Management licking their chops

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
I love this time of year. $$$$$$$$$. I do have a problem bringing back stops. I will service EVERY package on my truck. I AM a service provider

I only have missed when they pull me off the road. I guess they don't want me out there until 11:30pm. Oh well then don't dispatch me that much work.
 

CAFAL

Well-Known Member
I only have missed when they pull me off the road. I guess they don't want me out there until 11:30pm. Oh well then don't dispatch me that much work.

Past couple of years our max is 9 pm. fairly small center. We run an average of 50 routes on a normal day. Peak goes up about 10 routes and 4 or 5 ryder trucks
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
I love this time of year. $$$$$$$$$. I do have a problem bringing back stops. I will service EVERY package on my truck. I AM a service provider

The only thing I dislike more than bringing stops back is worrying about getting shot by a nervous homeowner out in the middle of nowhere who sees some guy in dark clothing walking down his pitch black driveway at 10:00 at night.

Once the clock strikes 9:00, I am pretty much pulling the plug and coming on in. Any service failures that occur at that point are due to a total failure on the part of management to aim high in dispatching, get the big picture, leave themselves an out and adjust for changing conditions. If I am bringing stops back after 9:00 at night it means that I had already warned them 9,10 or even 11 hours earlier that their dispatch was a failure, and they were either unable or unwilling to do anything about the problem that they created. Im just the messenger.
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
The only thing I dislike more than bringing stops back is worrying about getting shot by a nervous homeowner out in the middle of nowhere who sees some guy in dark clothing walking down his pitch black driveway at 10:00 at night.

Once the clock strikes 9:00, I am pretty much pulling the plug and coming on in. Any service failures that occur at that point are due to a total failure on the part of management to aim high in dispatching, get the big picture, leave themselves an out and adjust for changing conditions. If I am bringing stops back after 9:00 PM it means that I had already warned them 9,10 or even 11 hours earlier that their dispatch was a failure, and they were either unable or unwilling to do anything about the problem that they created. Im just the messenger.

We are dispatch between 11-15 hrs everyday. Being out past 9:00 is the norm. I don't think you can just drive back to the building when the clock strikes 9:00pm. I wait until I get a message "come back at XX time no matter what."
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
I only have missed when they pull me off the road. I guess they don't want me out there until 11:30pm. Oh well then don't dispatch me that much work.

Knocking on residential doors at 10:00 or later at night and getting customers out of bed to receive a package is not safe, it is not professional, it is not appropriate, and it is not service.
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
Knocking on residential doors at 10:00 or later at night and getting customers out of bed to receive a package is not safe, it is not professional, it is not appropriate, and it is not service.


I don't knock on doors after 7:30. I drop and walk away.
 

CharleyHustle

Well-Known Member
None of that is out of play in the Central Region till Thanksgiving, theoretically.
I enjoy an 8hr day every year on the Wednesday before.

Not to rain on your parade, but I'm in the Central Region and while we have always gotten 8hr requests an optional holidays till the day before Thanksgiving, Article 12 section 1 says about the 9.5 language "This procedure will not apply in the peak season of November and December". I've never been on the 9.5 list but I would think that means it goes away Nov. 1st.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
We are dispatch between 11-15 hrs everyday. Being out past 9:00 is the norm. I don't think you can just drive back to the building when the clock strikes 9:00pm. I wait until I get a message "come back at XX time no matter what."

I do.

Thats why they dont dispatch me in such a manner any longer.

Aside from issues of safety and professionalism, there is also the matter of the pickup volume on my car that the hub needs to unload and process. Having 50 pickup pieces miss the outbound feeder so that you can get 5 or 10 more stops off at night does not make business sense.
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
I do.

Thats why they dont dispatch me in such a manner any longer.

Aside from issues of safety and professionalism, there is also the matter of the pickup volume on my car that the hub needs to unload and process. Having 50 pickup pieces miss the outbound feeder so that you can get 5 or 10 more stops off at night does not make business sense.

Oh they send a driver to get your pickups and leave you out there. Haha.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
I don't knock on doors after 7:30. I drop and walk away.


If the customer has no idea that you have left a package on their porch, they arent going to find it until the next day anyway, which is the functional equivalent of a missed stop. All you have accomplished is to allow your management team to perpeutate the illusion that their "plan" is working by preventing the missed pieces from showing up on a report.

One other thing; sneaking up to and/or away from a country home at night without knocking or attracting attention to your presence is a good way to get attacked by a dog or shot at by a nervous homeowner. It is not safe. It is not professional. It is not service. At such point in time as it is no longer appropriate to knock on the door and make the delivery in a professional manner, then it is time to call it a night and bring the truck back in.
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
If the customer has no idea that you have left a package on their porch, they arent going to find it until the next day anyway, which is the functional equivalent of a missed stop. All you have accomplished is to allow your management team to perpeutate the illusion that their "plan" is working by preventing the missed pieces from showing up on a report.

One other thing; sneaking up to and/or away from a country home at night without knocking or attracting attention to your presence is a good way to get attacked by a dog or shot at by a nervous homeowner. It is not safe. It is not professional. It is not service. At such point in time as it is no longer appropriate to knock on the door and make the delivery in a professional manner, then it is time to call it a night and bring the truck back in.

I don't care. I am not disturbing people and possibly sleeping children.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
They have tried to pull that with me, and I have flat out refused to comply. I'm still working here. Sometimes we need to just grow a pair and do the right thing.

Someone would say giving your pickup pieces to the meet driver and staying out and finishing your route would be doing the right thing.
 

packageguy

Well-Known Member
Someone would say giving your pickup pieces to the meet driver and staying out and finishing your route would be doing the right thing.

When I meet a driver if there is 60 stops left I take 30. I always try to do the right thing. It's not right letting him stay out, and your going home. We do it as a team helping each other.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
Someone would say giving your pickup pieces to the meet driver and staying out and finishing your route would be doing the right thing.

Not if it involves sneaking around in the dark, scaring the hell out of customers or waking them up at 10:00 or later at night to provide "service" on their package.

The "right" thing is to force management to be held accountable for their failure to make rational dispatch decisions by sheeting the packages as "missed" and causing them to show up on the report. The "right" thing is for the customer to receive a refund of shipping charges for the package that we failed to deliver in a timely manner.

I dont sheet stops as missed for the hell of it, and I inform my management team before I leave the building and repeatedly throughout the day if I am going to have service failures. Dispatching correctly is not rocket science; the company has all the information it needs to make proper dispatch decisions; what it usually lacks is the willingess to put that information to good use. Being confronted...repeatedly if need be...with missed packages on the daily report will usually help them to develop that willingness.
 

soberups

Pees in the brown Koolaid
I don't care. I am not disturbing people and possibly sleeping children.

Most of the people in my neck of the woods have dogs. Sneaking up to their porch at 10:00 night like a weasel in the dark will get those dogs barking. People get woke up, lights come on, guns get pulled out of closets. If you are going to be disturbing them anyway, then have the decency to ring the bell and stand there on the porch so they can at least see you and chew your ass out in person for waking them up.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
When I meet a driver if there is 60 stops left I take 30. I always try to do the right thing. It's not right letting him stay out, and your going home. We do it as a team helping each other.

There are times when this is not possible--the meet driver may be bringing back air as well which has to be at the airport at a certain time--but this is the way we do it as well.
 

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
Most of the people in my neck of the woods have dogs. Sneaking up to their porch at 10:00 night like a weasel in the dark will get those dogs barking. People get woke up, lights come on, guns get pulled out of closets. If you are going to be disturbing them anyway, then have the decency to ring the bell and stand there on the porch so they can at least see you and chew your ass out in person for waking them up.

Ill pass. They don't even know I was there until they find the package the next day.
 

UPSGUY72

Well-Known Member
As it gets dark production goes down dramatically. Which means more $$$$$ to be exact $.795 a minute and most of that time is spent looking for house and not delivering packages..
 
Top