Signs of............. PEAK!!!!

[westsideworma]

Case in point ... 600 stops (not packages!) in a P500. Even at peak you probably averaged at least 1.2 packages per stop. This would be approx. 720 packages in a P 500. Over stated and over exaggerated!

This creates a credibility problem with everything you say. I had a bubble nose P 800 on my residential route right next to Beverly Hills and my route only blew up to 325 stops. The car was completely full - no such thing as a helper - I used to run and fling and I still couldn't get it all done. You are saying that they got 600 plus packages into your P500!!!! SURE they did!
.

I dunno Lifer, we crammed a stupid amount into a 600/700 before.....I was newbie then, but I distinctly remember reading the driver communication sheet the next day for my neighboring loader and it said something like 497 stops, 634 packages. It was a residential split route. Course one of my trucks (p1000) got sent out with like 550+ stops that year...yea my car's shelves were all full up after I sorted the send agains the next day (we had a snow storm the day prior)...that sucked. I received another truck to use AFTER I filled up that one off a set of rollers out in the middle bay where the trucks exit...hahaha.

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Sorry... My bad!

I apologize Sober

Thanks for bringing it to my attention Mike!

Man was I hypnotized by your, yeah right, speech. You had it all in there. I bet you were a heckuva guy to work with, lifer. Thanks for giving this rookie a glimpse of your life.

 

[Old International]

My web based shipper is really stocking the warehouse right now. I went from 250 deliver pkgs a day to almost 450 in one week! Last week, I had one day of 529 Pkgs! No all that stuff has to come back out and be delivered in December.

 

[soberups]

I used to run and fling and I still couldn't get it all done. You are saying that they got 600 plus packages into your P500!!!! SURE they did!

The frustrating part for me was that, if management had given me a P-8 or a P-10 with a semi-decent load and made arrangements for a peak hire to shuttle the remaining stops out to me, I might have gotten it all done or at least gotten close. I did have a helper and most of the stops were DR's. Instead, I wasted at least two hours shuttling dead stops back and forth from the building just so that the Division Manager could look down upon a clean belt. I was basically wallowing in packages that I knew I wouldnt be able to deliver for days. It was probably the most frustrating experience I have ever had as a driver and it was caused entirely by my managements inability or unwillingness to deal with reality.

 

[chev]

I think the only peak planning I have seen in our building so far is the daily trooping in of fresh meat for pre-load and local sort. We definitely wont have any casual drivers in our feeder dept. Haven't had them in 3 or 4 years now. We still have drivers going back to package frequently, so they will all be called back. I just don't look forward to all the stinking rental trucks they bring into our already overtaxed building. It gets quite crowded around there.

 

[Mike Hawk]

I think the only peak planning I have seen in our building so far is the daily trooping in of fresh meat for pre-load and local sort. We definitely wont have any casual drivers in our feeder dept. Haven't had them in 3 or 4 years now. We still have drivers going back to package frequently, so they will all be called back. I just don't look forward to all the stinking rental trucks they bring into our already overtaxed building. It gets quite crowded around there.

It gets crowded in my building too, glad I get to stand under a heater and put stickers on boxes instead of loading 5 trucks outside in the snow like my first peak.

 

[outamyway]

There's a rumor going around here that they won't bring in any rentals.

 

[cosmo1]

I had the top producer in the district in my center. He would carry a 16-17 hour day and get it done under 11 hours. He would have his wife and teenage kids come out to help him and he only carried 475 stops and about 600 packages in a P800. This guy was the top producer in Southern California.

His wife and kids helped him? We had a driver fired for allowing his mentally-challenged brother walk with him while delivering downtown.

 

[What'dyabringmetoday???]

His wife and kids helped him? We had a driver fired for allowing his mentally-challenged brother walk with him while delivering downtown.

Management loves free help. Why do you think the poster praised the guy so much??

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Management loves free help. Why do you think the poster praised the guy so much??

UPS was a different company back then. You did what it took to get the job done--period.

Personally, I would never ask my wife and kids to come out and help me do my job. I am given a helper and together we do the work that is assigned to us. If that means dumping my pickups and going back out, so be it.

 

[trplnkl]

There's a rumor going around here that they won't bring in any rentals.

We've been using rentals for a month now, mainly because if a truck breaks down we are out of trucks.

 

[What'dyabringmetoday???]

UPS was a different company back then. You did what it took to get the job done--period.

Personally, I would never ask my wife and kids to come out and help me do my job. I am given a helper and together we do the work that is assigned to us. If that means dumping my pickups and going back out, so be it.

I agree with doing whatever it takes to get the job done. I do not agree with bringing in people who are not employees to help us do "whatever it takes." Not a good idea to have employees working off the clock to help out either. These are only opinions, of course, but small examples of how we could have more jobs.

 

[chev]

I had the top producer in the district in my center. He would carry a 16-17 hour day and get it done under 11 hours. He would have his wife and teenage kids come out to help him and he only carried 475 stops and about 600 packages in a P800. This guy was the top producer in Southern California.

That is just plain STUPID. The union should have put the screws to him for something that dumb. That could have easily been another driver on the street earning a days wage.

 

[UPS Lifer]

His wife and kids helped him? We had a driver fired for allowing his mentally-challenged brother walk with him while delivering downtown.

I am going back to the 1970's. As any old timer can tell you (upstate - 3 posts up!) .... things were different back then. Nobody came out to check on a 7 hour producer.

Put the blinders on and take care of the "real" problems. Remember the old saying.. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. I was not the manager back then!!!

 

[UPS Lifer]

That is just plain STUPID. The union should have put the screws to him for something that dumb. That could have easily been another driver on the street earning a days wage.

You must be fairly young UPSer HUH!

I am going to take a stab here and say you weren't even born yet! Just like I wasn't born during WWII or the Great Depression - so I can only relate from what my parents would tell me about those eras. !!!!

 

[haydendavid380]

II just don't look forward to all the stinking rental trucks they bring into our already overtaxed building. It gets quite crowded around there.

I hate Ryder/Uhaul Trucks.... I don't see how drivers find anything without shelves or walk way. Around here, if it doesn't have shelves, most people take it to mean that you can just throw it in all willy nilly.

 

[browniehound]

You present an implausible account of what is normal. I have stuffed P500s to the gills and never got more than 400 packages into one

Case in point ... 600 stops (not packages!) in a P500. Even at peak you probably averaged at least 1.2 packages per stop. This would be approx. 720 packages in a P 500. Over stated and over exaggerated!

This creates a credibility problem with everything you say. I had a bubble nose P 800 on my residential route right next to Beverly Hills and my route only blew up to 325 stops. The car was completely full - no such thing as a helper - I used to run and fling and I still couldn't get it all done. You are saying that they got 600 plus packages into your P500!!!! SURE they did!


.

Lifer,
Did you read Sober's entire post? He said a full P500 was left in a garage on route and came back for the rest. I don't mean to pick on you, but thats what he wrote.

He also said that he was to do this so the belt "would be clean". This is what I hate about UPS. As long as its out of their operation the operation could care less what happens at someone else's.

What ever happened to one company? What about internal customers? When I unload my airs I do so with the labels up. I don't overload my totes with smalls so the next person can lift it. I do it for courtesy and to help our employees.

I see the opposite sometimes in the way the operations are managed. One's numbers are what one is after and the other's is the other's problem. Don't we all work for the same company? I guess this is what happens when the only incentive is "my numbers".

 

[soberups]

problem. Don't we all work for the same company? I guess this is what happens when the only incentive is "my numbers".

I had to represent an employee the other day when he recieved a warning letter for failing to unload all of the Next Day Air out of his truck at the airdrop. The letter stressed the "importance of meeting service obligations to our customers" and was issued with a condescending, patronizing lecture about how our customers "are counting on us to deliver every package every day."

That is all true and valid...as long as it is part of building a termination case against an employee. But today, when I called in a Next Day Air misload that had a bad PAL label on it...I was told to "sheet it as missed and bring it back, we dont have anyone available to deliver it today."

We DID have people available...there is a long list of part timers who are qualified and on the air driver list. My management team simply didnt want to pay one. Since the bad PAL label would mean that the blame for this package could be assigned to preload and not our center, the "importance of meeting service obligations" took a back seat to the importance of looking good on paper and keeping up the SPORH. I guess some things never change.

 

[IWorkAsDirected]

Over,
I'm with you. Once we hit labor day, peak is here in a blink of an eye! Just like the summer is over after 4th of July weekend.

As for peak planning, I've only heard one thing so far. There will be no more helpers riding bikes ever again here in MA. They tried it last and it was a failure and worse, it was a complete embarassment of the company. A 60 year-old woman peddeling a bike loaded with packages through an apartment complex? I wish I could have filmed it!

Another thing they have done lately was to put big signs on our winshield (billboard anyone?) advertising driver helper jobs for $9.50 an hour. I'm sorry but this is a mistake also. Nobody wants to make $9.50 an hour for any job. I would get them to the interview and then drop this bombshell on the ingnorant souls!

I heard we are hiring a limited amount of temps so my guess would be an emphasis on hiring helps, and lots of them. Last year they had helpers on more routes than ever in the past. Routes with 2 hours of pick-ups were getting helpers during some part of the day!

I think the key is finding quality helpers. We have all seen the useless ones that UPS still insists on hiring because its a body. You know, the 450 lb man, the 19 year-old girl constantly on the phone, the 66 year-old great-grandma, and your run-of-the-mill lazy pot head.

If you give me one of these we are going to struggle. If, however, you give me a decent preloader, a P12000, and a GREAT helper (I had one last year so they do exist) and I'm good for 380-400 stops a day.

I mention the P12 because I've learned over the years of helpers and house calls that too much time is spent looking for packages. The P12 will reduce selection time significantly and allow us to do 40/hour easily.

Forty an hour may seem like a stretch, but my area has some serious stop density.

Brownie

Hey!! I keep trying to tell my "management Team" that I just can't work the way I used to.......I need you on MY team, I'm a 57 year old woman full time driver.

 

[Work right slow and safe]

I was told last night that i may not work peak this year as a cover driver they are going to cut routes like 5 or more from are center and he stated that out of 85 drivers from my center they are going to get 65 helpers

So with that said more helpers more stops and less drivers