In the days when you loaded your own car where it seemed to be very dependent on area knowledge, what happened on your vacations? How did a cover driver who had never done the route before load the car and deliver it successfully?
Man, am I glad I started when we had all this tech in place.
Much like now, we had multiple cover drivers cross trained on most routes. The newest guys sometimes learned every route (15/25 depending on the season) in the bldg.
When I bid my first route, I knew probably 8 routes. There's no question that EDD made the job more efficient in finding stops in your load, provided they were loaded right. The trade off, was that with EDD came the preload and that actually took away our ability to customize our loads. It was a WIN/LOSE in that respect.
With a driver sort and load you also learned all the shortcuts, cool tips and tricks, where to watch out for a bad dog and who did and didn't want their home deliveries at their workplace.
No to mention you really got to know your coworkers way better. That could be good and bad, but mostly good.
Each step up in tech has made some advancements for UPS along with back stumbles. It's more robotic and less personal as we go.
They used to tell us "You are UPS to your customers. You are who they know and trust. You can sell more services far better than a Rep from Business Development."
That's all gone now in most cases. I still had some daily customers, but with all the cookie cutter dispatch, that customer relationship became less of a guarantee and so, less meaningful to customers.
That's the price you pay.
