not taking lunch and getting paid

[trplnkl]

Someone asked in an earlier post why anyone would work for free during their lunch time and it is a valid question. Here is one possible answer. If you are in a bonus center and you can get an hours bonus time by working through your meal time then you are not working for free. The hour bonus would offset the hour you lost during lunch. I'm not advising that anyone do this, but it is how I have heard many drivers justify skipping lunch. However this does open the window to many other issues that I'm not going to rehash in this post.

Someone else earlier stated that if EVERYONE would take their meal time as described in the contract that eventually the company would be forced to adjust the dispatches accordingly, and he is right. As far a the scrutiny that you will have to face for a while may be intense, as long as you are honest, use proper work methods and follow the trace in EDD you are covered. In many situations UPS management tries to put the monkey on the drivers backs to fix the problems with the system, that folks is NOT our responsibility.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

Someone asked in an earlier post why anyone would work for free during their lunch time and it is a valid question. Here is one possible answer. If you are in a bonus center and you can get an hours bonus time by working through your meal time then you are not working for free. The hour bonus would offset the hour you lost during lunch. I'm not advising that anyone do this, but it is how I have heard many drivers justify skipping lunch. However this does open the window to many other issues that I'm not going to rehash in this post.

That would mean you'd have to run (literally) under at least an hour in order for the bonus to offset working through lunch. LOL! If someone is finishing an hour under than they are either working like a maniac or their route plans like a charm. That would mean it had a very generous time study and we all know that is not going to happen.

 

[terrymac]

what about feeders? , If a met goes as planned, your day works out fine, not waiting, why should I have to burn an hour of "my time" at the building waiting to punch out?

 

[trplnkl]

That would mean you'd have to run (literally) under at least an hour in order for the bonus to offset working through lunch. LOL! If someone is finishing an hour under than they are either working like a maniac or their route plans like a charm. That would mean it had a very generous time study and we all know that is not going to happen.

We do have a few routes that you can take your full hour lunch on area and still run scratch, or real close +/-. So an hour bonus shouldn't be that hard to do. Although I would say most of our drivers are now running an hour or more over everyday.

 

[toonertoo]

Here we have to record an hour lunch in our boards during which we can do no work. No exceptions. A lot of drivers spend 45mins. or so in the break room or office in the PM because they say they have no time to take one during the day. Not me. I take my lunch from about noon til about 1. I have never taken 1 minute in the building and never will. If I were to skip it to avoid service failures, I would take after I was done with businesses and pickups, but before I ran any residentials. Remember this: mgmnt wants you to take it in the building, that way it doesn't drag the SPORH down.

Even if you take it in the building it does not affect your sporh, as you have to put your rtb in after your lunch. It is "magically" figured into your on road time. You cannot rtb then take a lunch. At least they nixxed me for it. But 50 different people will have fifty different answers

 

[Tony31yrs]

I'm surprised to see that so many areas have a one hour lunch. We had 45 minutes and that was plenty. I never wanted to give UPS any work for free, so I always took a paperback along and took the full 45. Once in a while, if I really had to get in, I might skip 10 or 15 minutes but the pickups would always seem to not be ready. It's a "Catch 22" thing. Some guys would take their lunch at the end of the day to make sure they got all of their businesses off, but management knew this and adjusted their routes and dispatch to get even more work out of them. They never caught on that the more you do, the more they want.

 

[leastbest]

We only get a half hour lunch here so I carry my banjo and sit by Lake Erie and play a few tunes and watch the waves. Makes the rest of the day float by.

Randy
www.leastbest.com

ps On the top of my website is a pic of me in my uniform playing the banjo on a beach on the south shore of Lake Erie.

 

[brownmonster]

You didn't get any of it on you, did you? (Lake Erie water, that is)

 

[leastbest]

I swim in it all the time. Refreshing!

 

[browninpdx]

I could swear that labor laws require a min of a 30 min break period if working over 6 hours. I just wonder why ups drivers think they need to break laws. The rest of the working world takes a lunch, so take your lunch shut up and do your job. Enough crying how much it costs you. It is the law so obey it.

Some drivers in our center have bed mats they put on on their shelf for a nap. It cracks me up but it actually is refreshing.

 

[trplnkl]

It may be against the law, but it aint a movin' violation.

 

[Mike Hawk]

Whats up with 1 10 min break? During peak when the preload goes longer we get 2 10 min paid breaks and and optional 30 min unpaid lunch.

 

[brownmonster]

Many people in occupations outside of UPS will have occasions when they skip lunch, eat at their desk, whatever it takes to get the job done on certain days.

 

[Upslady20]

Leastbest I checked out your blog.. wow you are a talented writer and the pictures were great also.. plus you apparently have a talent with a banjo...

 

[DS]

The last year or so,it has not been a problem getting a code 05,but here we go again,our new center manager has banned them.I don't usually get upset about things at work but this guy really rubs me the rong way.I once before had a center manager that I didn't see eye to eye with and I got fired.So I don't plan on going through that again.I was hoping to be way overdispatched today so I could be the first one to call for help,but maybe it was a good thing I had a fairly light day.Don't get me wrong I'd rather take my full hour but when I get slammed with 20 oncalls on top of a heavy day,its either get help or work through it.Take your break and hold your resi's makes me over 11, and I get home around 10:00PM.
OK I'm a bit stressed,I can tell because I had bad bromodrosis when I got home tonight.I leave home at 630am and get home at 900pm.
Thats 14 1/2 hrs on road...I love my job

 

[LeddySS98]

Bonus Center here... I guess this is a rare thing, but we have a center full of drivers that run under daily...The fastest guy, who also has the best time study had over 4 hrs of bonus one day... he had a plan of 12.25 or something and did it in 8hrs...that's an extreme example, but he gets a 8.5 = 10 hr plan daily, and he's done by 3:00 almost every day..

thoughts?>

 

[brownmonster]

We're a bonus center also. About half the guys bonus. We have guys 2 hours late and guys 3 hours early. We have a bonus monster that can crack it by 5 hours. Been time studied several times. He broke it by 8 hours one day during peak. I can't imagine. Some of the time studies are wacked but there is a major difference in how people work. It's not just skipping lunch that makes bonus. It's no different than any factory piece-work job. I look at my own report each morning and don't really care what the others do. BM

 

[soonerbruce]

80% of roughly 100,00 drivers.Is this a guess? I don't think your anywhere close.Should be closer to 0%.Why would anyone work for free? My belief is that in the last 100 years those drivers fought for what we have now.Work thru lunch for free.That's crazy.Stop and take your break.Think of the future.

Well maybe not from where you are from but here in mid America I know that I am not far wrong just wish I was. I am now a full time feeder driver and have been to centers where drivers were at work 3 hours before their start times loading their own trucks. The home center I am from does not allow that (Stewards and other drivers) but it goes on all over. Some years ago I talked to a supervisor that went to another center to watch the driver sort and The drivers were all loaded up and gone on the road 30 minutes before they were even on the clock.

 

[soonerbruce]

That would mean you'd have to run (literally) under at least an hour in order for the bonus to offset working through lunch. LOL! If someone is finishing an hour under than they are either working like a maniac or their route plans like a charm. That would mean it had a very generous time study and we all know that is not going to happen.

Actually if you make an hour bonus at straight time it is only 66% of what you would have made on overtime. Maybe ok with you definitlely ok with the company but not ok with the driver you and 7 other drivers laid off because you were doing their work.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

I come in a little early and BS with other drivers that also get there early. We just laugh at the few that come in and doctor up their loads off the clock. They are the same guys that skip their lunch and get in early. The funny thing is that they don't understand why their routes keep getting more and more stops added. It's pathetic. At $28.19/hr and working an hour for free every day for a year adds up. You can buy a decent used car for the amount of money lost during that time. Fools! I look forward to lunch every day. Sometimes I get the urge to work through it if I have something to do or have to travel after work. I usually fight through the urge and make myself take the hour or at least 45 minutes. I absolutely hate giving up 15 minutes so I just don't understand how anyone could want to give up an entire hour of pay. Its silly.