BonusCenter Equals More Stops, Long Hours, Shrinking Bonus

[ezrider]

Tieguy it's really a matter of what these "bonus" drivers aren't doing.It's called customer integrity.Every driver I work with was made to sign a piece of paper that stated when doing a pickup line that we as service providers promised to show up every day at a prescribed time,give or take a few minutes,for each bussiness pickup.Now if say,a customer with a 4:15PM commit and a close of 5PM has to stay at his/her bussiness until 5:45PM because some "bonus" driver showed up not at the commit time but at 3PM since he's skipping lunch,breaks,call tags and maybe a safe work method or two in his frenzy to punch out by 4:50PM,where did the integrity for this customer go?What's to stop that customer from diverting those missed packages to a competitor?It's me,the guy using the methods,turning the truck around,driving in rush hour traffic,putting the customer above the increased hours,miles,stoplights,etc.Tieguy I average around an hour bonus a day,but I don't go about my day trying to meet or beat a time study.When a driver cheats,a price has to be paid and sometimes another driver and/or customer has to pay it.

 

[toonertoo]

My understanding has been the most you can make on bonus follwing all the rules, and safety procedures, and not letting the customer down is .83 under, unless you have like 25 cods for one place and they write you one check, and have it ready, and you are out of there. .83 gets you no lunch, no breaks. And no traffic/customer problems/ like a perfect day. Every time you go to pull out on a highway there is no traffic, every time you park, you block no one in, every customer is expecting you, with open arms and shoves everything else aside. Anything over that is a infringement of the "rules", and they are OK to skip until something bad happens, then it will be YOUR FAULT.

(Message edited by toonertoo on September 11, 2003)

 

[tieguy]

I would imagine you could do much better than .83 clicks. I remember the days with the 10 computers going up 3 flights of steps , I also remember the days when a catalog shipper was shipping heavy and you could dump quite a few dr Fd's in a short amount of time.

 

[tieguy]

Your logic asumes there can only be one safe speed to work at. Yet if we take 2 or 3 or 4 drivers that you determine is safe,then I can tell you they won't all run the route in the same exact amount of time. What makes one safe driver faster then another?

If my pickups start at 2 pm and end at 4:45 theres nothing that says I can't deliver quite a few more packages outside that window and still hit my pickups at exactly the right time. If I really have my stuff together I can probably work a few more deliveries while I'm moving from one pickup to the next. There are a lot of variables that dictate how many packages you can deliver in a day and providing unsafe work and poor customer service are not the only possible reasons for being faster then someone else.

 

[dammor]

ezrider, Good post. The drivers that are cutting corners are are hurting us. Customer service should be our first concern.

Tie, Are your feeder drivers bonus also? Hell, if they drove 80 instead of the speed limit they could get home quicker and make as much money as they do now. 1 out of 3 might do it safely and the other 2 would surely kill somebody.

 

[tieguy]

I'm sorry Dammor were you responding to something in my post that you may have disagreed with or were you being a rectal portal again? You are easily one of the most negative sounding UPSers I have ever come across.

 

[toonertoo]

My center is no longer bonus. I did work in one that was for awhile and once I knew a route, and it was mostly residential, I could run 1+ hrs early, but I was paid from the non bonus center, so that was redundant. Now I have a 95% commercial and on a really spectacular day I can run -.80. So I was just going by what I was told by Mgmt --------Just my thoughts on the matter. Especailly on a route that has lots of overweights, and OS1/OS2 I dont think the time study is accurate anymore, and no one says anything when I am late, so I guess they also realize it.

 

[dammor]

"Your logic asumes there can only be one safe speed to work at. Yet if we take 2 or 3 or 4 drivers that you determine is safe,then I can tell you they won't all run the route in the same exact amount of time. What makes one safe driver faster then another? "

"Tie, Are your feeder drivers bonus also? Hell, if they drove 80 instead of the speed limit they could get home quicker and make as much money as they do now. 1 out of 3 might do it safely and the other 2 would surely kill somebody."

"I'm sorry Dammor were you responding to something in my post that you may have disagreed with or were you being a rectal portal again? You are easily one of the most negative sounding UPSers I have ever come across."


Dear Tie, As usual you have responded with the anal talk. (How schocking) I was responding to your post and this is the reason. I don't feel you have a clue what it is to be a driver at UPS.
Have you ever been one? If I come across as negative to you it is because I have delt with management good and bad and in between. Guess which one you seem to me to be. I may be wrong.
I am only negative when I feel compelled to respond to statements that make no sense in the work environment we are in these days. I've been here for 23 years and am in a center that for the last several years has really made progress as far as relations between all who work there.
It is a pretty sight to see. You rub me wrong because you seem to be a young one still following the old school policies. Once again, I may be wrong. All I know about you is from your posts. Go back and read all of yours and I will do the same with mine. If I come across more negative than you I will buy you dinner. If you however are the negative one, I would settle for dinner and less anal language.)

 

[tieguy]

Dear Tie, As usual you have responded with the anal talk. (How schocking)

"Yes your right I did politely call you an <font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font>. I don't really think your shocked I'm quite sure its something you hear everyday."

"I was responding to your post and this is the reason."

In fact you were not. Did you notice I was standing on home plate talking about apples while you were in the left field bleachers talking about oranges. That should have been your first clue.

"I don't feel you have a clue what it is to be a driver at UPS. Have you ever been one? "

Touche , I was just getting ready to ask you the same thing. Oh I believe you may have sat in a package car and maybe even driven one. But you don't know the first thing about being a delivery driver. Its clear your someone who fails to do the job often and then makes excuses blaming others. If not why is it so hard for you to at least concede that some drivers are much more efficent then others at doing the job. Why then is your twisted mind telling you that everyone that is faster than you is cutting corners or working unsafely. Ah yes think about it. Why is everyone faster than you in the first place.

"If I come across as negative to you it is because I have delt with management good and bad and in between. Guess which one you seem to me to be. I may be wrong."

I'm sure I represent the one that held you accountable to do the job. I'm sure you don't like doing the job.

"I am only negative when I feel compelled to respond to statements that make no sense in the work environment we are in these days. "

Then I'm sure that no statement has ever made sense to you because you are clearly always negative.

"I've been here for 23 years and am in a center that for the last several years has really made progress as far as relations between all who work there."

Excellent I hope you learn to join the crowd someday.

"It is a pretty sight to see. You rub me wrong because you seem to be a young one still following the old school policies."

I really don't care if I rub you the wrong way. I honestly believe your a whiner and malcontent who does not earn his keep. I have no use for you.

 

[dammor]

Feel better now tie? Hope you didn't pop a vein after that little fit. I guess this means we won't be going to dinner. Bummer....
As far as being a driver. Ever done that?

 

[proups]

Amazing that we can't see a thread without all the

 

[tieguy]

Absolutely Dammor. Drover for 3 years . I'm sure you could tell anyway by my previous posts that you addressed. Now why do you keep dodging the issue. You and others on this board keep dodging the same point.

1) There are drivers that are much more efficent then others and work safely and provide good service.

Why do you guys belittle their efforts by trying to say they are taking safety and service shortcuts?

 

[toonertoo]

I thought this was a place to exchange info, it seems like a battleground. I am sure a younger driver can deliver much faster than an older one, and do the same job safely. But some of the times in a bonus center next to me seem a little off. I know older drivers still move faster than 90% of the population. I was just trying to compare in a nonconfrontational forum. I think the time studies need to be redone, they havent been re-evaluated 9in my center) in 8 yrs. Even with the old time study, I know where I lose time so in my own mind, I know when I did a "bad job" or a good one. If I can account for the time I was over, I feel fine. I want to get paid for a fair days work, I dont want to be a slacker either.

 

[ezrider]

Tieguy you make some good points.The system is what it is and no system can be 100% fair 100% of the time.Some drivers can perform tasks better than other drivers.Even the worst performing guy who could never run scratch on any route is paid an hourly rate in reflection similar to the guys that really gear up and hustle.But when a small bussiness customer who depends on a driver showing up at an agreed time has to get on the phone and complain it's a fact that he's cheating and not my "assumption".I'm at least fortunate enough to work in a building where the management recognized just how bad of a runaway train this type of thing could turn into.I wasn't surprised to see the printout reports the day after management did rides with a few of the most perpetual offenders and see that with the same number of stops that the accrued miles on the truck suddenly dropped to 45 from 90.It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a route's time study can be manipulated by padding miles.That's also a fact.When a guy pads miles that's wasting gas,putting extra wear and tear on the truck and running the risk of an accident.When a service provider shortchanges a pickup customer by showing up hours earlier that's just showing an arrogant disdain to a customer base that now has ever-increasing options from competitors.Tieguy if one of your employees was wasting gas and just aiding the depreciation of company property wouldn't you agree that that's money being lost that could be better used for say...retirement,investments in better equipment,new technology,etc.,I would think your boss would certainly want you to rectify that situation.My managers sure did.and that,too is a fact.

 

[dammor]

You are right toonertoo and proups. We should be exchanging imformation and advice rather than the petty stuff. Sometimes though the irritation boils over. It doesn't solve a thing. Seems I was the latest to take on tie. If you look back you will see many that have had the battle before me. It doesn't change and the good fight is nothing more than a fight. I will let it go and focus more on the information and less on the posts that are too stupid to respond to.

 

[local804]

There you go guys.

 

[tieguy]

Dammor your overstating your own importance in this discussion. At the same time your again hiding from the discussion you claim to promote. I'll ask again and wait for your lastest effort to run and hide. do you think one driver can much more efficent than another without shortcutting service and safety.

 

[kidlogic]

Tie it is not a question wether one guy can work faster and supply as good of service as a slower guy. The answer is YES. The question is wether the runners and gunners as a whole have a higher frequencey of saftey and service problems then the guy who just does eveything by the book. Sure you can pick out someone who can do both,but my 8 years on the saftey commitee tells me that most of the saftey problems (not all) are guys who are runners and gunners.(I see every accident and injury report that goes through my center.)

 

[tieguy]

Ezrider I don't disagree with what you say. I did disagree with dammor who tried to make the point that anyone going faster them him was taking shortcuts on service and safety.

 

[ups79]

your bonus is going to be less soon. 10 minutes for every 100 pkgs delivered is going to be taken from your time allowance. this loss represents the difference in hand sheeting pkgs versus using the scanning capabilities of the diad. according to i.e. this loss should of taken place when we first went to the diad, but i.e. claimed that it wasn't. there might be a time when no one makes bonus anyway, so don't get to upset by it.