Hi, After 30 years of driving I made the move to porters. I had 8 injuries in 17 years, including 2 knee surgeries, and the position came open. 3 drivers ahead of me turned it down and management was very happy that I got the position. Our building in Wisconsin years ago had 12 full time porters and 6 part time. Now it is down to 6 full time and 1 part time. Things obviously are not cleaned as well. The transition took some getting use too. After going for a maniac for 30 years, I had to learn how to slow down. Here the focus is on safety, not productions. We wear a light brown shirt with our name stitched in, and dark brown pants. On a typical day I will clean two office units, including bathrooms. I also clean up the grounds outside. I also have to clean under a primary sort, where I sit on a little scooter and maneuver around supports, wires, belts, shoots, and clean all the trash that has fallen through during the sort. I get very use to watching out for plenty of obstructions overhead that would cause nasty cuts or bumps. The first day when I was trained I cleaned under the belts and later I was coughing up all this black crap. My boss then said, oh yes, we have face masks you can wear. We are also responsible for a number of drive motors to clean quarterly. My worse one are called the stack and I have to lock out 4 drives and 4 belts and climb 3 stories to the ceiling on different belts to clean them and work my way down. Another porter in the building will drive the scrubber, which looks like a Zamboni, and clean all the grease off the floor. Another porter has fork lift duty and takes out trash, metal, and unloads supply trucks that come in during the day. Some of the work is tougher than the I thought the job would entail, but I still find it about 10 times easier than driving. My body is actually is feeling almost back to normal with little knee pain and no cramps at 3 in the morning. There is no overtime unless you sign up for it, and then they may call you at 3 or 4 in the morning to sort or work preload for a couple hours. They don't call very often, they would rather use sups. I work 8 to 4:30 and 3 porters start at 6:30. The only concern I have if it these jobs will still be here next contract. Two years ago when the economy was horrible, they said they wouldn't replace these position as people retired. The union forced the issue and now they are. One of the porters asked at a union meeting about the porters and the union official said he didn't care about such a small department. I asked one of the agents what would my options be if they eliminated my position next contract, and he told me I could go back into driving, but I would be at the bottom of the list and I would never gain any driving seniority. I would still get all my vacations but I would always be unassigned and they could put me on the crappiest routes daily. So I think I have 2 years left of gravy and then time to make other plans.
Kampy