Real Leaders?

[trplnkl]

Wow; I sincerely hope you all are not serious about your view on management. I'm a manager.....
I just want to get MY job done and go home

But how many of your employees are still out working at 10PM or later?
I can't speak for sups in other locations, but here they are putting in 12 or more a day outside of peak season.

 

[bbsam]

That's one of the perks of being management. Put your resume in if your jealous.

Pssssst. Brown, your green is showing again!

 

[Raw]

and they want us to care?

from the movie "remember the titans"

"attitude reflects leadership" or is it the other way around?

drinking OP.

This ain`t no ******* movie man!! The less I see my supes the better I like it. Plus I don`t want them there when I return to building because they tend to want to send me back out for a waste of a trip to do some work that wasn`t urgent enough for me to go back out to do!!

 

[JustTired]

The "real leaders" of this company are the stockholders. In the past ten years, there has been more done in their name and for their gain than for any customer.

How's that been working out? Haven't noticed much of an uptick in stock prices.

If you take care of the customer....the business will take care of itself. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to manage costs. You just shouldn't do it at the customers' expense.

"Real leaders" would see this. They would be watching the customers reaction to change..... rather than Wall Streets.

 

[Just Numbers]

For me? Yeah. I've heard some managers say that their feelings about the company were different before the IPO. It didn't change my job at all.

I wonder what their feelings were when the value of their stock doubled overnite!

 

[lastoasis]

So what are the odds of UPS ever inacting some sort of policy that would require its on road supes to stay in the office untill all of thier drivers are in for the day. During this last peak out of three supes and one center manager only one stayed at all with any regularity, and that was the only ex-driver. He was tired everyday but as drivers we all were very impressed and respected him for it. The others on the other hand for the most part only stayed late on Christmas eve. Maybe if they were forced to walk thier talk then maybe they would be more accurate in thier dispatches.

So, what you are saying is you want more supervision

 

[Brown287]

So, what you are saying is you want more supervision

I don't believe that I want more supervision at all, actually my statement was more of along the lines that todays UPS supes have no idea what their doing. When I mentioned that the ex-driver was the one that stayed that was due in large to the fact that he actually understands what 20 extra stops in a different loop means. My center manager hasn't driven since 1982 and from what he said he only drove for 2 years anyhow, 3 supes only one ex-driver, the other two are ex oms's. All I suggest is that management should own their decisions a little more than they currently do. I would also like to clarify something to SOCKS, there is no jealously here at all. Its more than apparent to all that it doesn't take much to get into management now a days, so thats not exactly a throne you sit on.

 

[Dustyroads]

A lot of those types of policies, such as on car sups staying until their drivers are in, are far more a policy of center managers or division managers than a company wide policy. There may well be centers in the country where a center manager requires that of their sups, I really don't know.

But the thread reminds me of a little story that happened in our district about 20 years ago. We got a new district manager, I'll call him Al, and as soon as he came in the district, he visited every center, and he said, ''no driver will work over 9.5 hours if they choose not to. On car sups will stay in the building until all of their drivers are in. If any of them are going to be out over 9.5, they will bring the work back, and the on car sup will find a way to see that the packages are delivered." The drivers cheered. The sups looked really ill. Al was a hero to the drivers. Funny thing, the over 9.5 dispatches stopped immediately, I mean immediately.

One last twist to the story, Al was at a big meeting at a fancy hotel conference room, and all of the district managers were taking their beatings from the regional guys. One by one, they went down the table until they got to Al. Just as his whipping was about to begin, he said, I left my glasses up in my room, I will be back in a minute. He left the room, and time ticked away, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15. And then someone was sent to the desk to page Al. When they asked at the desk, the clerk replied, "Why, 'Al' just checked out 10 minutes ago." It was his way of retiring.
The very next week, the dispatches were UP.

 

[soberups]

If I bring 20 stops back at 9:00 at night, it doesnt matter to me whether or not my manager is still there.

I take comfort in the fact that I will still be home in bed when that same manager shows up the next morning and has to account for those service failures in a 6:00 AM conference call.

It is a misnomer to even refer to operations level sups as "managers". Typically, a "manager" has some level of authority to address and solve underlying problems. The sups that I report and answer to would be more accurately described as "facilitators". They are decent folks but they dont even get to decide which hand to wipe their butts with, much less make any real decisions like how many cars to dispatch on a given day.

I dont blame the puppet; I blame the puppet master.

 

[ol'browneye]

None of our on-car supes or center manager even get to work until 7:30.

 

[SignificantOwner]

So what are the odds of UPS ever inacting some sort of policy that would require its on road supes to stay in the office untill all of thier drivers are in for the day. During this last peak out of three supes and one center manager only one stayed at all with any regularity, and that was the only ex-driver. He was tired everyday but as drivers we all were very impressed and respected him for it. The others on the other hand for the most part only stayed late on Christmas eve. Maybe if they were forced to walk thier talk then maybe they would be more accurate in thier dispatches.

"He was tired every day..."

Nah, I'm not doing that. Respect from drivers doesn't keep my family together.

 

[govols019]

Nice to see your concern for your own family. I notice you didn't mention any concern for the drivers families. Typical.

 

[satellitedriver]

"He was tired every day..."

Nah, I'm not doing that. Respect from drivers doesn't keep my family together.[/QUOTE}
Nor does being a center manager.
Look a the statistics, if you can find them.
Divorce, heart attack rates and termination of employment of center manager's, per capita, is far higher than the workers that you leave on the streets. They must work to get home safe to their families.
Respect is now a common bantered word and has lost it's meaning.
In my short 23yrs, I have "gone through" 13 center manager's. 8 were fired, 1 quit with honor, 2 were relocated, 1 retired, and #13 has the same "lack of respect" for his underlings, sups included.
Only 2 of those ever gained my respect.
All that being said,
UPS is building an inverserse pyramid of micro management, and that is one balancing act that will fall.
IMHO

 

[whiskey]

That's one of the perks of being management. Put your resume in if your jealous.

I remember a part time local sort soup did the division on hours he spent working and his salary. Sadly, he confessed to making a paltry 5 dollars an hour. But this was many years ago. It was the year 2000. And I was just about to hit the send key with my resume.

 

[UPSSOCKS]

I remember a part time local sort soup did the division on hours he spent working and his salary. Sadly, he confessed to making a paltry 5 dollars an hour. But this was many years ago. It was the year 2000. And I was just about to hit the send key with my resume.

That doesn't happen anymore. Part time sups and full time specialist have it made. They don't get abused nearly as much as before. They are like the companies holy grail. Now that corporate are on this under 27.5 kick guess who has to stay and finish things off at the end of the night. The people that don't get any extra pay for it.

 

[Mike23]

So what are the odds of UPS ever inacting some sort of policy that would require its on road supes to stay in the office untill all of thier drivers are in for the day. During this last peak out of three supes and one center manager only one stayed at all with any regularity, and that was the only ex-driver. He was tired everyday but as drivers we all were very impressed and respected him for it. The others on the other hand for the most part only stayed late on Christmas eve. Maybe if they were forced to walk thier talk then maybe they would be more accurate in thier dispatches.

Last Christmas our sups had to do this. It was ordered by either the VP or pres of Canada, I can't remember which. Anyways, I heard a rumor they were supposed to again this year but our regional manager let them skip out on it I think.

 

[soberups]

While there may be some emotional satisfaction in seeing a member of management being required to "wait up" for me....as a practical matter I would much prefer the sup to go home, get a good nights sleep, get to work a few minutes early the next day, and fix whatever problem it was that caused me to be out late the night before.

You dont fix dispatch problems at 7:30 at night. You fix them at 6:30 in the morning.

 

[UPSSOCKS]

You dont fix dispatch problems at 7:30 at night. You fix them at 6:30 in the morning.

Very wise statement. After a bad day everyone always wants to sit in the office or the local watering hole and solve the days problems. I think your management material. Put your resume under my desk, I mean on my desk tomorrow.

 

[brownrod]

I remember a part time local sort soup did the division on hours he spent working and his salary. Sadly, he confessed to making a paltry 5 dollars an hour. But this was many years ago. It was the year 2000. And I was just about to hit the send key with my resume.

I cannot even count how many PT sups have told me how much more money they'd be making now if they never went into management and stayed pt hourly. Not to mention all the PT sups that would have become drivers before me. I only know very few that don't regret the decision.

 

[JustTired]

While there may be some emotional satisfaction in seeing a member of management being required to "wait up" for me....as a practical matter I would much prefer the sup to go home, get a good nights sleep, get to work a few minutes early the next day, and fix whatever problem it was that caused me to be out late the night before.

You dont fix dispatch problems at 7:30 at night. You fix them at 6:30 in the morning.

While there are dispatch problems that need to be fixed, you can't fix the big one at the local level. That being (as an example) dispatching 35 drivers with 40 drivers worth of work. With all of the new technology, District pretty much knows how much work is going to each center. They knowingly dispatch less drivers than the volume dictates. There's nothing at the local level that can overcome this. All the dispatch sup can do is try to level out the dispatches as best he/she can.

In the old days when those dispatches were more the work of local management, there was more of a chance of seeing someone still there until the last driver was in. They had an interest in the outcome of their work. Now that it is out of their hands.....why wait around for the inevitable outcome?

You can't "fix" a dispatch plan (whether 7:30 PM or 6:30 AM) when it is out of your hands to do so.