Olympics are starting early for contractors.

[bacha29]

How do you contractors like the new medals idea? Is it just me or does this seem childish or just lame?

It's Fat Freddy's latest brainy idea that is obviously designed to extract even more economic value from Ground contractors at zero additional cost to him. it's an intimidation tactic pure and simple. Trouble is contractors are now so jaded and so indifferent that the news will be greeted with one great big collective yawn. I can just hear one of them now.... "You want rid of me?...Fine...But who are you going to get?.....You want to pay one of those contingency locusts 10 times what you pay me to come halfway across the country to run these routes?....He could end up being here 3 weeks....or 3 months....or 3 years....What are you going to tell Fat Freddy after you've busted your own budget?

 

[bacha29]

To me it seems like another half-baked idea with far bigger problems to fix. This fixes none of them.

Everything that enters the “algorithm” to determine medals are things we’ve always been held accountable for. If anything, all this does is hide the measuring stick. The parameters can be changed with nobody’s knowing. For example, if acceptable service (silver) this year is 99.2%, the company can change that next year to 99.4. A contractor could continue to have the same service and risk losing his contract based on an arbitrary and changeable parameter that he has no way of knowing.

Sam, every remaining contractor now has to decide if they will cave in to the pressure and put even more money at risk for a contract whose terms and application is whatever best serves Fat Freddy's interests at that particular moment.

Not a single dime of that investment is supported by a single word of that contract because not a single word of it is binding upon Fat Freddy and his loyal followers.

 

[purpder]

 

[Fred's Myth]

To me it seems like another half-baked idea with far bigger problems to fix. This fixes none of them.

Everything that enters the “algorithm” to determine medals are things we’ve always been held accountable for. If anything, all this does is hide the measuring stick. The parameters can be changed with nobody’s knowing. For example, if acceptable service (silver) this year is 99.2%, the company can change that next year to 99.4. A contractor could continue to have the same service and risk losing his contract based on an arbitrary and changeable parameter that he has no way of knowing.

Hidden FedEx corporate guiding principle:

 

[59 Dano]

Didn't I just say that, or are you from another planet? Raj killed his routes. So what is Raj going to do about replacing a vertically integrated player like Patton? He just doesn't go away because he has merged himself into Ground's very structure. I guess simple minds like yours prefer simple answers. How is your J6 trial going BTW?

Patton is (or was) just another contractor.

 

[59 Dano]

The contracts were the unprofitable part of Patton’s business. He sold off his trucks and found positions for his drivers with other contractors and in the process promoted the profitable parts of his business.

He was losing money, but was upset that they wouldn't let him lose any more, and now he's making a killing brokering deals for routes that he said don't make any money and that you say no one wants. Sounds like... something.

I would like to know how you think Ground is better off now than they were six months ago. Stock price is up, but the same issues that existed then still exist today.

I'm sure it's all about to fall apart.

 

[bbsam]

He was losing money, but was upset that they wouldn't let him lose any more, and now he's making a killing brokering deals for routes that he said don't make any money and that you say no one wants. Sounds like... something.


I'm sure it's all about to fall apart.

Sounds like marketing.

I have no idea what they’re trying to do. I don’t think they do either.

 

[MrFedEx]

Patton is (or was) just another contractor.

No, I don't think so. Patton was a major player in Ground and still appears to be, even without his routes. Do a little research and you'll see he has a lot of irons in the Ground dumpster fire. Just a question. Do you ever check out anything before you make an uninformed observation?

 

[59 Dano]

No, I don't think so. Patton was a major player in Ground and still appears to be, even without his routes. Do a little research and you'll see he has a lot of irons in the Ground dumpster fire. Just a question. Do you ever check out anything before you make an uninformed observation?

Patton is trying to sell routes that he said were worthless.

 

[59 Dano]

Sounds like marketing.

Any day now he's going to show us that chasing away buyers was really a brilliant move and that he was playing 4D chess while everyone else was playing the peg game from Cracker Barrel. Just wait.

You'll see.

We'll all see.

 

[59 Dano]

The essence of the article I read about Patton was that getting rid of him sounds easy, but would be quite difficult due to his omnipresence in the Ground orbit. He has 255 routes and then makes bank off advising Ground "investors", leases trucks, and has vertically integrated himself into the Ground operation.

Why would competent management let someone like Patton weave themselves so strongly into Ground? He has vertically integrated himself as a player even though they made an example of him by terminating all of his routes.

So what is Raj going to do about replacing a vertically integrated player like Patton?

Raj going to start having FedEx do some of the stuff that Patton was doing.

 

[zeev]

Patton the Route Consultant has given his expert appraisal of Ground routes and deemed them worthless. I see these Ground trucks for sale everywhere now FedEx is forced to advertise on Facebook for investors in their one year contract specials. Most of the. Comments are about getting a driving job.

 

[It will be fine]

Raj going to start having FedEx do some of the stuff that Patton was doing.

Like what exactly?

 

[59 Dano]

Like what exactly?

Some of the marketing of routes, training of contractors, and possibly some of the consulting. It's fairly vague at this point but Amazon does many of the things with its contractors that third parties do for Ground/Ground contractors. It allows for lower costs for the contractors and my guess is that both sides are better if they deal directly with each other than by going through an intermediary.

 

[It will be fine]

Some of the marketing of routes, training of contractors, and possibly some of the consulting. It's fairly vague at this point but Amazon does many of the things with its contractors that third parties do for Ground/Ground contractors. It allows for lower costs for the contractors and my guess is that both sides are better if they deal directly with each other than by going through an intermediary.

Corporate posts open contracts, I don’t see them trying to market for sale areas. That would be an admission that the contracts have value. I think the legal exposure for that would be bad for them.

They can’t train package handlers. I haven’t met a single manager at any level that actually understands what’s really involved with being a contractor. Their training or consulting would not be adequate. I’ve seen what happens to new contractors that only get help from FedEx management, they are out the door in a few months.

FedEx renamed a division of management Business Development Solutions a few years ago. The people that work there are clueless. I don’t think Spencer is concerned about losing his market share of consulting services to them.