OPL

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deadweight

Guest
does the OPL board meet soon? have not heard any info on them in a while, are there any rumors floating around?
 
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papamike

Guest
OPL means Overseas Partners and Losers. The partners are the managers who got their shares for free. The Losers are the working smucks who were FORCED to buy the stock if they wanted to purchase UPS shares. I worked 33 years before I was privilaged enough to be able to buy UPS stock and I was FORCED to purchase OPL also. I paid as much as $21.50 for my OPL shares that are now worth $10.08. Worth to whom? You can't even sell them.
Consider any investment in OPL a total loss! By the time this run-down is completed, do you really believe anything will be left for us?
All those years that I couldn't invest in my own company, imagine if I had instead invested in FDX, I'd be a wealthy man today. It never made sense to me why a company would not let their own employees invest. My center manager could, as well as his father, mother, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother, etc....! Get the message? What the heck did they ever do to promote the growth of the company. Pure corperate greed!!! Plain and simple!!!
 
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tieguy

Guest
pure corporate greed is a nice catchy phrase that assumes greed is some type of bigwig disease. The fact that you and I working here and not serving humanity in the peace corps leads me to believe we may be driven by the financial aspects of this particular employement.
 
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lr1937

Guest
Papa Mike
You could have purchased UPS shares at any time if you would have gone into managemet early on. If you chose not to go into management you passed up an oportunity to buy shares of UPS stock. One of the reasons people went into management was to be able to purchase shares of ups stock and become a partner. It was and still is used as an incentive to go into management. You knew the rules and chose not to provide yourself with the oportunity to buy ups shares. I for one don't want to hear your whining about your poor choices. You make choices you live with them.
I have never been given anything for free at ups. I have been given stock dividends as an incentive. Many people are given stock dividends and they are not considered a handout. I have earned everything I have gotten from ups. I have worked hard and consider the opl stock dividend as a reward for my effort.
I don't think the union was thrilled about their members getting stock and as a driver you probably could have been able to purchase them sooner if the union would have agreed to them as part of your compensation package as it is with managers. This is just an opinion but since you don't mind giving yours I thought I would give mine.
Nobody forced you to do a dam thing. If you didn't like the idea back then no one forced you to buy ups stock. You probalby heard about the returns opl was paying and were happy to be able to purchase them. Once again you make choices and live with them. If you liked FDX so well you should have told ups to stick their shares and purchased FDX. The IRS put the screws to opl and if you read your opl information you knew the irs was looking into it. Why did you hold onto them knowing the IRS was looking into opl. Once again when everything was going fine you jumped on the oportunity and did not take into account that the IRS was looking into OPL. UPS did what many many other companies did and continue to do with off shore companies. UPS was pretty much exonerated from any wrong doing with the recent settlement. Why don't you take your corportate greed theory and give away crap to the IRS board and give them hell of screwing up a good company. I for one don't buy your corportate greed.
Once again, in the early days it was determined that only managers could own stock. It was an incentive for you to GOYA and become an owner. You chose not to and forfited the oportunity for you or any one in your family to purchase shares. You made choices that you either failed to recognize the consequences of or didn't want to take the chance. It ain't no ones fault that you didn't make choices that would have provided you with oportunities, but your own.
Get the message!!!
 
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automotivedave

Guest
i thought the opl board was to meet the 25th and 26th. the web site still has 11/02 as the last update.
 
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automotivedave

Guest
it also says they are working on some sort of distribution for 2003?????????
 
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ups_vette

Guest
PapaMike..You poor poor man. My heart goes out to you. I don't imagine that the $6 a week you put into the THRIFT PLAN ($10,296 over 33 years) you consider investing in "your company", or were you one of those Teamsters who refused to look out for your future and relied on your Brotherhood to take care of you in your golden years with their great pension plan.

When UPS eliminated the THRIFT PLAN, you were given the option to convert your holdings to UPS stock. After being a member of the Plan for 33 years, you should have had several hundred thousands of dollars, which today, after UPS went public, you would be a weathy man. That is, if you were a member in the 1st place and converted to UPS stock.


As far as not being allowed to purchase stock in "your company", you made the choise not to be a partner and owner of UPS.
 
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dannyboy

Guest
We had a center manager that died 5 or six years ago. HE bought just OPL when you could get it. At times Mike bought it for .10-.15 a share. THe year after he died, his wife and children cashed much of it in. Needless to say, they didnt and dont have any money worries. I guess Papa musta bought it! Come to think of it, I have some somewhere!

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proups

Guest
Everybody that is slamming Papamike needs to take it easy! Saying that he made a poor choice by not going into management is not a fair statement. If everybody chose management, then who would deliver the bundles?

OPL was a good buy when they were selling it. Then the IRS got a win against UPS/OPL in court and virtually put OPL out of business.

UPS managed to get the IRS win overruled on appeal, but then 9/11 happened, and the whole insurance industry took a hit.

OPL was already weak at the time, and that did it in for good. The word on the street is that they are looking to liquidate OPL and shut it down so shareowners can at least get something out of their investment. I hope that happens.
 
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ups79

Guest
ups vette, you are very right. the way I fiqure it he should be worth by now 3/4 million dollars, if he converted his thrift plan earnings to ups stock.
 
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papamike

Guest
Dear UPS79,UPS Vette, IR1937

Typical management people who react instead of reading. Hello???
I stand by exactly what I said. I was FORCED to buy OPL stock in order to purchase UPS shares. That is a FACT. There was no option, no choice irregardless of wheter or not I wanted the OPL shares (which I did not). Yes, I would definately have unloaded the shares but they have been frozen for some time. In fact, I cannot even sell them now and take the loss.
Yes, indeed I could have gone into management many years ago and it was my choice no to. It takes a particular type of person to be a manager at UPS. Thankfully, I am not that kind of a person. I could never treat another human being the way I witnessed people treated at UPS. Back in my day the managers were not quality people. They were selected on the basis of who could out drink the center manager or who could hit the longest golf shot. Mistreatment at UPS was rampant. Above all the company was not at all fair with the working man. Yea, I know, you managers will scoff and berate me but that's ok I took it for many years. Fact is fact, and I know from whence I speak.
By the way, you guys would make lousy accountants, your not even close.
Papamike
 
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michael

Guest
OPL has been a hard pill for me to swallow as it has for a good many others. There are pros and cons to the stock,the company and how each were handled and why. Papamike claims that it was
The partners are the managers who got their shares for free. Well, the partners got them, but they were not free. It was considered part of the compensation package, in other words, part of your pay.
If we bought UPS stock, we were forced into buying the OPL as well. It was a good stock before everything happened and we were all happy. There are all kinds of fingers that can be pointed and there is plenty of blame that can be spread around.
At this point, I, for one, am hoping that we will be able to salvage something from this disaster.

Dannyboy, I dont remember when you could buy just OPL stock. I do know that there were many that bought UPS and OPL (on the 4/1 basis) then turned right around and sold the UPS back and kept the OPL. Remember, the stock (OPL) was going up in price on a steady basis. Many partners saw this stock as a great investment. Also, I will stand corrected on this, but didnt this stock start out at 25 a share? How did anyone get it at 10 or 15?
 
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dannyboy

Guest
I dont know where Mike got the OPL for that price, just know what his wife told me when they sold it. She showed me the ledger that he kept over the years, and showed several times where he bought it for 10 to 15 cents. Dont know if it was a private sale or what. But when he died he had close to 500,000 shares. THat took care of his family quite nicely.

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timestudyguy

Guest
are there any rumors to what opl is planning for, the mentioned distrubution?
 
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papamike

Guest
UPSvette........How are the anger management classes going? Wow, quotation marks around the words "my company"!! Must really fazzle you to think a thirty-seven year employee would consider that he had a stake in the company,huh?
How much time did you waste trying to figure out my Thrift Plan earnings? Several hundred thousands of dollars, are you serious? Gosh, no wonder you were in management you probably couldn't get your turn-in straight. You are only off by "several hundred thousands of dollars."
BTW, I'm not hurting financially, I did just fine with investments outside of UPS. That whopping six dollars a week was a joke. Fortunately,I was investing over a hundred a week in good companies with honorable management.
How is Paris these days? I have never been there myself, can't afford it. You should be real popular in a country that has deserted America. That's probably right where you belong.
 
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ups_vette

Guest
Papa Mike: Did I hit a nerve? I surely didn't mean for you to look back on your life and regret the foolish decisions you made. As I recall, noone was FORCED to purchase OPL stock, at least I wasn't, nor anyone else I know. The purchasing of OPL was required IF you wished to purchase UPS stock. If you, or anyone, didn't wish to purchase OPL, you weren't required to. However, you would not be allowed to Purchase UPS stock, so the decision was entirely up to you.

If, as you say, you're a 37 year employee of UPS, that would indicate you started in 1966. You must be a financial genious by investing $100 a week when, in 1966, you couldn't have been making $200 a week. You may ask how I know this, well when I started as a driver in 1963, I was paid $1.85 an hour, and with a family to support, saving $100 a week would have been impossible, as it would have been for the other drivers in the center I worked. So I applaud you for you financial abilities.

As for the THRIFT PLAN, many, including myself, that $6 a week over 32 years, turned into a rather large sum of monies. I find it hard to believe if, as you say, you're a shrew investor, you too didn't realize a large profit. That is unless you were like a lot of other drives who cashed in during the work stoppage we had on the east coast in 1976.

Now, about the French. Do you recall from your history class in high school, unless you didn't go to high school, an event that occured in our history called the American Revolution? This was when we were at war seeking our independence from England. Can you guess who was our only ally? No, not the Brits. No, not the Spanish. No, not the Saudis. Ok ok, I'll tell you. It was the French. Does that surprise you? Wow, to think that without the support of the French, the USA might not exist. With the wealth you have acumulated, thanks to your financial wizzerdry, you should give yourself the pleasure of experiencing other cultures and people outside the narrow world you live in.

Oh...I don't think I'm "fazzelled" I may be, but since I have no idea what fazzel means, perhaps you could provide the definition. I tried to look it up in a dictionary, but was unable to find such a word. Is it a verb, or a noun, or perhaps an adjetive?

One other point I'd like to make. I agree with you about you not going into management. I have seen a few management people (very few) who had an attitude like you. I guess some people are naturally miserable and hate to see other people suceede where they know they would fail.
 
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lr1937

Guest
ups vette
I also started as a driver in Altoona, Pa in 1963.

Wasn't it funny how much peer pressure there was not to go into management. Don't do it, they just want to get rid of you. You will make more money as a driver. You will have to move. You have to work to many hours and you don't get paid overtime. Your a brown noser. You got your nose up the bosses ass. You'll be sorry. You got no union to protect you. Those people are cheats and liars and will have your fanny. I will break up your family. They will take advantage of you. Your crazy if you take it. Don't do it.
Then when you make the sacrifices, commitment, work hard and reap some financial rewards you are a liar, a cheat, are given stock and don't earn it, stock is free for managers, management pockets all the profits.
I respect the hell out of drivers and the choices they make but don't it get to you when one whines about all this locker room bull:censored2: that the good drivers walk away from. They are probably the same guys who told you way back when all the reasons not to go into management. Some of these FATHER figures may have regrets and didn't realize that all the sacrifices, low pay, and hard work would pay off one day. Does the term "sour grapes" ring a bell? I want to say to all the drivers out there that I respect the hell out of 99% of you and the job that you do for ups. Sometimes you just get fed up with some of the FATHER like daddy posturing weasel type comments that are made.
 
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papamike

Guest
UPSvette,
This will be my last correspondence because you will never understand the working man's position. You refuse to even give it a try.
I do not regret my time at UPS at all, I am very financially secure and I had many good friends there. However, I do think that I am entitled to express my opinion based on extensive personal experience.
I had the pleasure of riding in a limozine to an NFL game this past season. I was in the company of some very prominate and educated people. Among them was the dean of a business school at a large western university. This gentleman had an undergrad degree from Harvard, a masters from MIT and a PHD from USC. He was absolutely appalled at some of the tactics employed by management at UPS. (I only state this so that you don't think this is my personal "sour grapes" opinion).Do you recall "methodizing" a driver? Unfortunately, I was witness to a driver so harassed that he had a mental breakdown and couldn't finish his route. I also witnessed the center manager offer to take his supervisors out for a drink in celebration of this great accomplishment (getting him to crack). To me that is absolutely disgraceful! I could sight many other examples but you would never understand. Let me just say that in thirty-seven years of employment, I witnessed one dismissal of an hourly for dishonesty. I also saw seven managers dismissed for stealing, doing drugs, fudging numbers, dishonesty, etc.. You probably won't understand but seven to one tells me something.
Back to the Thrift Plan,my personal business but a discussion which you originated. I did very well by the TP, thank you, but you are way out of line stating that I should have several hundred thousands of dollars (whose business is it anyway?). The actual amount was considerably less than that. I had to work almost two years to be eligible for the plan (do you recall the old rules?). I also missed some contributions due to absenses caused by an accident. The actual amount was less than $1.5K.
This may be difficult for you to understand but try real hard. Although I worked full time at UPS, I've always held a second and often a third job to supplement my income. In my early years, I tended bar at night and painted houses on weekends. Yes, my pay was under a hundred a week but gasoline was also under thirty cents a gallon. My mortgage was 155.06 and I didn't own a Corvette (I only purchased second hand cars). I lived well below my means and yes, I was able to save over one hundred dollars a week.
I would suggest that if you are going to knock another person, that you first get your own spelling correct. What is an ajetive? Hello? (I will admit that I have not looked it up in the dictionary.)
In thirty-seven years, I can honestly say that I never met a manager who ever admitted to making a mistake. Boy, were they quick to find someone to assign the blame to. They even had a term for it (from the policy book?), "the :censored2: flows downhill".
I devoted the prime years of my life to the company and I was an excellent employee. I drove through blizzards, hurricanes and when tired and when sick. I was never late for work and never off with my turn-in.I also had over thirty years of safe driving. When I retired, I was given a piece of cake and a toy package car. It would have been nice, if just once in those thirty-seven years, someone could have said that I did a nice job.
Adios
 
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