Signs of............. PEAK!!!!

[haydendavid380]

Originally Posted by chev

II just don't look forward to all the stinking rental trucks they bring into our already overtaxed building. It gets quite crowded around there.

I hate Ryder/Uhaul Trucks.... I don't see how drivers find anything without shelves or walk way. Around here, if it doesn't have shelves, most people take it to mean that you can just throw it in all willy nilly.

[browniehound]

Originally Posted by UPS Lifer

You present an implausible account of what is normal. I have stuffed P500s to the gills and never got more than 400 packages into one

Case in point ... 600 stops (not packages!) in a P500. Even at peak you probably averaged at least 1.2 packages per stop. This would be approx. 720 packages in a P 500. Over stated and over exaggerated!

This creates a credibility problem with everything you say. I had a bubble nose P 800 on my residential route right next to Beverly Hills and my route only blew up to 325 stops. The car was completely full - no such thing as a helper - I used to run and fling and I still couldn't get it all done. You are saying that they got 600 plus packages into your P500!!!! SURE they did!


.

Lifer,
Did you read Sober's entire post? He said a full P500 was left in a garage on route and came back for the rest. I don't mean to pick on you, but thats what he wrote.

He also said that he was to do this so the belt "would be clean". This is what I hate about UPS. As long as its out of their operation the operation could care less what happens at someone else's.

What ever happened to one company? What about internal customers? When I unload my airs I do so with the labels up. I don't overload my totes with smalls so the next person can lift it. I do it for courtesy and to help our employees.

I see the opposite sometimes in the way the operations are managed. One's numbers are what one is after and the other's is the other's problem. Don't we all work for the same company? I guess this is what happens when the only incentive is "my numbers".

[soberups]

Originally Posted by browniehound

problem. Don't we all work for the same company? I guess this is what happens when the only incentive is "my numbers".

I had to represent an employee the other day when he recieved a warning letter for failing to unload all of the Next Day Air out of his truck at the airdrop. The letter stressed the "importance of meeting service obligations to our customers" and was issued with a condescending, patronizing lecture about how our customers "are counting on us to deliver every package every day."

That is all true and valid...as long as it is part of building a termination case against an employee. But today, when I called in a Next Day Air misload that had a bad PAL label on it...I was told to "sheet it as missed and bring it back, we dont have anyone available to deliver it today."

We DID have people available...there is a long list of part timers who are qualified and on the air driver list. My management team simply didnt want to pay one. Since the bad PAL label would mean that the blame for this package could be assigned to preload and not our center, the "importance of meeting service obligations" took a back seat to the importance of looking good on paper and keeping up the SPORH. I guess some things never change.

[IWorkAsDirected]

Originally Posted by browniehound

Over,
I'm with you. Once we hit labor day, peak is here in a blink of an eye! Just like the summer is over after 4th of July weekend.

As for peak planning, I've only heard one thing so far. There will be no more helpers riding bikes ever again here in MA. They tried it last and it was a failure and worse, it was a complete embarassment of the company. A 60 year-old woman peddeling a bike loaded with packages through an apartment complex? I wish I could have filmed it!

Another thing they have done lately was to put big signs on our winshield (billboard anyone?) advertising driver helper jobs for $9.50 an hour. I'm sorry but this is a mistake also. Nobody wants to make $9.50 an hour for any job. I would get them to the interview and then drop this bombshell on the ingnorant souls!

I heard we are hiring a limited amount of temps so my guess would be an emphasis on hiring helps, and lots of them. Last year they had helpers on more routes than ever in the past. Routes with 2 hours of pick-ups were getting helpers during some part of the day!

I think the key is finding quality helpers. We have all seen the useless ones that UPS still insists on hiring because its a body. You know, the 450 lb man, the 19 year-old girl constantly on the phone, the 66 year-old great-grandma, and your run-of-the-mill lazy pot head.

If you give me one of these we are going to struggle. If, however, you give me a decent preloader, a P12000, and a GREAT helper (I had one last year so they do exist) and I'm good for 380-400 stops a day.

I mention the P12 because I've learned over the years of helpers and house calls that too much time is spent looking for packages. The P12 will reduce selection time significantly and allow us to do 40/hour easily.

Forty an hour may seem like a stretch, but my area has some serious stop density.

Brownie

Hey!! I keep trying to tell my "management Team" that I just can't work the way I used to.......I need you on MY team, I'm a 57 year old woman full time driver.

[Work right slow and safe]

I was told last night that i may not work peak this year as a cover driver they are going to cut routes like 5 or more from are center and he stated that out of 85 drivers from my center they are going to get 65 helpers

So with that said more helpers more stops and less drivers

[Hoaxster]

Originally Posted by Work right slow and safe

I was told last night that i may not work peak this year as a cover driver they are going to cut routes like 5 or more from are center and he stated that out of 85 drivers from my center they are going to get 65 helpers

So with that said more helpers more stops and less drivers

.
Maybe gas will go down to $2 / gal.

[soberups]

Originally Posted by Work right slow and safe

So with that said more helpers more stops and less drivers

This has been the same fantasy that I.E. has chased for the last 20 years, and every year it runs headlong into the laws of both economics and geometry. They never seem to learn that (a) you cannot attract an adequate number of competent helpers when you are paying them minimum wage and (b) the best helper in the world cannot solve the problem of having to force 950 cubic feet of delivery volume into a p-700 package car.

[BigBrownSanta]

When I was punching out tonight, I noticed some bid sheets posted on the wall. 3 sheets of PT wanting to go FT fully filled out, 3 sheets of PTers wanting to work as helpers this year completely blank.

[feeder53]

I was lucky enough to have a lot of time driving doubles and went to an interview for working in the sort at $8.50 per hour and turned it down just because of the low wage, but they asked me if I would want feeders and I took it. It was late in the season and I only got about 10 days work. They told me they would use me for vacations, but that never happened, so this year I may not return as I did it just to get extra cash throughout the year.

[brown4life?]

Originally Posted by rod

They don't really sell any of this crap do they? P.T. Barnum was apparently right

HAHA There was an ad in our local tribune for these this morning!!! I also had one come down the belt yesterday!

[cosmo1]

Originally Posted by UPS Lifer

I am going back to the 1970's. As any old timer can tell you (upstate - 3 posts up!) .... things were different back then. Nobody came out to check on a 7 hour producer.

Put the blinders on and take care of the "real" problems. Remember the old saying.. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. I was not the manager back then!!!

First, I am an "old-timer." Thirty years next week.

Second, when his brother accompanied him was in the early 80's, and he did not touch a package.

[haydendavid380]

More signs.... I had a bunch of christmas trees going to menards today.

[feeder53]

Feeders called me yesterday and asked if I was coming back.....