I am a recent college grad, planning on going on to graduate school... In the meantime I am working for a relative of mine who owns more than a couple Home Delivery routes in the CT region. When I started I loved it, I was delivering 115'ish stops, hitting my first stop at 8 AM and finishing my last one by 3 PM. Might get the random 7 or 8 businesses per day. Yesterday I was on road for 8 hours.... did 90 stops... Delivered to 30 businesses... Including a major multi-national corporation, which builds jet engines... no name on the package besides a well and crib number... Today was a 9 hour day for 98 stops, 40 of which were businesses. I get paid per stop and while Ground routinely hits these businesses, the terminal manager refuses to acknowledge the discrepancy... Simply states its within my service area... Ground gets paid more per stop, why the heck am I getting what are clearly stops that should be theirs? I actually hit this major company about 2 weeks ago with ONE box, while coincidentally the ground guy was delivering about 20, and the shipping label of mine said 7 of 22. I had that number 7... The ground guy was delivering the other 21. My businesses have skyrocketed and my time on road has been drastically increased.... WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE? I have a feeling that since HD gets paid less per stop they are looking to save some money by shaving some of the business stops off on HD. Am I crazy?
FedEx Home Delivery... to Businesses...
- Thread starter CTFEDEXER
- Start date
UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)
Well-Known Member
No, you are not crazy--it does sound like FedEx is trying to save a few bucks by diverting volume to HD. Have you mentioned this to your relative? It is his responsibility to deal with the company on behalf of his drivers.
You are only partially crazy. First of all, Ground and HD get paid the exact same amount per stop. Secondly, if Fedex is making more money off the deal, it is because there is an extra service charge paid by the shipper. But all in all, Fedex actually loses money on this deal because they are at times paying both your relative and the Ground contractor to service the same location. Most of the time when issues arise, contractors work together. If I'm a Ground contractor already going to a location or area, there is no reason I don't want to take the extra revenue. I'm assuming, of course that you are in a co-location, Ground and Home Delivery in the same building. If not, then there is nothing Fedex or any contractors can do because the HD/Ground designation is made at the shipper's location.
Hmm, that is very interesting thank you both for the responses. I have mentioned this to the contractor, simply because its cutting into my pay haha. As I mentioned before, I get paid per stop so essentially in my mind I figure however many stops I can do in an hour is my hourly rate... obviously I like to maximize that. What is interesting to me is that I have been told by my Uncle (the contractor) that Ground gets SLIGHTLY more per stop. His best friend owns ground routes, which is what inspired him to jump into home delivery, so my assumption was that he knew what he was talking in that subject. Secondly, this particular stop which I will just say is Pratt and Whitney, has something like 16 delivery wells, all operated by either unionized contractors or non-unionized contractors. The facility is SPRAWLING, and the wells are not situated in any order, with vehicle inspections required at the entrance to each individual well. The ground guy refuses to take them simply cause its such an immense hassle. It can take an hour to deliver 3 stops there. As for the terminal management, the head manager is an absolute idiot... I have had the discussion with him and he refuses to hear it. I haven't the slightest clue as to how he got into his position, he is completely incompetent. I suppose if it is true that ground and HD get the same pay per stop, I still don't understand why my Businesses have skyrocked yet my residential stops have stayed pretty steady? Given that ground does residential stops as well, one would assume that they would move those.... I mean the numbers don't lie, what do you guys think is up?
HomeDelivery
Well-Known Member
well some Ground drivers are also getting paid by the package; that's how they get more $ than HD... and your HD contractor gets a package bonus for the same stop (eventhough you'll just get $1.4o for that stop)
agree that Ground do get paid more vs. HD; a contractor i knew ran both & Ground is more chaotic, hence the slightly higher pay (some stops are bulk stops & they'll be unloading for a good 1/2 hour or more)
what I do like about HD over Ground is that HD has a printed manifest of ALL of your parcels in your van & in somewhat of a good order of delivery + a map printout as well. I also like the fact that a manager can re-sequence my package order to what I see fit ~ to maximize my stops-per-road-hour since we don't get paid an hourly rate like Express
I haven't been to ground lately; do they finally have a similar delivery manifest printout and at least a map overview? I know that they have some newer style scanners now, similar to regular FedEx express...
I have a shore route recently & yesterday was terrible (4 hours to get to my 1st stop, which normally takes 1.5 hours). it was a light load, but the 2 hour drive back to the terminal is making me think to get a salary rate instead of getting paid by the stop in my case.
PS: that's not a bad deal... your area is "tight." i only average 10-12 stops per hour with light traffic.
agree that Ground do get paid more vs. HD; a contractor i knew ran both & Ground is more chaotic, hence the slightly higher pay (some stops are bulk stops & they'll be unloading for a good 1/2 hour or more)
what I do like about HD over Ground is that HD has a printed manifest of ALL of your parcels in your van & in somewhat of a good order of delivery + a map printout as well. I also like the fact that a manager can re-sequence my package order to what I see fit ~ to maximize my stops-per-road-hour since we don't get paid an hourly rate like Express
I haven't been to ground lately; do they finally have a similar delivery manifest printout and at least a map overview? I know that they have some newer style scanners now, similar to regular FedEx express...
I have a shore route recently & yesterday was terrible (4 hours to get to my 1st stop, which normally takes 1.5 hours). it was a light load, but the 2 hour drive back to the terminal is making me think to get a salary rate instead of getting paid by the stop in my case.
PS: that's not a bad deal... your area is "tight." i only average 10-12 stops per hour with light traffic.
HomeDelivery
Well-Known Member
wooh, necropost!
anyways, come October, there's a shift of Express to Ground... & get this, HD will now have to do some of Ground's pickups, while Ground will do the pickups/dropoffs with a time deadline.
we're also going to have another software update to tweak the scanners to have a lock-out feature when going past 10mph...
guess they're also going to activate the GPS so couriers can't cheat the system and close stops before they actually deliver them? not sure about that one...
they should activate the texting feature that Express is currently using since I don't have unlimited minutes on my personal cellphone with pre-paid minutes...
newer door tags will now be a consolidated tag as before, but slightly shorter than the "sorry we missed you" tags
gonna be a fun month come next week
anyways, come October, there's a shift of Express to Ground... & get this, HD will now have to do some of Ground's pickups, while Ground will do the pickups/dropoffs with a time deadline.
we're also going to have another software update to tweak the scanners to have a lock-out feature when going past 10mph...
guess they're also going to activate the GPS so couriers can't cheat the system and close stops before they actually deliver them? not sure about that one...
they should activate the texting feature that Express is currently using since I don't have unlimited minutes on my personal cellphone with pre-paid minutes...
newer door tags will now be a consolidated tag as before, but slightly shorter than the "sorry we missed you" tags
gonna be a fun month come next week
Sounds like you've been informed about exactly what's going to happen. Care to break it down with a timeline in terms of what is being shifted over and when?
Glorifiedpackmule
Well-Known Member
Time deadlines, lockout features, GPS... Sounds an awful lot like the FedEx I've come to know. Get ready to be micromanaged.
HomeDelivery
Well-Known Member
van, i am getting the "big picture" & maybe it's not going to start as soon as the first week of October for some terminals, but it will be in effect for the one i'm currently at... but they better do it ASAP before the full swing of peak arrives.
I'm a non-employee, so I don't know squat
Day Laborer, we already are; but we go through our "contractors" that pass the procedures down from management... or they will risk losing their contract for non-compliance
as for the contractors, you better start supplying your drivers with better handtrucks if we're going to do more of ground's pickups...
I just saw a 40-box bulk stop for a business on saturday; we all shook our heads and said that was better off at the ground's 26-ft box truck, not in our small stepvans.
$1.xx for that one stop that will take the driver 1/2 hour to unload?!? I would have refused it and tell the contractor to deliver that bulk stop himself in the supplemental vehicle.
this terminal is not a co-op/ or combo warehouse like a few i've seen that maine/cjinx works at, but still to take that one bulk stop was pretty bad for the driver that agreed to do it (unless the contractor will pay extra for him to deliver it).
i'm shifting to the hourly-pay temp agency in a week, so if they want to pull those types of shenanigans on me, they'll do so by paying me by the hour, not by the stop or salary.
I'm a non-employee, so I don't know squat
Day Laborer, we already are; but we go through our "contractors" that pass the procedures down from management... or they will risk losing their contract for non-compliance
as for the contractors, you better start supplying your drivers with better handtrucks if we're going to do more of ground's pickups...
I just saw a 40-box bulk stop for a business on saturday; we all shook our heads and said that was better off at the ground's 26-ft box truck, not in our small stepvans.
$1.xx for that one stop that will take the driver 1/2 hour to unload?!? I would have refused it and tell the contractor to deliver that bulk stop himself in the supplemental vehicle.
this terminal is not a co-op/ or combo warehouse like a few i've seen that maine/cjinx works at, but still to take that one bulk stop was pretty bad for the driver that agreed to do it (unless the contractor will pay extra for him to deliver it).
i'm shifting to the hourly-pay temp agency in a week, so if they want to pull those types of shenanigans on me, they'll do so by paying me by the hour, not by the stop or salary.
HomeDelivery
Well-Known Member
we already do that by using CallTags for residental pickups; maybe we'll be also doing pickups from those newly updated dropboxes (no changes in my local area dropboxes yet; still only Express drop boxes) yet...
Like the OP's old post about us delivering/ picking up from businesses, we're getting more & more businesses nowadays, no more 90% residentials anymore...
FWIW UPS sells the you know what against that.
It is less secure, slower reroutes as the pkgs aren't in the station. We have seen non-returns being held in Ground Trucks overnight at their home addresses. It's slightly troubling to me, but not a deal breaker. UPS pushes this hard and from what I understand it can make a difference in getting the biz or not. UPS sales pushes a lot more of Fedex weaknesses, then Fedex Sales pushes UPS weaknesses when selling, this can go either way depending on the buyer if they like that method or not. Also Customer Service if you push deep enough, you can get them to tell you if the package is at a drivers residence.
HomeDelivery
Well-Known Member
what's worse is when a business calls for a Ground pickup & it sits in their dock or front counter for a week or more...
I'm not liking the pickup addition to HD... first, they're classified as "zeroes" and doesn't plot in the sequencing order. So, swing or cover drivers will borrow a pc and google map them to plot it in themselves before leaving the terminal.
Is it really that hard to program the sequencing into those pickups since there is no time deadline to pick them up??? get wit da program! Granted, I only had 2 today & a Call Tag...
the pickup stops had no boxes on the ready like they were supposed to be left on the covered front porches & it was futile for me to go to them since neither were either contacted to have them out for the driver... since they think Ground will be picking them up instead of HD, maybe they'll have it outside on a Monday... LOL
but the Call Tag was ready & waiting for me on the front porch this Saturday, as printed on the upper right hand part of the label
the Call Tag system works great in the past, why make HD more like Ground?!?
I'm not liking the pickup addition to HD... first, they're classified as "zeroes" and doesn't plot in the sequencing order. So, swing or cover drivers will borrow a pc and google map them to plot it in themselves before leaving the terminal.
Is it really that hard to program the sequencing into those pickups since there is no time deadline to pick them up??? get wit da program! Granted, I only had 2 today & a Call Tag...
the pickup stops had no boxes on the ready like they were supposed to be left on the covered front porches & it was futile for me to go to them since neither were either contacted to have them out for the driver... since they think Ground will be picking them up instead of HD, maybe they'll have it outside on a Monday... LOL
but the Call Tag was ready & waiting for me on the front porch this Saturday, as printed on the upper right hand part of the label
the Call Tag system works great in the past, why make HD more like Ground?!?
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