Question: Loading for a Cover Driver

[jibbs]

tl;dr question in bold at bottom of post



Situation:

I've been on the same pull for about 7 months now. Early in May, my center moved one of the trucks I load and replaced it with another, separate route.

The driver (the regular, FT permanent driver that runs the route every day) has (told me he's) been happy with the load since his truck was put on my pull. I've even seen him pull other drivers into his truck and say things like "Look, look at this, he loads it in order."

Fast forward to this week and the regular driver's on vacation. Cover driver ran his route yesterday. I came in today and our new center manager hones in on me and starts asking about how I did yesterday and how today'll be better, how I didn't have any out-of-syncs or misloads on any of my trucks but I'll do better today. ....oooookay, so I report to my work spot and load for 4 hours.

End of the shift rolls around and drivers start coming in. The cover driver in question comes in and just straight ignores me like I'm a dickbag after I ask him how he's doing, so I said "Well it, man, you just do you and I'll leave you the alone."

His response? "Bet." He starts sorting through the truck.

center manager comes by and starts a conversation with the driver. "So what happened yesterday?"
Driver says something like, [I went out blind.]


...I missed the next part of the conversation but came back to the truck and heard:

[Well the load was . I was bricked out and sent out blind.... but today it looks good. I see labels and stickers today.]


And the center manager asks me to come in and if I heard what the driver said. I had him repeat it, and then I looked around the truck, looked at the center manager and told him this is exactly how the truck looked yesterday before his bulked out RDC stop (which is delivered first) had to get loaded at the end of the shift. I did everything identically to the day before because I wasn't told of any specific problems from the day before, just that I would "do better today." I had a few words with the center manager and pretty much everything I said contradicted what the driver told him and vice versa.


Basically, I was proud as of my awesome load yesterday. My supervisor hounds his boss to keep me on my pull despite my >1 misload/10,000 and my driver's tell me I do better than most other loaders they get stuck with (never been told I'm the best and I know I'm not, I just do my best so I don't have to worry about being bitched at the next day). The cover driver couldn't hang with the route he ran yesterday and he sought to put the blame on his loader, yet the loader loaded his trucks identically to the way he does it for the regular drive who's only brought back one box to the building since I started loading for him in May.



tl;dr QUESTION: So should I turn this into a head-to-head kind of thing? I feel like if I just stay quiet I'm going to be thrown under the bus thanks to this cover drivers.... "equivocating," but if I speak my mind it's going to be something along the lines of "The load was good, the driver was -- point blank."


I know most of you are drivers and I'm really not making this a PT vs. FT thread. I just felt unjustifiably ted on at the end of preload this morning and I'm trying to figure out how to keep this situation from happening again.

 

[Brownslave688]

He was blind he's just looking for an excuse cut him a little slack.

You just continue to do your as best as you can. That's all you can control at this place.

 

[jibbs]

Thanks, man.


I've got an anxiety disorder and lately it triggers just straight anger when I'm put into an anxious moment. Having a brand new center manager hear me getting -talked by a cover driver was definitely one of those, "smile*, so NOW what's going to happen?"-kind of moments that wouldn't let my thoughts stop racing.


It's like the most random things trigger it, dude, and the more serious things I just couldn't give less of a friend* about.

 

[PT Car Washer]

Let it go. Preloaders get blamed for everything. Short week and you will never see this cover driver again until next vacation. With the huge turn over rate on preload you may find a better job by then. Center Manager knows this also.

 

[Cuban100%]

Don't worry everything is going to be fine dude...

 

[laffter]

He was blind he's just looking for an excuse cut him a little slack.

I have a problem with this. I do understand that drivers work much longer hours and are under more pressure. However, that doesn't make getting bitched at by management about it any less stressful or annoying.

Typically, the third route I load in my "area" (or "set", as some of you call it) is a resi split route. The two drivers who used to run it never had a problem with the way I load it. One in particular has always told me she never has trouble finding a package when I'm the one who loaded it. A new guy has recently started running it every few days. Last week he was bitching to one of my sups that he can't find anything because the sequence numbers aren't written on the boxes. He never once actually said a word to me about it, and I've seen him multiple times before leaving. He probably isn't very familiar with the areas this route usually covers, so maybe the sequence numbers actually make a difference for him. If he had been polite and talked to me about it beforehand, rather than bitching to a sup... I might have been more accommodating. I didn't get in "trouble" for it, since I do good work and my sups seem to like me, but my feeling now is that the driver can suck it.

Drivers can't simply assume that their loader is a brain dead idiot who is incapable of absorbing information during a conversation- although there are many like that. A few words in a non-aggressive tone may have remedied the problem, but now I feel disinclined to do anything for this .

 

[PiedmontSteward]

Did the cover driver sort the truck off the clock?

 

[jibbs]

A few words in a non-aggressive tone may have remedied the problem, but now I feel disinclined to do anything for this .

I actually felt inclined to give him a friend*ed load tomorrow but I can't help but think that that's a stupid idea more likely to backfire on me than anything else.

Did the cover driver sort the truck off the clock?

He may have. The "situation" from my OP took place before the driver's morning PCM, but I have no idea whether or not he was clocked in by the time he started sorting through the shelves.

 

[bleedinbrown58]

As long as the bid driver isn't complaining everyday...just let it go. Only thing I do different is if I regularly move a stop...like example today a 30 piece bulk stop pal'd to 3000 tha.I move to RDR...I make a point to tell the cover guy. Other than that....we just get blamed for everything...lol.

The new flavor of the week is no stacking on the slides. Preload manager was running around asking why is half of my 85 pc retail stop stacked on the slide? Uh...take a guess. Blah blah....he came over to annoy me twice...finally I put the box down and said Listen ____...if you're not happy with the way I'm doing my job....feel free to have someone else take over and show me how it's done. Conversation over.

 

[oldngray]

As long as the bid driver isn't complaining everyday...just let it go. Only thing I do different is if I regularly move a stop...like example today a 30 piece bulk stop pal'd to 3000 tha.I move to RDR...I make a point to tell the cover guy. Other than that....we just get blamed for everything...lol.

The new flavor of the week is no stacking on the slides. Preload manager was running around asking why is half of my 85 pc retail stop stacked on the slide? Uh...take a guess. Blah blah....he came over to annoy me twice...finally I put the box down and said Listen ____...if you're not happy with the way I'm doing my job....feel free to have someone else take over and show me how it's done. Conversation over.

It would really really piss me off if I was on vacation and the cover driver got my whole load moved around to how he wanted it. Moving dump stops around and other things he had no business messing with. If I run the route every day then I have reasons for wanting it loaded that way. Like dump stops that get air every day loaded in rear instead of crammed in front.

 

[Brownslave688]

I have a problem with this. I do understand that drivers work much longer hours and are under more pressure. However, that doesn't make getting bitched at by management about it any less stressful or annoying.

Typically, the third route I load in my "area" (or "set", as some of you call it) is a resi split route. The two drivers who used to run it never had a problem with the way I load it. One in particular has always told me she never has trouble finding a package when I'm the one who loaded it. A new guy has recently started running it every few days. Last week he was bitching to one of my sups that he can't find anything because the sequence numbers aren't written on the boxes. He never once actually said a word to me about it, and I've seen him multiple times before leaving. He probably isn't very familiar with the areas this route usually covers, so maybe the sequence numbers actually make a difference for him. If he had been polite and talked to me about it beforehand, rather than bitching to a sup... I might have been more accommodating. I didn't get in "trouble" for it, since I do good work and my sups seem to like me, but my feeling now is that the driver can suck it.

Drivers can't simply assume that their loader is a brain dead idiot who is incapable of absorbing information during a conversation- although there are many like that. A few words in a non-aggressive tone may have remedied the problem, but now I feel disinclined to do anything for this .

For every loader that wants their driver to talk to them there are 3 that say you're not my boss off.

He took appropriate measures by telling your sup. hourlies don't get to tell other hourlies what to do.

 

[jeffpatterson]

Tell him to off. You don't report to the drivers.

 

[jibbs]

The new flavor of the week is no stacking on the slides. Preload manager was running around asking why is half of my 85 pc retail stop stacked on the slide? Uh...take a guess. Blah blah....he came over to annoy me twice...finally I put the box down and said Listen ____...if you're not happy with the way I'm doing my job....feel free to have someone else take over and show me how it's done. Conversation over.

Hey, that's the flavor of the month here too! Well, no stacking on stackboards... we don't have a slide for every truck/pull. My thing is, if we can't stack, we shouldn't have these things at our disposal that are referred to as "stackboards."

But yeah, before all this went down I was *dun dun dunnnnnnn* stacked out/piled up at the top of the belt. The center manager walked by (this was before our little chat with the cover driver) and was like "Alright, I know you didn't do this right? Like, you stacked them and those boxes fell over, right?"

I was like yeah, that's the only way to pull my boxes when the split moves down the belt to the last truck in my set. I asked him how I should go about it when the split moves so far down the belt, and he told me that at that point "you need to start yelling at the splitter to do his job better." I was just like "oh... okay...."

Lol, it's like a culture of deflecting blame and doing work with no accountability. "Yeah, I loaded that, but [insert random excuse]." It pissed me off when the center manager actively encouraged that kind of smile* by telling me to yell at coworker when I'm backed up, that was the most retarded smile* I've heard this week-- it's only Tuesday, though...

Tell him to off. You don't report to the drivers.

Absolutely, only the driver didn't initiate this. Our new center manager came through and started the conversation, which led to a two-player Blame Game with the center manager reffing.

 

[bleedinbrown58]

It would really really piss me off if I was on vacation and the cover driver got my who;e load moved around to how he wanted it. Moving dump stops around and other things he had no business messing with. If I run the route every day then I have reasons for wanting it loaded that way. Like dump stops that get air every day loaded in rear instead of crammed in front.

No Old, I think you misunderstood or maybe I wasn't clear in explaining. i load my routes the way the bid driver wants...even if he's on vacation. So if I moved a stop....I make sure to tell the cover guy...cause he's not gonna think to look for packages PAL'D 4000 in the back of the car.

 

[oldngray]

No Old, I think you misunderstood or maybe I wasn't clear in explaining. i load my routes the way the bid driver wants...even if he's on vacation. So if I moved a stop....I make sure to tell the cover guy...cause he's not gonna think to look for packages PAL'D 4000 in the back of the car.

What I was saying was the cover driver would cry to PDS and get load charts changed to how he wanted it and everything would be all messed up for me when I got back from vacation because the changes would be "permanent" until I got them changed back to how they originally were.

 

[Brownslave688]

Hey, that's the flavor of the month here too! Well, no stacking on stackboards... we don't have a slide for every truck/pull. My thing is, if we can't stack, we shouldn't have these things at our disposal that are referred to as "stackboards."

But yeah, before all this went down I was *dun dun dunnnnnnn* stacked out/piled up at the top of the belt. The center manager walked by (this was before our little chat with the cover driver) and was like "Alright, I know you didn't do this right? Like, you stacked them and those boxes fell over, right?"

I was like yeah, that's the only way to pull my boxes when the split moves down the belt to the last truck in my set. I asked him how I should go about it when the split moves so far down the belt, and he told me that at that point "you need to start yelling at the splitter to do his job better." I was just like "oh... okay...."

Lol, it's like a culture of deflecting blame and doing work with no accountability. "Yeah, I loaded that, but [insert random excuse]." It pissed me off when the center manager actively encouraged that kind of smile* by telling me to yell at coworker when I'm backed up, that was the most retarded smile* I've heard this week-- it's only Tuesday, though...







Absolutely, only the driver didn't initiate this. Our new center manager came through and started the conversation, which led to a two-player Blame Game with the center manager reffing.

It's pretty pathetic how hard they push part timers. At least us drivers get paid well. They pay you like wal mart and ask you to work like a 6 figure employee.

 

[jibbs]

It's pretty pathetic how hard they push part timers. At least us drivers get paid well. They pay you like wal mart and ask you to work like a 6 figure employee.

From day one I've looked at the job as a paid workout, but then I switched it up a month or two in and decided I get paid to be overwhelmed with boxes every day/

 

[oldngray]

It's pretty pathetic how hard they push part timers. At least us drivers get paid well. They pay you like wal mart and ask you to work like a 6 figure employee.

I agree. I was always against it when they stated paying part timers so much less than full timers. One of those contracts UPS sold with a bonus which the part timers working then voted for. They took the quick money and ran, screwing over later part timers. And now benefits are not as good as they were then which was a major draw for part timers.

 

[scratch]

Did the cover driver sort the truck off the clock?

The driver has no business sorting the car before his start time, this is working off the clock and is a contract violation.

I wouldn't sweat it, a lot of cover drivers go out blind and run way over-allowed, the Preload is used as a scape goat. Load by sequence and keep the labels out where the driver can see them, I don't know any drivers that look at crayon numbers on a box.

 

[Brownslave688]

I agree. I was always against it when they stated paying part timers so much less than full timers. One of those contracts UPS sold with a bonus which the part timers working then voted for. They took the quick money and ran, screwing over later part timers. And now benefits are not as good as they were then which was a major draw for part timers.

Even this last contract didn't do to help. All anyone saw was $1.50 starting pay increase. I pointed out that after 90 days it was a 50 cent raise and 4 year progression was only 74 cents more I think.

By the end of this contract I think most areas will have a $10 min wage. So it will once again be a min wage job