Pros and Cons of PT supervisor position

cambriaromance

New Member
Just curious about the pros and cons of moving to a pt supervisor position. I'm on the preload now and am considering applying for one. Does anyone know about how much the position pays? How about benefits? Anything I should be warned about? Any info I can get about it would be awesome!
 

diadlover

Well-Known Member
Hello and welcome!

Well the biggest difference would be the lack of Union protection. As a PT sup you most likely will be yelled at and harrassed. I have known a few guys that went down that road and they truly regretted it. Without a degree your advancement potential is minimal. If however you are in school for something else then it would look good on your resume to have a supervisory position. Just remember, only go PT if you are in school. W/O a degree you will get nowhere. As far as the pay goes, I believe it is in the neighborhood of $300 a week. Hope this helps!! Don't forget to vote!!
 

aspenleaf

Well-Known Member
cambriaromance - I too work preload and love it. My supervisor and the other sups seem stressed all the time. They get yelled at daily due to what ever we preloaders are doing "wrong". They can't ever be good enough. I personally would not become a PT sup. If you are tough enough you might do very well. But from what I see the sups are not that happy. It just depends on where you want to be in a few years. DL has some very good points to consider. Have you talked with your sups to see what they like about the job? Your center might be very different than mine and I hope it is.
 

rngri4

Well-Known Member
aspenleaf said:
cambriaromance - I too work preload and love it. My supervisor and the other sups seem stressed all the time. They get yelled at daily due to what ever we preloaders are doing "wrong". They can't ever be good enough. I personally would not become a PT sup. If you are tough enough you might do very well. But from what I see the sups are not that happy. It just depends on where you want to be in a few years. DL has some very good points to consider. Have you talked with your sups to see what they like about the job? Your center might be very different than mine and I hope it is.

If you want to be any kind of Sup at UPS, grow balls first, and then hand whoever yells at you, who is hourly, your own pen to write out the grievances, then the job will be enjoyable.
 

bisongolfer

Active Member
Financial:
I believe starting pay for my district is $1395 per month, which is divided into two pay periods. As stated by others, it is a great deal if you are a student and take advantage of the tuition reimbursement program, which adds another $4,000 to your yearly salary. You also get a 3% 401k match which is another nice financial perk which adds up to another $500 bucks, and then the half month bonus in December, thus putting your total compensation package at roughly $21,940 before taxes, which is a little more than $16 an hour, assuming you have no overtime...not to mention the other benefits including medical, etc...

Other:
If you are fortunate to be in a center with decent management staff, things shouldn't be too bad. It can be stressful at times, mostly because as a p/t sup, you are the lowest maggot on the food chain, and crap rolls down hill. Lately it seems like they are trying to move more and more of a full-time sups responsibilities onto a p/t sup...

Bottomline:
If you aspire to eventually move up into management whether it is with UPS or another company or are a student, than you should take on the challenge and rewards of being a p/t sup. If you want to be a driver or do not really wish to move up anywhere as far as management is concerned, stay an hourly, because you're protected. I have to keep my own records of everything I do to cover my @$$ because I dont have anyone looking out for me, and that can be very frustrating.
 

toonertoo

Most Awesome Dog
Staff member
Looks great on a resume, it isnt fast track historically to ft although that seems to be changing a bit. You will gain experience and tolerance, and get no credit for what you do. Last I knew starting pay was 1200. But that was quite a while ago. Hours are 25 per week, and now with overtime I hear. Based on my experience, I wouldnt do it again, but I learned alot, and let my degree get old. Do it if you have short term plans at UPS, leave if you dont go in the direction you would like to. But hey, what would I know, I did it for 6 yrs, and now I drive a truck.
 
K

Kramer

Guest
I was a PT Supv for 3 years. I didn't have it so bad because I was a staff Supv. However, my friends in operations hated their existence.

It does look good on a resume. You will learn coping and managing skills. However, unless you desire to stay with UPS, I would just keep doing what your doing.

UPS goes through phases where we would work 39 hours a week as a PT supv, then the next year, we would work only 30 hours a week. I understand that at present new laws protect PT supv from abuse (I think there were big lawsuits in California over this).

To be honest, I remember working 55+ hours a week as a PT Supv. I had employees on the Twilight, Midnight, and Preload shifts. I was told to supervise them by only working 25 hours a week. I'll ask you how I was supposed to do this, because I never figured it out. One suggestion from my manager was to work a different shift each night rotating throughout the week. I also had employees working both the Saturday air night sort and Sunday T-sort. At the time, I was bucking for FT Supv, so I just took it. I look back at it and realize what a chump I was. Then again, UPS is famous for using a carrot (promise of promotion for extra effort) with its employees.

Like I said, I have heard that this has slowed down a lot due to the constant lawsuits over the last 5 years.

I got a lot out of being a supervisor, but I gave a heck'va lot too.
 

toonertoo

Most Awesome Dog
Staff member
Kramer, thats why I try to warn newbies of the "possibility of abuse", as I too had those type of hours. I too was a chump. Not with an operation of your size, just as when you show up and you are there it is not out of the realm of possibility that you will still be there 12 hrs later. It may not happen anymore, it may not happen everywhere, but it did indeed happen to me, and to you. I am glad UPS now pays pt sup overtime. Shouldnt have taken lawsuits to do it. I too wanted to go on to ft supervision, not now, Id never do it. Once I was in the union and I had protection, Id never enter that area of UPS again.
 

tieguy

Banned
I lived those days too but they are the stone ages of pt supervision. PT sups are on an electronic timecard system. When they work over they get paid overtime. The electronic timecard system generates nice reports that finance guys like to run and brow beat operations about. Now that this issue generates nice reports and our finance people discover its costing us money why then it gets managed.
 

bisongolfer

Active Member
To a certain degree...yes, they get managed. Now instead of operations paying folks the right way, with the overtime after 5.5 hours, they tell us to just take (insert day) off. Or, "Just let me know when you need an extra day off, and you got it".

And even worse, when someone is on vacation, instead of paying someone the extra money to cover a shift, they expect one OMS to do the job of two for the entire week. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the reason two OMSs are assigned a shift together is because it takes two people to do the job, yet they refuse to cover the shift because of finance issues... Most of the time things are fine, but it gets very hectic and frustrating.
 

tieguy

Banned
bisongolfer said:
To a certain degree...yes, they get managed. Now instead of operations paying folks the right way, with the overtime after 5.5 hours, they tell us to just take (insert day) off. Or, "Just let me know when you need an extra day off, and you got it".

Are you telling me that they make you take the day off in the same week or are you telling me they tell you to falsify your timecard on the belief that you will be compensated for the time off at a later time?


 

bisongolfer

Active Member
tieguy said:
Are you telling me that they make you take the day off in the same week or are you telling me they tell you to falsify your timecard on the belief that you will be compensated for the time off at a later time?




Yes...sometimes it will be within that same week, and then Yes, sometimes they ask if I will falsify my timecard, with the promise of being having the day off later whenever I might want it, without it being coded as a Discretionary day...granted they don't quite word it that way. I figured this kind of thing went on all over the place, just kept low-key.
 

spidey

Well-Known Member
There is a strict policy in place now that PT can't work over 27.5 per week. In our district there are no exceptions. This has come and gone several times, but for more than a year now, including peak, absolutely no overtime is allowed. If you run out of hours at 10am on Friday a FT works the rest of your shift.

Just didn't want anyone going in counting on overtime. It's not there.
 

bisongolfer

Active Member
spidey said:
There is a strict policy in place now that PT can't work over 27.5 per week. In our district there are no exceptions. This has come and gone several times, but for more than a year now, including peak, absolutely no overtime is allowed. If you run out of hours at 10am on Friday a FT works the rest of your shift.

Just didn't want anyone going in counting on overtime. It's not there.

While this is true for most part-time sups, I think it varys from Center to Center. Because during peak, I work 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. Whether it is training helpers, shuttling packages, or whatever else might be needed. They even made sure I had my browns and DOT card.

Now I dont know if this is against the rules, but it is what I have done in the past.
 

sillyputty

Active Member
I certainly wouldn't become a P/T sup...but I can see how some would. At our center, they get the tuition help. That's about the only reason I would do it (and management experience). I'm done with college though and the reload job I had throughout college was just fine by me.

I don't know how it goes anywhere else, but at night we have one friend/t and 5 or 6 p/t sups. I'm not even reall sure. Why not? Because most of thm have only been working there for less than a year. All of them became supervisors within 3-6 months of being hired. They all complain because they have to work so much, their pay is so screwy that the newest supervisor is making more than the one who runs the sort when the friend/t sup is gone and has been there a few years. They get yelled at by their bosses and they get whined to/yelled at by the people they supervise. Most are about 19 years old and a few of them try to come in and demand respect from people who've been working there since they were in elementary school. Many freak out and can't handle stress very well. But no one wants to be a supervisor so generally that have to take what they can get.

Not only that, after 6.5 years I have 4 weeks of vacation. The Revenue Recovery sup has been there close to 6 years and only has 2 weeks. I'll stick with my position (until I can get a job using my degree!).
 

UPSn00b

boxchucker
I'm currently working as a PT Sup as I went against Tooner's and many other people's sound advice. Coming into UPS only a few months ago, I was flagged by management as soon as I started to become a part time sup because of my previous management experience, and computer skills. Make NO mistake, you will be abused, but it's not bad if you dont mind unloading, sorting, loading trucks, breaking jams, taping boxes, running irregulars out to the belts (read:contract work), taking crap from hourlys who instantly hate you from the word 'go', even if you were cool with them beforehand, and taking crap from management who expect you to 'get it' even when you have your head IN the work by "WORKING" 5.5 hours a day.

Article 2 Section 7 of our Union contract deals with supervisors working, its absolutely forbidden, because you're taking work from someone who should be hired. But good luck on finding someone to 'write you up'. trust me, I've asked around. The usual excuses for not writing a Sup up are "They might mess with me afterwards" or "I will IF they start messing with me". Hopefully you're in an area with a strong union presence and you wont have to deal with this. Its not that I'm lazy, heck I dont mind the work, its just, by definition, its not what I'm supposed to be doing! It's impossible to 'supervise' or 'learn the operation inside and out' when you're concentrating on being safe, fast, and efficient. And it really burns my butt that they're sending people home when we're "fully staffed", then making me work instead. THAT is every kind of wrong.

If learning every facet of the operation by physically doing the work and figuring out the most efficient way of doing things is your cup o tea, I say go for it. You'll definitely learn much more about the operation than your average worker. But its not by any stretch of the imagination purely 'supervision' or management as it should be. By all means, talk to your current PT sups....ALL of them, seriously, because the working conditions, managers, FT sups are different from building to building. The one REAL question you have to ask them is..."If given the chance, would you go back to being an hourly worker?" I think most of the time you're gonna get an overwhelming YES but your milage may vary.
 

toonertoo

Most Awesome Dog
Staff member
Sorry Noob, I hate it when I am right and people get abused. Hang in there and use it on the resume. Youll be fine!
 
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