Anyone Else Sick Of The Bid Process?

Lobofan5

Well-Known Member
I dont understand how there is so little information about bids, how much conflicting information is given out about them, the idiodic rules that no one seems to really understand....general bids that don't give any information..and my FAVORITE..

HOW LONG IT TAKES THEM TO FILL A BID SPOT!!!!!!!


I don't know if this is just my center..but its getting really, really old.

AND while Im ranting.... if I lose another bid to a person who accepts it because they have senority..THEN recends it because it dosen't pay the same as their previous rate..thus stalling the process even further..my head just might explode.


Ok I feel better. Am I the only one with these frustrations?
 

samiam

I wish, there for I am?
Bidding sucks. It seems like it takes forever just to get a route up for bid. My advice, unless you have at least 7-10 years of center senority, you are not going to get what you want. I was a utility driver for almost 9 years. During that time routes came up that I could of had, but they were worse than the routes I would cover. It only gets easier. For years I was number 1 or 2 on the utility bid list. That was cake, got to choose each week what I wanted to do for the next week. Finally a driver left a route I wanted, and since I had some senority, I bid on it and got it. GET SOME SENORITY, BID ON A ROUTE YOU WANT, not just to get a route. You will be much happier. I can't stand those fools who jump off a route, then complain and want there old route back. Too bad, and think before you jump. JMO.
 

old levi's

blank space
For years I was number 1 or 2 on the utility bid list. That was cake, got to choose each week what I wanted to do for the next week.

Can't believe you got to bid on work as a swing driver. Not here. Work as directed. For 10 years went in having no idea where I was going. Could be 10 different routes in 10 days.
 

scratch

Least Best Moderator
Staff member
While the Bidding process stinks, it is the only fair way to do it. It doesn't matter who you know, this is where your seniority comes into play. I guess I am lucky, I got a Bid Route when I started driving in 1984. I never worked as a Swing Driver. I have had four routes since then, and every bid was an improvement over the last one. I went from fifty pickups and handling a thousand boxes a day to what I do now, which is a DR route with four pickups and about 160 packages. It does get better.
 

brownrodster

Well-Known Member
I went from fifty pickups and handling a thousand boxes a day to what I do now, which is a DR route with four pickups and about 160 packages. It does get better.

My normal route is a commercial heavy route with 50 pickups and 800+ packages a day. I don't mind my route. But whenver I cover a less than 200 pkg DR route I think how the hell can I go back to my normal route! haha.
 

samiam

I wish, there for I am?
Can't believe you got to bid on work as a swing driver. Not here. Work as directed. For 10 years went in having no idea where I was going. Could be 10 different routes in 10 days.

It was like that for years here. My record is 14 different routes in 14 straight days. Some years ago someone must have complained to the union. One week there was a bid list up and it has been like that ever since. Even when I was a utility driver and I had bid on a route, an on-road would come up to me and say something like 'We really, really, need you to run this route today, so and so is going out blind.' I would say no, I'm not doing it, I made my bid, and so and so can learn the route the same way I did...BLIND ! ! ! It builds charactor.
 

Big Babooba

Well-Known Member
We have an annual bid right now. There is talk of going to a bid every other year in the next contract. I have mixed feelings about each. With an annual bid, you (hopefully) only have to put up with a bad route for a year.On the other hand,a biannual bid would be better if you were on a route that you liked.

We used to have a problem with management making the bid changes in a timely manner. It got to the point where some people never got changed. I'm happy to say that the union stepped in and put a stop to management dragging their feet.

Is what you call a swing driver the same as we call a cover driver?
 

DorkHead

Well-Known Member
Seniority RULES!!!! Everybody goes thru it. Get used to it. Same thing for vacations. I had to wait 20 yrs to get a week in August. Now I take ALL of August off. Love not having to deliver the schools during August.

We bid every 2 yrs. It`s great seeing the top drivers making a switch and watching the "ripple" effect. The cover drivers just hoping they might get a route. We all went thru it. When you think about it, seniority is all we got!!
 

1989

Well-Known Member
Cover driving is the best. There are only a few routes I would want to do everyday. That's only because of the 30 minute ferry ride each way.
 

705red

Browncafe Steward
Here they have to give the employee leaving the route to say go to feeder at least 40 days and then they have to bid the route, the bid must be filled in 10 business days from that. Get with your stewards and enforce the bidding process, remember a package driver can have 3 successful bids in a year period, now if he bids on one route and then bids back to his old one thats 2 bids leaving him only 1 for the next year.

Scratch i thought for sure your center manager would be keeping you out of residential neighborhoods, due to all the dogs you have run over! 160 packages a day delivered 1 dog a week flattened!
 

scratch

Least Best Moderator
Staff member
Scratch! 160 pkgs... you are the man! How many miles?

Ten miles to area, about ninty miles all day in a mostly subdivision area with about 95% of the stops are DR.
Scratch i thought for sure your center manager would be keeping you out of residential neighborhoods, due to all the dogs you have run over! 160 packages a day delivered 1 dog a week flattened!

I average about one dog every two years, never got charged with an accident for the driveway kills, always reported the ones I knew about. The backing camera is good for missing dogs and other stuff. I have got some very long driveways you just don't walk with a SPORH of 17.7.

We have an annual bid right now. There is talk of going to a bid every other year in the next contract. I have mixed feelings about each. With an annual bid, you (hopefully) only have to put up with a bad route for a year.On the other hand,a biannual bid would be better if you were on a route that you liked.
Is what you call a swing driver the same as we call a cover driver?

We bid every two years. Before the Cover Driver position was created, we called the unassigned drivers "Swingdrivers", who covered certain routes that could be busted out and would drive for Bid Drivers on their vacations and other off days.
 

Just Lurking

Well-Known Member
Here they have to give the employee leaving the route to say go to feeder at least 40 days and then they have to bid the route, the bid must be filled in 10 business days from that. Get with your stewards and enforce the bidding process, remember a package driver can have 3 successful bids in a year period, now if he bids on one route and then bids back to his old one thats 2 bids leaving him only 1 for the next year.

Scratch i thought for sure your center manager would be keeping you out of residential neighborhoods, due to all the dogs you have run over! 160 packages a day delivered 1 dog a week flattened!

Red, we call that bid blocking. Those types of bids are voided. We have area wide bidding on first moves so some centers try to keep people out by using this method. So we may be different because of that.
 

jlphotog

Well-Known Member
In my center, they put 11 routes up for bid at the same time. The bid sheets were up for two weeks. They were taken down two weeks ago and the changes start tomorrow.

Some senior drivers that have been on heavy industrial runs are going to extended routes and and those newer drivers that had been doing the extended runs will be changed to the heavy industrial routes. It's gonna be a nightmare.
 

satellitedriver

Moderator
Bids here are every two years, except for my route. I am the only one who can bid on it, since I am considered a "center unto myself". I just wish I could be classified a center manager and get the yearly stock bonus.
PAX
 

ikoi62

Well-Known Member
How long does it usually take for a route to go up for bid when a driver quits and retriers?
my not be the same everywhere but normally its supposed to be 30 days
around here once you bid on a route its yours forever or until a better one comes along...i bid on my old route in 1986 i had 6 months with the company and was on it till i took a clerk job 2 years ago.
 

Big Babooba

Well-Known Member
How long does it usually take for a route to go up for bid when a driver quits and retriers?


Up here the bid usually goes up before the employee vacates the job. If it is a preload job(we have a full time preload), it will go to a part timer.A driver cannot bid on it. If it is a driving job, only a preloader or part timer can go for it. Package drivers are not allowed to move to another package driving job but can bid into feeders(if he is qualified).

During our annual bid a full timer can bid into any job that they are qualified for.
 

rushfan

Well-Known Member
I think it's fair. I had to put in my time. I can't stand the attitudes of some of the employees who transfer from Vegas, So. Cal, or Portland. They think they shouldn't loose their center seniority on vacation bids, feeder postings, and route bids.
 

satellitedriver

Moderator
It was like that for years here. My record is 14 different routes in 14 straight days. Some years ago someone must have complained to the union. One week there was a bid list up and it has been like that ever since. Even when I was a utility driver and I had bid on a route, an on-road would come up to me and say something like 'We really, really, need you to run this route today, so and so is going out blind.' I would say no, I'm not doing it, I made my bid, and so and so can learn the route the same way I did...BLIND ! ! ! It builds charactor.
My record as a swing driver was 3 routes before I even left the building.
At start time I was told to run so and so(blind). Grabbed some maps, checked the first 5 stops and about to leave.
Wait, we need you to run this route. Same routine, just as I was about to leave I hear "Hold up, we need you to run this other route."
By the time I left the builing, my brain was fried.
I had only been fulltime 3 months. The third route was rural, with no maps.
Talk about going out blind, I somehow got every stop off but I had no idea how to get back to the center. Had to ask for directions at a country store.
I guess going out blind builds character, but it is not the best way to build a driver.
PAX
 
Top