How prepared is your center for peak?

[scisector9]

I was just curious how prepared for peak your center is? Have there been plans discussed? Is your center staffed on drivers, loaders, etc?

This is my second peak with brown as a driver and I have to say it seems like they have their stuff together this year. They have hired several permanent drivers, and as of right now with 10% vacation we are sending home anywhere from 3-6 drivers a day. They have two training now for perm ft, and plan on putting 12 seasonals on for peak. I have seen senior drivers and on car supervisors cross training pt supervisors for pkg car, and they even have a bid sheet up for drivers interested in training the new seasonals with the incentive of a fifty cent an hour pay increase.

We have had people at our center (my guess corporate or contractors?) looking at adding a second belt addition onto our center that would allow for another ten package cars to be docked and loaded daily (we street on average 45-50 routes daily). Our center manager has discussed running a second smaller sort with a third start time (currently 8:35 and 8:45 with an additional start time of 10:00 with an all resi split cars) for any additional overflow if needed. He has also proposed having additional peak routes with all heavy businesses and pick ups. For example a busy four lane highway that is primarily businesses would essentially be broken up for one heavy business route with little to no resis instead of two routes covering that main street in sections, one car would essentially drive all the way up and down this major commercial street.

Being green behind the ears to this whole operation I am not sure if this is all lip service and pipe dreams or if this peak might actually be smoother than the one I experienced last year for my first time.

P.S. Our center manager told us at a weekly "safety meeting" that they plan on all of us working similar hours to what we are now. We all laughed out loud but that was never mentioned last year, ever. Wouldn't that be something?


CHEERS!

 

[watdaflock?]

Our little hub is doomed and I'll love every minute of it.

 

[TooTechie]

Too early to say. Right now it's business as usual. They're still slashing routes and loading up drivers here.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

I was just curious how prepared for peak your center is? Have there been plans discussed? Is your center staffed on drivers, loaders, etc?

This is my second peak with brown as a driver and I have to say it seems like they have their stuff together this year. They have hired several permanent drivers, and as of right now with 10% vacation we are sending home anywhere from 3-6 drivers a day. They have two training now for perm ft, and plan on putting 12 seasonals on for peak. I have seen senior drivers and on car supervisors cross training pt supervisors for pkg car, and they even have a bid sheet up for drivers interested in training the new seasonals with the incentive of a fifty cent an hour pay increase.

We have had people at our center (my guess corporate or contractors?) looking at adding a second belt addition onto our center that would allow for another ten package cars to be docked and loaded daily (we street on average 45-50 routes daily). Our center manager has discussed running a second smaller sort with a third start time (currently 8:35 and 8:45 with an additional start time of 10:00 with an all resi split cars) for any additional overflow if needed. He has also proposed having additional peak routes with all heavy businesses and pick ups. For example a busy four lane highway that is primarily businesses would essentially be broken up for one heavy business route with little to no resis instead of two routes covering that main street in sections, one car would essentially drive all the way up and down this major commercial street.

Being green behind the ears to this whole operation I am not sure if this is all lip service and pipe dreams or if this peak might actually be smoother than the one I experienced last year for my first time.

P.S. Our center manager told us at a weekly "safety meeting" that they plan on all of us working similar hours to what we are now. We all laughed out loud but that was never mentioned last year, ever. Wouldn't that be something?


CHEERS!

We are not prepared. But management thinks we are because they converted TCDs (that were already going to be driving anyway) to full-time.

 

[Indecisi0n]

It's going to be ugly but our paycheck a are going to be awesome.

 

[IVE GOTTA PACKAGE 4U]

Need more package cars!

 

[greengrenades]

They tore up half of our bays, and are adding on to our building. So basically we are friend'ed all around.

 

[CHALLY9TX]

We seem to be over prepared but yeah too early to tell. We are too overstaffed right now. We have at least 30 extra PCs sitting outside. They were brought in from out of state at least a month ago. Lots of new tractor trailers too. Our center was fine last year. It was the other centers in our building that struggled.


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[100% Trace]

I was just curious how prepared for peak your center is? Have there been plans discussed? Is your center staffed on drivers, loaders, etc?

This is my second peak with brown as a driver and I have to say it seems like they have their stuff together this year. They have hired several permanent drivers, and as of right now with 10% vacation we are sending home anywhere from 3-6 drivers a day. They have two training now for perm ft, and plan on putting 12 seasonals on for peak. I have seen senior drivers and on car supervisors cross training pt supervisors for pkg car, and they even have a bid sheet up for drivers interested in training the new seasonals with the incentive of a fifty cent an hour pay increase.

We have had people at our center (my guess corporate or contractors?) looking at adding a second belt addition onto our center that would allow for another ten package cars to be docked and loaded daily (we street on average 45-50 routes daily). Our center manager has discussed running a second smaller sort with a third start time (currently 8:35 and 8:45 with an additional start time of 10:00 with an all resi split cars) for any additional overflow if needed. He has also proposed having additional peak routes with all heavy businesses and pick ups. For example a busy four lane highway that is primarily businesses would essentially be broken up for one heavy business route with little to no resis instead of two routes covering that main street in sections, one car would essentially drive all the way up and down this major commercial street.

Being green behind the ears to this whole operation I am not sure if this is all lip service and pipe dreams or if this peak might actually be smoother than the one I experienced last year for my first time.

P.S. Our center manager told us at a weekly "safety meeting" that they plan on all of us working similar hours to what we are now. We all laughed out loud but that was never mentioned last year, ever. Wouldn't that be something?


CHEERS!

We are about as prepared as a person with montezumas revenge. No matter what you do it's gonna be sure fire mess.


Paid by the hour

 

[margaritaville]

Giving people the day off easily so people like me(20+ days into my driver senority) can get on before peak. I expect to get laid off a lot til peak once i make it though. And honestly i like this whole idea of cutting routes but offering days off. Better then never getting a day off and being understaffed.

I just want to get senority under me so im "offered" days off instead of forced days off. As for peak i expect we are ed from MASS online spending. But u can only work 60 hours in a week and i did that last year as an air driver working 14hr ground days every single day. I wont be seeing any of those 2300 a week paychecks for ground helping this year though

 

[Brownslave688]

I have no doubt ups is 100% percent prepared to handle last years peak. Problem is this is this years peak.

 

[Packmule]

Posting bid shreds for seasonal drivers but no one signed. Guess our pt people don't want ft.
Still think we are screwed for peak, and I learned a long time ago that by the time they take taxes out, the gross overtime is about ten bucks an hour. Not worth it.

 

[BakerMayfield2018]

Let me put it in easy to understand terms. In a scale of 0-100. 100 being ready for peak of last year and 0 being short drivers we had at peak last year We are at........wait for it.... ....0. Yep. 0. Several drivers retired in last couple months not even enough new hires to fill retirement positions. Doom.

 

[rod]

UPS wasn't prepared for the 30 peaks I went through . I wouldn't imagine things would be different now days. I will say that "peak" only lasted about 2 and a half weeks back then. From reading the posts on BC it appears peak lasts year around now.

 

[upsbeernut]

Too early to say. Right now it's business as usual. They're still slashing routes and loading up drivers here.

We have had Xmas loads most of the summer just like last year.

 

[Box Ox]

Posting bid shreds for seasonal drivers but no one signed. Guess our pt people don't want ft.

What I've seen: The addition of additional off the street temp drivers training has tied up routes inside PTers/ TCDs would normally be running from September on. So it's now less lucrative than it might have been otherwise. Gotta give up other opportunities to sign the sheet and it doesn't make as much sense this year.

 

[IVE GOTTA PACKAGE 4U]

Obviously some of these new guys,wont be able to handle peak. They should just use some of them,as a glorified helper.
Put 2 guys,that can use a DIAD ,in a truck for a full shift.

Then have somebody shuttle more packages out,in the rental trucks.

 

[Box Ox]

UPS wasn't prepared for the 30 peaks I went through . I wouldn't imagine things would be different now days. I will say that "peak" only lasted about 2 and a half weeks back then. From reading the posts on BC it appears peak lasts year around now.

Capacity is bare bones, man. If anything doesn't fit on a truck it's shuttled out to the driver (not delivered) at the air rate.

 

[upsbeernut]

Obviously some of these new guys,wont be able to handle peak. They should just use some of them,as a glorified helper.
Put 2 guys,that can use a DIAD ,in a truck for a full shift.

Then have somebody shuttle more packages out,in the rental trucks.

Exactly, I did that with a preloaded and his personal vehicle . This was very affective and fast . I was the mothership and when he got finished he would come for more. This kept both us rolling and the helper with a car could do the same thing. The truck would clear out quickly for more room to organize .

 

[jumpman23]

Bring it on and get paid fatty boys lol.