hypo hanna
Well-Known Member
This is something UPS, USPS etc have figured out long ago but eludes the big brains in Memphis. There is not and never will be enough profit on this day to make it worth opening the doors, fueling the trucks and flying the planes.
Every year its the same thing. Massive planning (that mostly falls to the dispatchers), to adjust operations to projected workloads. Then when the company fails to make a dime like all the previous years, they will be blamed for that failure.
They are instructed to close a percentage of the drop boxes but the company insist on keeping the rest open at the regular pickup times so drivers have to stay out waiting for the scheduled pickup time with nothing else to do.
Close list are turned but not vetted by the managers for accuracy or legibility, so after wading through that mess, the dispatchers still have to phone most customers for their holiday schedule. After all that the station managers are supposed to look at what's left to determine how to staff for the day. Few of them are capable of getting it right. They don't cut enough and stops per hour suffer. Cut too many and you have a handfull of drivers trying to cover areas far too large for the commitment times we advertised. If we're are lucky there will be a weather event where access time is added but that creates plenty of other ways to fail.
Being open is a marketing thing. Something our sales can claim we are doing for the customers benefit when very few customers want it. The part that makes me the most angry if the people that decide we should do this every year, the ones who point fingers at the workforce when it inevetibly fails are at home with their families on Friday. They are able to travel to see distant relatives over the long weekend. Sitting by a warm fire while you are out in a cold van waiting to close out an empty Dropbox.
Every year its the same thing. Massive planning (that mostly falls to the dispatchers), to adjust operations to projected workloads. Then when the company fails to make a dime like all the previous years, they will be blamed for that failure.
They are instructed to close a percentage of the drop boxes but the company insist on keeping the rest open at the regular pickup times so drivers have to stay out waiting for the scheduled pickup time with nothing else to do.
Close list are turned but not vetted by the managers for accuracy or legibility, so after wading through that mess, the dispatchers still have to phone most customers for their holiday schedule. After all that the station managers are supposed to look at what's left to determine how to staff for the day. Few of them are capable of getting it right. They don't cut enough and stops per hour suffer. Cut too many and you have a handfull of drivers trying to cover areas far too large for the commitment times we advertised. If we're are lucky there will be a weather event where access time is added but that creates plenty of other ways to fail.
Being open is a marketing thing. Something our sales can claim we are doing for the customers benefit when very few customers want it. The part that makes me the most angry if the people that decide we should do this every year, the ones who point fingers at the workforce when it inevetibly fails are at home with their families on Friday. They are able to travel to see distant relatives over the long weekend. Sitting by a warm fire while you are out in a cold van waiting to close out an empty Dropbox.