At what point is it "too late" to be making deliveries?

[bumped]

Cut-off time should be whenthe street light come on

 

[toonertoo]

Cut-off time should be whenthe street light come on

I vote for you, and Ds and Over you are so right. I might be able to work safe after 9 or ten hours, but I am still human, I get tired, and thats just the way it is. I am not a machine.

 

[tourists24]

I vote for you, and Ds and Over you are so right. I might be able to work safe after 9 or ten hours, but I am still human, I get tired, and thats just the way it is. I am not a machine.

Not according to mgt. You have your 340 methods and as long as you follow them you should be able to work safely even if asked to go til midnight. Maybe even later

 

[toonertoo]

Not according to mgt. You have your 340 methods and as long as you follow them you should be able to work safely even if asked to go til midnight. Maybe even later

Well sucks to be them, I dont care what methods I use, Im just a little older than them, been doing this a lot longer than them, and am in better shape than them, and I get tired. And then I am not productive. I might get it done but it wont be pretty on their little numbers paper. And after 9 pm unless I have help, or it was an extreme emergency, I will take myself out of service for being sick, and after 12 hrs of boxes, I truly will be.

 

[ol'browneye]

We have the lovely start time of 10:00 at our satelite and 10 hour days are not uncommon a couple days a week. We don't even hit 9.5 until 8:30. Our management is not concerned at all with us delivering at 8-9:00 at night. Why should they be, they are home with their families well before then. Personally, I don't mind a 10-11 hour day once in a while, but if I started at 8-8:30, it would be a little more reasonable.

 

[bigbrownhen]

I agree that there should be no deliveries after 9pm. I don't like anyone to even call my house that late. Standard rule with friends and family, if you call any later it better be an emergency. Unfortunetly, it will probably take one of us getting shot before corporate takes notice of this practice and sets a standard.

I wonder how much injuries and accidents are increased due to fatigue. It's just a matter of time and odds before it affects the numbers. Real cost effective there.

Sober, I feel sorry for anyone who works in your center. Sounds like a complete nightmare.

 

[Omega man]

As to the union;
the BA not supporting any over 9.5 grievances due to the contract language that states extended routes-( those that over 150 miles)- can not file on 9.5's.
As to sheeting a pkg as missed,
I do not need the problems that would arise.
I do not tilt at windmills, my dear Sancho.

You are most definitely part of the problem. If you are too cowardly to do the right thing and sheet the undelivered stops as missed, as they should be, then management basically owns you. They know that you will be complicit with them in their digressions from ethical behavior. Until you open your eyes, you are nothing more than an enabler and getting what you deserve. It's never too late to start doing what is right.

 

[COSMOS]

The last time I was pulled over for a commercial inspection, the trooper wanted to know when I punched in and when I started driving.... Good luck telling him he's interpreting the law incorrectly. You're guaranteed to lose even if he is wrong.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Cut-off time should be whenthe street light come on

That's as early as 4:30pm during the winter here.

 

[FracusBrown]

I find it hard to believe that anyone is dispatched with 12, 13 or 14 hour days on a regular basis. A person with a 10 hour dispatch taking 14 hours is an entirely different issue. One of the posts indicates that the driver is in the "cold". Dispatch doesn't take into consideration the drivers ability and knowledge. If the metrics being forced from above were impossible, they would be impossible everywhere, not just in this center. Drivers may not work more the 60 hours in a 7 day period, regardless of the hours per day rule. 14 hours per day would put them out of service early in day 5.

Sounds like there were a lot of people (hourly and management) not doing their job too well to me, and now the same standards everyone else has are being applied to this center.

 

[CRASH501]

I spoke with a driver yesterday who had worked 14 hours on Thursday. He was making residential deliveries at 10:00 at night, and he brought missed stops back to the building at 10:45 PM.

This is pretty much routine for the train wreck of a center I have been transferred to. Some idiot in Atlanta has mandated an impossible stops-per-car metric for this center, so our management--oops, I mean puppets---have no choice but to dispatch 12, 13 or even 14-hour days.

So my question is----at what point does it become unprofessional and downright unsafe to be making residential deliveries at night? Is it really an acceptable business practice to be knocking on doors, going into back yards or garages, or waking people up at 10:00 at night in order to deliver packages?

The only time I have ever delivered that late was on New Years Eve of 2008 when we were recovering from the worst snow storms this area had seen in 100 years and we had a 2 week backlog of undelivered peak volume. It was understandable under those circumstances, and being New Years Eve most people were awake anyway.

But this isnt peak season, its September. And its not the weather, its management incompetence.

Walking thru peoples back yards at 10:00 at night is a good way to get shot in some of the rural areas I deliver to. At what point is it time to just "call it a night" and sheet the stops as missed?

.
You have pretty much answered your own question. At some point you need to decide when you feel unsafe out there , if its fatigue , or just the area your in UNSAFE IS UNSAFE !

 

[bumped]

That's as early as 4:30pm during the winter here.

Be me also.

 

[toonertoo]

That's as early as 4:30pm during the winter here.

Here too, sounds good to me

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

This issue will never be resolved until (or maybe I should say UNLESS) the idiot that came up with the stops per car metric moves onto to another silly metric.

 

[rod]

I find it hard to believe that anyone is dispatched with 12, 13 or 14 hour days on a regular basis. A person with a 10 hour dispatch taking 14 hours is an entirely different issue. One of the posts indicates that the driver is in the "cold". Dispatch doesn't take into consideration the drivers ability and knowledge. If the metrics being forced from above were impossible, they would be impossible everywhere, not just in this center. Drivers may not work more the 60 hours in a 7 day period, regardless of the hours per day rule. 14 hours per day would put them out of service early in day 5.

Sounds like there were a lot of people (hourly and management) not doing their job too well to me, and now the same standards everyone else has are being applied to this center.

Bingo!----We always had a few drivers that would start racking up the hours on Monday so they could be off early on Friday. It was the ONLY sure fire way to be guaranteed a light day on Friday. They weren't dragging their feet-- they were just working as directed without complaining about being over dispatched Mon. - Thurs. For the most part it was the 2 routes in the center that averaged over 300 miles a day. (especially in the winter)

 

[satellitedriver]

You are most definitely part of the problem. If you are too cowardly to do the right thing and sheet the undelivered stops as missed, as they should be, then management basically owns you. They know that you will be complicit with them in their digressions from ethical behavior. Until you open your eyes, you are nothing more than an enabler and getting what you deserve. It's never too late to start doing what is right.

I will let your personal comment about me go by, this time.
After 24yrs as a full time driver the union, nor the company , owns me.
I do right everyday and I do get what I deserve, it is called $45 an hour after 6:45pm.
The union has enabled the company far more than anything I have done.
Ethical behavior by the union?
But, I digress.
The dipsticks that direct me to do more than I can do are SOL.
I do, and will do, my job/career everyday, to the best of my ability.
15 months from now-(if I make it)-I will hand over my Mantle to the new crew.
Hope for change, or change your hopes.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

I find it hard to believe that anyone is dispatched with 12, 13 or 14 hour days on a regular basis. A person with a 10 hour dispatch taking 14 hours is an entirely different issue. One of the posts indicates that the driver is in the "cold". Dispatch doesn't take into consideration the drivers ability and knowledge. If the metrics being forced from above were impossible, they would be impossible everywhere, not just in this center. Drivers may not work more the 60 hours in a 7 day period, regardless of the hours per day rule. 14 hours per day would put them out of service early in day 5. Sounds like there were a lot of people (hourly and management) not doing their job too well to me, and now the same standards everyone else has are being applied to this center.

The highlighted portion is not necessarily true, at least in my center. If we have a driver who is new on an area they will lighten his dispatch until he feels more comfortable; conversely, if we have a driver who is very comfortable on his area they may shift more work to him.

 

[JustTired]

Doesn't anybody else see what's going on here?

Back in the day....most drivers would get off between 5:30-6pm. Then it was 6-7pm. And so forth until now the talk is 9-10pm or later.

My guess is that eventually they will pull the dispatch back to 8-9pm when they think everyone has gotten used to being out later. Unbelievably, most everyone will be happy with this change and won't realize they have been duped into working these long hours.

It's either that or they are trying to get you to become so frustrated that you quit.

I can honestly say that I have never received a pkg from any delivery company (other than UPS) after dark. Even at peak season. Now, this may be due to my location. But I can guarantee that I am further from any FedEx center than I am from UPS. I live in a rural area and 1 hour from a semi-major city.

Anybody ringing my doorbell after 9pm better be a law officer, accident victim or the publishers clearing house prize patrol!

 

[AKCoverMan]

In our local (Alaska 959) our rider states that we will not deliver after 2130 “unless by mutual consent”.
As Upstate and others have pointed out, delivering in the dark in the winter is just the way it is. Here in Anchorage in December it is dark by 1600, and I don’t even want to think about what time it gets dark in thirty below Fairbanks in December.
The other day I was covering a route to a town 40 miles out of Anchorage; Palmer, Alaska. It was not too heavy but then they cut 29 very rural stops outside of Palmer to me as well. I think I might have been able to do it 12 hours but the add/cut move put those 29 stops in positions 1200-1299, and the only logical way to deliver these rural stops was after running the Palmer town route normally.
The loader took it literally and when shelf one blew out loaded the stops on the floor in front of the bulkhead door. I lost time fixing this load and that put me in the dark for the last 15 or so rural stops. I had not yet started carrying my winter spotlights so finding houses was fun. I delivered until 2130, missed six rural stops (sheeted as MISSED) and came in at 13.4 paid hours.

 

[bigbrownhen]

Work as directed Sat for sure. I would make sure there is evidence of your management team telling you to sheet those as ECs, not missed. Otherwise you may be accused of dishonesty and be "retired" long before you are ready. You know they will leave you holding the bag. If they were sheeted correctly, attention from the upper management would come down on your local team.

Personally, if the work is out there, so be it, but don't leave me out there 12 hours when the guys in the loops next to me are in at 1830 or sooner. They have the technology to re-dispatch drivers to help each other to even the work load. Why else do we get the message about our ETAs everyday. If I say Ill be in after 8 and the guy next to me is in at 6, then there is no reason not to send him my way and take some stops off me. There is no reason not to send me over to help him if need be either, other than the fact no one really cares.