new guy saying "hi"

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wrfd306

Guest
Hey guys (and gals) I just wanted to introduce myself. I am new to the board, and new to UPS I just started three weeks ago as a package car driver (service provider) I came in off the street and would appreiciate any advice anyone has (except "run in the oppisite direction")
 
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toonertoo

Guest
Hmmm thats a tough one.....treat your customers well, work safely, back only when necessary, pack a big lunch, and smile everywhere you go. Save as much as you can, and always keep your options open. Dont make the mistake of thinking that this is the career goal, as I did, and others have as the bar keeps getting raised and you cannot do it forever. I wish you well as it is a fun job, you get to work alone, a big plus, meet lots of interesting people and learn alot about dealing with people. The new standards are horrific, and thats what ruined the fun part of it. Dont let the stress get to you and you will be fine. Good luck and God Bless You.
 
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upsdude

Guest
Welcome to the cult, oops, I mean company! LOL.
You dont get the secret handshake until you reach 30 days.

Seriously though, welcome, and remember, theyre only boxes and each one has an address label. Do the best you can at all times and everything will be fine. Let the negative go in one ear and out the other.
 
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trickpony1

Guest
Get in feeders as soon as you can. Your body might last a little longer.
Sign every feeder bid sheet that gets posted.
Not qualified? Doesn't matter......sign anyway.
 
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dannyboy

Guest
Well that is a hard one to answer. First let me welcome you to the board and for better or worse, glad you are in a brown uniform.

As for advice, how old are you and what are your ambitions. That would be where I would start from. The more we know, the closer we can give advice to get you where you want to be.

As for right now, treat customers the way you would want to be treated. Treat each package like it was your mothers fine china, even though it is only a box of bolts.

Be honest in all your dealings, with company or customer. Dont steal time or other things of value. I know that most people dont understand UPS and the way they will hire four managers to keep track of three drivers. And mostly they have to justify their job and salary. And if you are lucky to find and have a good manager or delivery sup, enjoy the time with them. They will move on, and you WILL get some that are better and some that are much worse. Always remember, you work for UPS and not your sup.

If you are having a hard time at work, just remember, this too shall pass. Hang tough during the hard times, they will get better.

Keep fairly good records of where you go and how you do. This can help you in the long run, esp in the first few years. Management tends to make up numbers when they think they can intimidate you into running harder.

Work SAFE. You are only issued one body. And if my guess is correct, you think you are unbreakable. I can think of very few jobs that will prove you wrong faster than this one.

Try and get along with the drivers in your loop. Help when you can without becoming the loop patsy.

Try to get where you enjoy your job. It will help when the portions of the job begin to suck.

I know that others will chime in. There is a lot to learn with this job, and after a year or so, you might have most of it down. Part of the enjoyment of the job is getting there. Make yourself the best that you can be, and has been posted, give each assignment the best effort you can muster.

IF you have a wife, treat her like gold. A good UPS mans wife is worth her weight in gold if she sticks by her mates side. And while we are on the subject, try and make what little time you have out of your uniform special with your family. UPS in 30 years will find someone to replace you, but your family only has one you.

Dont be tempted by on road romances

Buy a radio.

A good solid belief in God or Mohamed (insert your belief system here) helps. When nothing else in life makes sense, or you have had way more than you can handle, hand off the stress. HE has helped me keep it together more than once when I was loosing it.

Well Grasshoppah, for now that is the best I can do. Best of luck, and if you need anything, post back here. At the very least we can give you a shoulder to cry on, some personal advice, and if needed a quick kick in the pants.

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johnny

Guest
Very good advice Danny
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sendagain6160

Guest
Hey wfrd306, welcome to the board and the world of brown.I am on my last 20 days of a 30 year career with UPS and can tell you that you have a lot to look forward to.I raised three good kids on the paychecks and each of the kids received a college scholarship from the co, which saved me a lot of dreen.But other than the money, I had the priveledge to work with some great hard working guys and gals.As a package car driver, I spend the last 25 years on the same area and my customers became family.They spoiled me and vice versa.As someone else told you, treat people like you wont to be treated and you will make it ok.Remember no mater how loaded you may be, keep that smile on your face, even if you have to fake it sometime....it works...believe me.God luck on your new venture in life and may God bless....
 
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ok2bclever

Guest
First, before taking any other advice you have to qualify which you haven't done yet with only three weeks.

So above all you need to do whatever it takes to qualify which includes skipping your lunch (I know, sacrilege coming from the steward!)

After you are qualified:

Do NOT skip your lunch.

If you do you will only be setting a standard for yourself that UPS will expect and try to demand you maintain, for the rest of your career.

This will not get easier as you get older so take your full lunch every day (and not one minute over) and put up with the associated complaints and pressure management will apply to you to try to get you to cheat and skip part or all of your lunch.

Learn the methods, all of the methods and make them instinctive.

Even at the cost of slowing you down or making the job harder at first.

The methods UPS trained you with are not suggestions and if you treat them as such you open yourself up to discipline and injury.

If you run into performance problems down the road with management and you have developed consistency using the methods you are virtually bulletproof.

Apply for the 401k as soon as you are eligible and have the highest level taken out for investment.

Get used to living on the take home pay this gives you now.

Regardless of your current financial situation it will never get easier to save money than now.

It is unlikely that you will be able to continue to work as a UPS driver all the way to retirement age with the changes to the pension and those probably coming to social security so pay yourself first every week before getting involved in paying car dealers, mortgage companies, travel agencies, etc.

Work hard to keep a positive attitude and try for a reasoned discussion with management when things don't seem right.

Supervisors (and center managers) are very limited now a days in what they can and cannot do and they hear accusations, yelling and bitching all the time (much of it about decisions they have no control over) so those approaches are counterproductive and just shut down the little cooperation they might be able and willing to give you.

Cutting corners, whether by skipping lunches, or working unsafe (not bothering with handrails, blowing late lights, speeding, lifting improperly because you have never hurt your back before, etc) to "make standards" or to try to finish too much work is cutting your own throat.

So work safe and consistent and did I mention use the methods?
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dannyboy

Guest
While I have the utmost respect for OK, Do like you were trained.

Your sup took lunch with you when he trained you, didnt he? So why should you not take lunch.

They know you will not run as good by yourself as you did with a member of management.

As a shop steward, take your lunch. you will get better within the time frame allowed. If not, ask for guidance and help from other drivers or management.

There is nothing worse for you as a driver to skip your lunch for the 30 days, then end up taking it on days 31 forward and being an hour over allowed. It would seem to me to be very counter productive.

Just my humble thoughts with due respect for OK.

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ok2bclever

Guest
Same here, Danny knows what he is talking about and we rarely disagree.

Perhaps, my statement could be misread.

If you can take your lunch and qualify , by all means do so as your day will go better and safer.

However, if management states that you are not doing good enough or are on the bubble I maintain that you should do whatever it takes to qualify.

I believe there is one thing worse than skipping your lunch for 30 days and that is not qualifying just because you are a slow learner,on a tough route, or some other reason beyond your control.
 
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dannyboy

Guest
But on the other hand, I have yet to see any driver that has honestly tried, not make it. Not in over 30 years. Management will tell you you are on the "bubble" just to keep you torn up and running your butt off. Go into each day thinking you are da man, and you can do this just as well as any other driver. Focus on the day ahead of you instead of the pays past, you can not change them. And too much BS floating in your overstressed brain keeps you from the focus of the new day, which is to learn your job better and do it more economically for the company. MAny times while management feels they are helping, they put unecessary stress on the driver that is non productive. Focus.

That being said, ask to be allowed 15 minutes or so on your truck before leaving. For a newby, that can help. More than that and you leave too stressed and tired.

It is very difficult to argue with management after you have your 30 days in, and your sporh drops. They can pull up all the time cards showing you took your full hour and ten each day and didnt get beat. So why now, after you have made it, why are you getting beat by an hour or more each day. That is also a good reason for you to keep detailed records during the first 30 days. It helps me should I need to help you out in the office.

I have seen drivers not make it for stupid things like mouthing off to customers, stealing time or packages, allowing the package car to come into contact with something it shouldnt etc.

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crappie

Guest
wrfd3006 you might have to skip lunch the first 30 days ,if you are haveing trouble.Bring couple sandwiches you can inhale, you will need the energy.Agree with everything I hear here good advice. Good luck
 
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ok2bclever

Guest
Danny and I apparently are going to have to agree to disagree on this subject as to me the point is if you don't make it the rest is mute.

We base our opinions on our personal experiences and I believe that is the differing point between us here.

Danny obviously lives in an area where the management is kinder and gentler regarding qualification.
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It is a wide country and the strictness of the level of performance required to qualify naturally varies with the personalities of the management team that is judging you.

In my area we have had four drivers fail qualification strictly on performance issues in the last two years (two long overdue, great hiring years by the way).

The key here is only one failure was an part-time, inside upgrade.

Two two years ago and one this year were the single outside hire the company had for each of those years.

Perhaps it's just been coincidence or perhaps the outside hires have been lousier drivers, but it is my personal opinion that at least local management is holding them to a higher standard as they can "dump" the outside hire without any significant consequences to themselves.

Failing an inside upgrade gets you a part-timer with a very negative attitude
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who can try again the next year.

If he/she is incompetent enough they will fail regardless, but if they are on the bubble. . .

PS - Danny is right regarding the "bubble" as I don't know a driver that didn't seem to be on the "bubble" according to management during their qualification period.

Several of the upgrades this year were supposedly "not going to make the bubble", but they all did (but again, they were the upgrades).

Good luck.
 
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fredly00

Guest
Here's a question, define the 30 day period.

Is it 30 days from the day you start,
30 days in a row of working?
30 days behind the wheel(including partial days)
or some other variant?
 
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ok2bclever

Guest
So much of our rules differ supplemental to supplemental, so it may be different elsewhere, but where I am it is 30 working days (in the job) in a 90 consecutive day period.

So for the driving position only those days behind the wheel would count towards qualifying.
 
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dannyboy

Guest
See, this is another area where things are different. The last driver we hired from outside of UPS was in 1983. Our outside hires now are the part time sups that want to go into driving. And as slow as they are putting them on, we will never ever again hire someone off the street to become a driver.

As Ok mentioned, we do seem to have decent management at this time, but it has not allways been that way. Lost a bunch of new drivers due to the hurry up accidents like backing into a basketball goal, or into a dock too hard. But none because they could not do the job. But that again might be that we only hire current part time to go full time, and not some off the street.

As I said, with more information as to where you want to go, and where you are now, what we mave mentioned is about as far as we can help you.

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ups_gal_710

Guest
Go to your first section get a pkg.... Look it up on your map and run it. Go to your next pkg look it up and run it. Dont stress the small stuff just work hard and it will all fall into place. By your third week on the same route you should be feeling better about the job and yourself as a driver. GOOD LUCK We have all been in your shoes.
 
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trickpony1

Guest
What ever happened to driving your area in your car on the weekend?
Perhaps you could ask your supervisor for a copy of your trace so you could practice on the weekend.
If nothing else it will impress the boss.
 
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brownmonster

Guest
If you are in a PAS center the truck just follows the route perfectly and you don't even need to think. Or so I read in Inside UPS.
 
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speeddemon

Guest
NEVER RUN.....you will end up getting injured and they will cut you like a caught fish, especially if your not qualified yet.
 
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