some of the stuff you've told me. She said that she had already felt really bad for you guys on the front lines, and she didn't even know the half of it. So, like I said, I think people out here do know who to blame and who to appreciate.

Again, thanks for all the explanations, guys. I don't think I'll post to this thread again, because I don't want to keep bumping a thread that's clearly a sore spot for you, but don't think I don't appreciate the time you took to explain things, or the work you do to get my packages to me.

Take care...

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Feel free to direct anyone of the people you talk to, to this website, aiken. This isn't a pay website and it's open to the public. I'm sure that as you have gained some insight into the Brown machine, we'll be able to gain some insight into your life/lives. I really appreciate the the sincerity and thoughtfulness of your posts. Thanks for giving us a look from beyond the box.

 

[dannyboy]

Aiken

Hang around. There are a lot of different things that can be learned by lurking.

And while this thread is not typical of the help that gets given, we do strive to help our customers out. After all, they are the people that see to it our paycheck is actually worth money.

d

 

[Aiken]

dannyboy--

Oh, actually, I do intend to hang out a bit. Like I said, it's fascinating. I just don't want to keep bumping this particular thread.

I did return to this thread for one unexpected addendum, though. My wife says we've gotten seven of our nine packages today, so there's finally some joy in Mudville. Thanks to whoever got them to us, if you're out there. Happy New Year, hope you get off work tonight in time to have some fun.

 

[davidr]

Dear fellow employees: When in hole, stop digging.

Take a step back and read this thread from an outside perspective. Our customers (the reason we have paychecks) feel that we failed them. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, what matters is that our customers aren't happy.

When you call our customers liars, it insults the customers and hurts the company's image. Please stop.

Please stop berating customers for ordering products and expecting them to be delivered within a specified time frame. That is the point of our business, remember?

To the customers with long-overdue packages: I believe you, and I'm really sorry. I worked inside the Hub every day of the storm to try to get your packages out. I put chains on and gave rides to my coworkers who couldn't make it in. I had to leave my family's Christmas dinner early to try and get some sleep before starting work at midnight for the next day's deliveries. And yet, there are still thousands of customers missing packages. It sucks.

Please disregard the employees who launch personal attacks against you and don't acknowledge your concerns. The rest of us may not be able to help you specifically, but I believe most of us do understand what a frustrating situation this is.

 

[cosmo1]

Yes, we can lock a thread, and I have thought about doing just that. These "recent new members" have IPs out of Washington, not like a certain member in Philidelphia, like a few of you keep referring to.

Thanks.

Ted

 

[Leftinbuilding]

Davidr, don't come on here and start lecturing about customer relations. We are not children. If someone has a legitimate complaint, most here will do everything in our power to help. But when someone attacks UPS for service failures due to conditions out of our control, I for one, will not ignore it. I have invested over 35 years in this company and have a degree of loyalty you may never know. So, please don't presume to speak for me!