Black lung from pkg. dust?

[workinman]

Who's with me out there? Has anyone heard anything about ups drivers coming down with lung disease? How rediculasly un healthy is it in the back of these trucks!?! The co. goes to great lengths to keep the outside of the truck spotless, I'm getting really tired of pulling black junks of bark out of my nose every night! This cant be healthy....

 

[ok2bclever]

They're still washing the car exteriors religiously in your neck of the woods?

They don't up here in Michigan.

Hang around in the building a little longer in the mornings.

The diesel fumes will take care of the dust problem.

 

[over9five]

Im with ya workinman! Takes 1/2 an hour to blow all the shi..stuff outta your nose at the end of the day!

Im gonna report this to my hard working safety committee. Maybe we can get dust masks. Wouldnt the customers love seeing us deliver while wearing dust masks!

 

[upslocal480]

At our center we wash the outsides almost every day and sometimes the entire insides of the trucks. None of that seems to help with the "black sh## in the nose" problem. LOL. In fact...some nights if we didn't wash we'd only get like 2 hours of work. If you guys really want to experience the black stuff in the nose then try shifting. I used to be a shifter at Fed Ex and we used the same switcher tractors they use at most UPSs. I worked the noonday shift there and the twilight shift at UPS and if I didn't spend 5 minutes cleaning out my nose between jobs then I wouldn't be able to breath through my noze by the time the shift started at UPS. Plus just working in a hub itself is a good way to get that black (and sometimes other colors) stuff in your nose and lungs. Those switcher tractors blow out plenty of that stuff. My face would be black sometimes at the end of the shift.

 

[tieguy]

What kind of shifter are you referring to that blows out black smoke into your cab like that?

 

[upslocal480]

We went through several different types (brands) of switcher tractors during the year I was a shifter at Fed Ex. We had to drive them with the back door open during the entire shift regardless of the weather because time contraints. That black soot would come in through there and also through the passenger window because unless it was a bad storm we pretty much had to keep them down becuase we'd suffacate from heat even in the winter and even with that back door open. The shifters at the UPS Hub I worked at really didn't have this problem cause they had an army of shifters while we only had two...sometimes three. They pretty much just cruised around comfortably and would spot a trailor if they just happened to be the closest person to it. Meanwhile over at Fed Ex we were "turnin and burnin" (so it was called in central control) and barely had time to stop and take a bathroom break sometimes. Some days I'd get done and have a swollen bladder and a nice case of black lung. LOL

 

[upsdude]

My truck hasn't been washed in over a month. Water restrictions.

 

[fourty03]

lol.... Here at the baltimore hub, its pretty dirty (in the feeders.) The twilight gets a clean non-dusty work area, buffed floors and the dust already settles, while me, working the night having to put up with the dust already lingering around... hehe

 

[upslocal480]

I worked in smalls in the hub. It was upstairs on a platform above the PDs and all heat, dust, etc. in the hub that didn't naturaly rise up there and into our lungs was sucked up there by the huge ceiling exhuast fans. It wasn't a very physical job but it came with more than enough frustrations to make up for that.

 

[moreluck]

Just a question out of sheer curiosity.......

Do any of you complaining about "lung dust" take smoke breaks at work??

just wondering.

 

[upslocal480]

<~~~~~Allergic to cig smoke!! I'm not even supposed to be around cig smoke. People smoke in our center allot but luckiliy our building is just a large open car port when all the doors are up and the smoke is usually gone in no time.

 

[upslocal480]

Actually I have my own question pertaining to smoking. Just curious. WHY DO PEOPLE DO IT???? It does nothing for your body but rot it from the inside and spoil non smokers' meals at restaurants. I know the cigs don't taste good so whats the deal?

 

[over9five]

I dont care weather people smoke or not; I just cant understand someone who says, " Im going outside to get some fresh air and smoke a cigarette". Oxymoron?

 

[badhab1]

"oxymoron" and "weather" Odd that I understand the use of the first but the second?????????

 

[workinman]

Not a smoker here....just hope my lungs don't appear as someone that does though. 15 years of pkg. dust not to mention the driving in traffic with the doors open breathing in all that wonderful carbon dioxcide (sooooo sorry if spelled incorrectly) Just a truck driver here with a G.E.D (good enough deploma)! Any one out there retired or other wise know of any NON SMOKING ups people with lung problems? Just curious....

 

[sendagain]

Not only the dust, but what leaks out of packages and onto the floor and shelves is what scares me. I've got 24 years in and don't have any health problems, but smoking on top of our work would be foolish. When the sun shines into the truck, you can see the dust in the air, and when you move pieces on the top shelf, no telling what jumps out of those cracks and heads for your lungs. The cleanliness of the vehicles has been brought up many times, but nobody wants to do anything about it. Handing a gritty box to a woman in a clean dress, on her way out the door to an engagement, still makes me cringe; especially when she's wearing white. The Fed Ex packages are much cleaner than ours, and that has to register with the customer; I've certainly noticed it.

 

[workinman]

I hear ya sendagain! Couldn't agree more either. It's down right imbarrassing handing some of these nasty packages to my customers. And then there's the rain factor....one can only imagine the cost of the new vehicles in our center.....THAT LEAK WATER PERFUSLY!!!! How sencless is that?

 

[upslocal480]

Sendagain....When I worked at Fed Ex Ground it didn't take me long to notice how clean their packages were compared to UPSs. I also noticed why. They did a better job of keeping the hub clean after, and sometimes during the shifts. We had to sweep out trailers after we unloaded them if they were even half as nasty as most UPS trailers are. Most Fed Ex Ground hubs have an automated sorter and those are always kept very clean so packages don't get very dirty up there. The package cars are mainly the drivers responsibility because they own them themselves. I dont know what the deal is with the regular Fed Ex Express. They seem to have the cleanest facilitys of all of them.

 

[tieguy]

That explains why 480 is such a whiner hes born and raised fedex. Everyone knows fedex can't hang with the real men and women at UPS.

 

[upslocal480]

"That explains why 480 is such a whiner hes born and raised fedex. Everyone knows fedex can't hang with the real men and women at UPS."

Trying to talk trash about me on other threads now huh? How pathetic. I'm laughing right now. I wasnt born or raised at Fed Ex. Actually I've been at UPS 4 years and was only at Fed Ex one year during this time and despite my opinion that UPS is the better company FOR ME I must tell you that unless you worked at Fed Ex, your comment has no credibility. Everyone should respect their competition and since I worked there I respect them even more. For a career only an individual can determine whether or not UPS or Fed Ex is the better job FOR THEM. You can't decide that for the rest of us. I must also tell you that that those people at Fed Ex can handle the same as UPS employees. Granted...they aren't as big and spread out as UPS but man for man they arent that different than UPS employees. When comparing all the jobs and pay UPS only wins in one category and thats package car delivery pay. Everything else evens out across the board. Its really useless to try and figure out which is better when UPS gets awards for being "Most Admired" but in another magazine Fed Ex gets all the praises such as being in the top 100 jobs to have in the US. So as you can see for the individuals out there one isnt better than the other. I also don't see what this has to do with what was being said on the other threads and why you felt you had to move your trash talking to this one and trying to give me another "verbal butt beating" (as you call it) by attempting to use my working at Fed Ex in the past as some sort of tool against me. LOL. What a character!