soberups
Pees in the brown Koolaid
I pray that I am wrong about this...but I'm afraid I wont be.
I am predicting right now that my building will have many hundreds, if not thousands, of service failures on Christmas eve.
I will update this post on Christmas eve. I'd really like to be proven wrong, and if I am wrong I will be quite happy to man up and admit it.
Our "plan" for peak...as dreamed up by the brain trust from Operations and I.E....calls for my building to hire no peak season drivers and rent no vehicles this year. Instead...we will have up to ten of our seniority drivers being used as helpers or...get this....making deliveries on mountain bikes towing trailers.
Thats right...instead of a 16' Uhaul rental truck, we will have a guy on a bicycle.
We bought these bikes and trailers last year, but never really used them because we got hit with the worst snowstorm in 60 years during the last 2 weeks of December. Even with no snow the "plan" was a joke; the college-educated idiot from IE who sat at his computer and calculated the "best" areas to use the bikes (based upon stop density) failed to factor in the existence of hills.
Assuming that we get no snow...we will still have experienced, seniority drivers pedalling around on mountain bikes in the pouring rain on wet leaves in the dark. It gets pitch black around here by 4:45 during peak, and it usually rains every day if it isnt snowing. This morning it was 31 degrees outside and my driveway was icy. This region is simply unsuitable, due to climate and topography, for using mountain bikes as delivery vehicles.
The "plan" also overlooks basic geometry. Basic geometry teaches us that 1700 cubic feet of delivery volume and 1900 cubic feet of pickup volume cannot be contained in a 1000 cubic foot vehicle. Giving the driver of that vehicle a "helper" on a bicycle with a 10 cubic foot trailer will do nothing to solve this underlying problem.
As near as I can figure, IE's "plan" pretty much consists of...."if we pretend hard enough, dreams really do come true". Wishful thinking and denial are poor ways to make important business decisions.
I have brought my concerns to the attention of my management team, and they pretty much get a sick look on their faces and mumble something about "volume being down" and "needing to cut costs". The plan is being shoved down their throats; they know it is totally divorced from reality; but like lemmings they must blindly follow that plan to the bitter end, right off of the cliff.
This whole thing would be morbidly funny...if I werent in the middle of it.
Its peak season. Its cold and dark and wet and I am going to bust my ass for 12 or 13 or 14 hours straight. I'm OK with all that, its part of the job. but is is frustrating and demoralizing to know that I will be bringing many tens if not hundreds of stops back at the end of that 14 hours.
Once again...I hope to God I am wrong about all this and I am looking forward to admitting that fact here. I would like nothing more than to wrap it up "clean" on Christmas eve. I dont think that is going to happen though.
I am predicting right now that my building will have many hundreds, if not thousands, of service failures on Christmas eve.
I will update this post on Christmas eve. I'd really like to be proven wrong, and if I am wrong I will be quite happy to man up and admit it.
Our "plan" for peak...as dreamed up by the brain trust from Operations and I.E....calls for my building to hire no peak season drivers and rent no vehicles this year. Instead...we will have up to ten of our seniority drivers being used as helpers or...get this....making deliveries on mountain bikes towing trailers.
Thats right...instead of a 16' Uhaul rental truck, we will have a guy on a bicycle.
We bought these bikes and trailers last year, but never really used them because we got hit with the worst snowstorm in 60 years during the last 2 weeks of December. Even with no snow the "plan" was a joke; the college-educated idiot from IE who sat at his computer and calculated the "best" areas to use the bikes (based upon stop density) failed to factor in the existence of hills.
Assuming that we get no snow...we will still have experienced, seniority drivers pedalling around on mountain bikes in the pouring rain on wet leaves in the dark. It gets pitch black around here by 4:45 during peak, and it usually rains every day if it isnt snowing. This morning it was 31 degrees outside and my driveway was icy. This region is simply unsuitable, due to climate and topography, for using mountain bikes as delivery vehicles.
The "plan" also overlooks basic geometry. Basic geometry teaches us that 1700 cubic feet of delivery volume and 1900 cubic feet of pickup volume cannot be contained in a 1000 cubic foot vehicle. Giving the driver of that vehicle a "helper" on a bicycle with a 10 cubic foot trailer will do nothing to solve this underlying problem.
As near as I can figure, IE's "plan" pretty much consists of...."if we pretend hard enough, dreams really do come true". Wishful thinking and denial are poor ways to make important business decisions.
I have brought my concerns to the attention of my management team, and they pretty much get a sick look on their faces and mumble something about "volume being down" and "needing to cut costs". The plan is being shoved down their throats; they know it is totally divorced from reality; but like lemmings they must blindly follow that plan to the bitter end, right off of the cliff.
This whole thing would be morbidly funny...if I werent in the middle of it.
Its peak season. Its cold and dark and wet and I am going to bust my ass for 12 or 13 or 14 hours straight. I'm OK with all that, its part of the job. but is is frustrating and demoralizing to know that I will be bringing many tens if not hundreds of stops back at the end of that 14 hours.
Once again...I hope to God I am wrong about all this and I am looking forward to admitting that fact here. I would like nothing more than to wrap it up "clean" on Christmas eve. I dont think that is going to happen though.
.
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I thought we were talking "off the clock", but looking back at the OP, I think the decision-makers may have to/ have been in the bar...
