Sometimes I can get 30 stops off during my lunch. My sup gives me a pat on the back, he says it really helps his groups stats for the day.
Nice post Over, but its for this reason and this reason only that I think the hour lunch is a VERY bad idea for UPS drivers. Its also a GREAT idea for UPS and its management team in most cases.
See, the nature of our job and human nature in general will make some drivers run off 30 stops during lunch. Take a poor cover driver for instance. He is thrown on a route he hasn't done and months and is over-dispatched by 20 stops on a Friday. Do you really think he is going to take his entire 60 minute lunch and 2-10 minute breaks? The answer is no, never, not in this lifetime! When he gets back to the center at 20:00 he is giving his hour up to UPS.
Then you have the drivers who intend to take their hour after the route is done. They have good intentions, but after 20-30 minutes of sitting by themselves in a package car many just bring it in and give up about 30 minutes or so.
Next, we have the small percentage of drivers who just blow off lunch entirely to finish as early as possible. These drivers don't care about the money or working for free. They just want to get done.
Then, we have the drivers who take their lunch in the middle of the day (usually an hour before their PU's start) but UPS still gets the upper hand here. UPS has to start us before 9AM for us to make our airs and keep us until 1800-1830 to make pick-up service to our most important customers. Without the hour lunch they have to pay us OT at 430. With the hour lunch, they don't have to pay OT until 530.
If I'm wrong, why all the fuss and the warning letter from the center manager because I didn't put 1 hour of lunch time in the DIAD that I didn't take when I got back to the center at 1930 on a Friday? I'll tell you why: They want the hour for free if they can get it!
They force the hour lunch because it benefits them. Now, because of the lawsuit they send us messages on the DIAD saying : "please remember to put an hour of lunch in the DIAD". Its never : "please remember to take your hour lunch between the 4th and 5th hour"! If UPS wasn't making money off on the hour they wouldn't enforce it so heavily.
I'm the driver who likes to take 2-10 minute breaks to eat and save the hour(I would actually love to skip it and get paid for it instead!) for the end. Until 2/10 I would take lunch with 2 other drivers and pass the time that way.
As of 2/10 I got a new route and am by myself for lunch and it can become miserable! So, to MAKE myself take the hour, I got to my first pick-up an hour early and shoot the crap with them for an hour. Hey, it works, but we shouldn't have to resort to this to get out rightfull pay. No?
Some of the office girls ask why I am there and I tell them my route is so light and nothing left to do instead of explaining the lunch hour to them. Its something most people in the real world don't understand, LOL!