Hello,
I hope you don’t mind me intruding, you see I’m, not a UPS employee.
I’m a customer.
I’m one of E**’s customers, because it is E*** about which you are having this discussion.
I know that it is not done in society to say anything positive about a person who has committed a crime of this nature, after all he must have been a monster - no? And I cannot and do not condone the taking of another life, and I send my sincere condolences to the families of the boss and his son, but I’d like to tell you about the man. Your colleague in the brown shirt.
I have experience of being a UPS customer in both the UK and France and E*** was the first driver who made me appreciate the UPS brand as superior in every way – he even started me using UPS instead of just receiving parcels.
I’ve never known a driver before with such a ready smile. When he was on the road, he just never had an off-day, despite the fact in many cases he’d just come up a kilometre of single track packed ice and snow, he’d have me grinning like a fool within seconds. He always knew my name and greeted me as a long lost friend. I really looked forward to getting or sending a UPS delivery. To me he was UPS.
He covered an area that is both mountainous and very, very rural. The Ariege in the French Pyrenees is no easy patch, and although I have never done your job I would imagine that here it is nigh on impossible to get a timed delivery anywhere on time, keeping the customer must have called for masterful diplomacy. The roads here are mainly B roads that would classify as C roads or less in England, in the USA I think your front drive would be wider. In winter the cold, sheet ice and snow can be brutal, reducing cars to a crawl, even with winter tyres, and in summer it can go above 40 degrees turning any van into a sauna.
I once drove to the town in which he was based: It took me two hours and that was out of rush hour and I am not at the limit of his patch, he ran an hour beyond my village. Yet he would still be on this part of his patch at 17.30hrs getting those last minute collections that I am sure you will all know well. He was a familiar sight in this area and was truly loved by all that he served and knew, and he knew many, many hundreds of people.
Just as a ‘for instance’ once a week he would eat in the local restaurant and they would take his order by phone and have it on the table for him when he pulled in, knowing that he could only spare 20 minutes to eat in an area where everything closes at 12.30 and reopens at 14.00. He used this time to deliver to private addresses.
This was an exceptional man, a man I would have, and still would, trust with my children. It saddens me that his employers put him under such pressure that this mild mannered individual could snap and feel that his only recourse was this drastic, drastic action, one which he knew would result in the tragic deaths of others and cost him the liberty that he treasured, for the rest of his natural life.
The only hard facts I have came from the local paper: He had been offered a new job and they needed him to start in 8 weeks. There was clearly friction in the office that he reported to - he was told by his boss that he would be made to serve every day of his mandatory three months notice. He would not be released early under any circumstances. The other job offer was held open but they needed somebody in 8 weeks, reluctantly, they’d have to start recruiting. He wasn’t young, the opportunities for other work must have been few. In this part of France if you’re over thirty five you’re over the hill.
He loved UPS and he loved his customers and they loved him back. He was a shining example of what service can and should be, in a country where lacklustre service and a couldn’t care less attitude, sadly is the norm.
I’ll miss him and if he ever is released from prison, I’d employ him tomorrow.
Thanks for reading, guys. God bless you all.
And E***, I’ll miss you.
We all will.
God Speed my friend.
