Stop thinking in crisis, start thinking in opportunities!

[tourists24]

All departments are alike, there is no difference in being a driver or a salesrep or HR guy, we are all alike and nothing more than a number, so stop herrasing other departments and keep asking yourself..does this comment actually contribute to growth?

Stop wasting time making excuses when you have the opportunity to enter a lead
in the same time. Think about your contribution to the next generation.

Our future? Great things can happen..you decide....

Au contraire Salesguy... all departments are NOT alike....

I waste no time on my route,,, I am very plotted and planned. I dont make excuses for any of my day. I simply do not submit leads as part of that. I am there to deliver boxes. It's sales job to get leads and sale. How you do it makes no difference to me. You want my input? How about coming to me yourself and asking me if I have anywhere you can go check out? There is your lead.

My contribution is to give great service in a timely manner and keep my customers as happy as possible, all of which I care about very much.

Our future?,, great things can happen if you do your part well and I do my part well. I have decided to do my part well... Im sure you do the same. Good luck

 

[sano]

Spoke to our sales rep manager today. I think she's a manager, anyways. I told her about a building where I pick up and the secretary pulls my 2 letters from a pile of FedEx letters. I told her to go in and talk to so and so. Tell her STUG sent you and ask her who's shipping these, and would it be alright if I spoke to them. She took down all of the info, and then explained to me that a different rep handled that area. She would have to get with the other rep and give him the details.

I feel like I basically wasted my breath. All of the stuff I said to her will get lost in translation. Not only this, but the fact that he's in Hialeah for a week and...........................blah blah blah. This was just today, mind you. This is the reason I don't like to put in sales leads!

Stug, I know with recent events ( safety comity stuff, getting stuged about the pictures etc.) You likely are not feeling very benevolent toward the company, at least i wouldn't be if I were in your shoes. So it is commendable for you to go above and beyond and turn in this lead. However, the sales staff is under the same preasures everyone else is. They are being asked to do too much with too little. They are asked to produce a bunch of reports to hand up the line.

It is my opinion that the fact that someone besides the person you talked to needs to handle your lead is not a good enough reason to not turn in leads.
On the other hand I am not making excuses for sales, when a lead is submitted and nobody contacts them there is no excuse for that. But the sales process is not as clean cut as a delivery. Sometimes what looks like a open and shut case to the driver may be more complex and hardeer to close when the sales guy actually gets there.

Maybe its not our job, but follow up with sales, to hold them accountable for our leads would gain the company alot of business and goodness knows we could use the volume about now.


Steve, reading back over this it has a more shrill tone than I wish it would. I am not trying to bust your chops. It is not my goal to call you out specificly, but rather to open another side of the issue. (hopefully without a Tony Robins overtone that keeps popping up in this thread)

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Wow...+4000 views..
What better proof of leads bringing us closer together..
Thank you all...some comments are actually great!

We CAN overcome this crisis if we all start contributing.
You are a proud UPS member and are privilaged to work for such a great company.
In days of need they are there for us and now its time to do something in return.

All departments are alike, there is no difference in being a driver or a salesrep or HR guy, we are all alike and nothing more than a number, so stop herrasing other departments and keep asking yourself..does this comment actually contribute to growth?

Stop wasting time making excuses when you have the opportunity to enter a lead
in the same time. Think about your contribution to the next generation.

Our future? Great things can happen..you decide....

Maybe I was privileged to get hired by this great company, but working for them is definitely their privilege.

Au contraire Salesguy... all departments are NOT alike....

I waste no time on my route,,, I am very plotted and planned. I dont make excuses for any of my day. I simply do not submit leads as part of that. I am there to deliver boxes. It's sales job to get leads and sale. How you do it makes no difference to me. You want my input? How about coming to me yourself and asking me if I have anywhere you can go check out? There is your lead.

My contribution is to give great service in a timely manner and keep my customers as happy as possible, all of which I care about very much.

Our future?,, great things can happen if you do your part well and I do my part well. I have decided to do my part well... Im sure you do the same. Good luck

I have an idea, t24, how about we take the pkg car out to a parking lot. We find a good spot and sit on our butts. Someplace with a little bit of sun, a little bit of shade and a nice breeze. Then we wait for our customers to come get their packages. I mean, after all, if sales can have us do all the work for them, why not have all of our customers do the work for us. Make sense, salesguy/girl? Didn't think so, now get off of your butts and sniff out some sales!

 

[evilleace]

For all you people in sales on friday I was taping up broken boxes when one of the sales reps came up and started looking over my shoulder the box I was taping up had the bottom broken open on it and was fuller of nuts and bolts that were covered in oil as I was trying to gather all of these up from the slide he asks me what account the box was for, I said I don't know I haven't had a chance to look at the label yet its on the other side of the box. He says can you look and see I turn the box on its side and say there you go he then flips the box all the way over onto the open side and says I cant read the label. Then tells me to make sure I put all the pieces back in the box and tells me that I should crawl underneath the slide to look and make sure I have them all. By this time I am cussing this guy in my head it is 9:30 and I have been on my shift since 5 and I know how to do my job. He keeps standing there and says Oh well hope they aren't my customers and walks off. He wasted my time his time and the companys time. At 9:30 he could be out talking to customers instead off telling me how to do my job all I ever see him do is sit at a desk on his laptop. Until UPS pays me extra to look for sales leads this guy won't do anything about then I am not going to go looking for any.

 

[wisedragonfly]

Actually STUG did more than attempt to get a sales lead. He got one with half the sales job done and YOUR partner dropped the ball.
Here's a reality check for you, we are in an economic recession.
Instead of looking only at volume levels, lets see how many pickup accounts we have compared to last year. I would nearly bet we have more, shipping less pieces.
Look, our volume is down, FedEx's volume is down, DHL's volume is down to zero and I bet the post office's parcel volume is down. So who is getting all these packages? Oh, yeah....they don't exist.
That's why we should be focusing more on retention of what we have. Sure we should try to gain new business, but throwing the baby out with the bath water will end up killing us.

Since DHL volume is zero, are we going to allow FedEx to take advantage of that new volume?

Retention does count. If your customer has recently diverted, or upset that they have suffered a service failure and threatening to divert existing UPS volume. Then a Retention Sales Lead should be submitted.

 

[wisedragonfly]

You know Dragonfly.................you might be on to somethin'.

But I see 1 problem with this,

We will never be given the time to take care of our customers. We will never get Acct Rep's to do their job 100%. And we will never get rid of IE.

Ok, ok so that was more than 1 problem. I got carried away, sue me.

Hey dilli, We will have to join forces and plead our case to corporate to insist that IE give us the time we need to get the job done.

The AE's and sales reps do work a lot harder than drivers or operations are willing to admit. It is an endless feat for them to stay on top of finding new business while they are constantly putting out flames on service failures that have nothing to do with the sales force and really does fall back on failures in operations.

Here's a fairly recent example. For some unknown reason, one of our larger customer packages would turn up in the weirdest hiding places through out the building, causing major service failures and refunds of shipping. Do you think a BD person was going to the hub to hide the packages to prevent operations from processing the them? Do you think BD likes to refund service charges? No, of course not! I'm not sure who was hiding the packages, or for what reason, but it surely was not BD. It is a fact, when the dirt hits the fan it is always BD's job to clean up the mess. So, in the case of the hidden packages it was decided that a BD person would be assigned to search the building daily, hoping to prevent the customer from diverting. Needless to say, we lost the account fairly recently because we could not find all the hidden packages, every single day. That volume now goes with USPS. Why? Because we failed in service over somebody for some reason hiding the customers packages.

One day 149 packages were found hidden in the building. The packages were carried upstairs and exceptions were entered into the system. Do you realize how much time it takes to enter 149 exceptions, then process 149 package refunds?

How can the sales force find new sales without the help of the drivers, when BD actually spends more than half of their day locating lost packages, inspecting damage packages and fixing many other service related issues, that many times takes place in operations.

Perhaps, it's a better idea to split sales and service issues into different departments, to give customers the service that they pay for.

It's a team effort to find new business and keep our existing business and everyone should help in the process, no matter how you look at it.

 

[wisedragonfly]

For all you people in sales on friday I was taping up broken boxes when one of the sales reps came up and started looking over my shoulder the box I was taping up had the bottom broken open on it and was fuller of nuts and bolts that were covered in oil as I was trying to gather all of these up from the slide he asks me what account the box was for, I said I don't know I haven't had a chance to look at the label yet its on the other side of the box. He says can you look and see I turn the box on its side and say there you go he then flips the box all the way over onto the open side and says I cant read the label. Then tells me to make sure I put all the pieces back in the box and tells me that I should crawl underneath the slide to look and make sure I have them all. By this time I am cussing this guy in my head it is 9:30 and I have been on my shift since 5 and I know how to do my job. He keeps standing there and says Oh well hope they aren't my customers and walks off. He wasted my time his time and the companys time. At 9:30 he could be out talking to customers instead off telling me how to do my job all I ever see him do is sit at a desk on his laptop. Until UPS pays me extra to look for sales leads this guy won't do anything about then I am not going to go looking for any.

Hey evilleace, I would have been frustrated if that happened to me also. I say, give me the tools I need to do my job, then step out of my way and allow me to do it to the best of my ability. I most likely would have been cussing too! We have to realize that not all people know how to wear their title. Some people find it pleasing to actually boss others around. There is a difference between speaking with someone and talking at them. Perhaps that sales rep needs to learn some people skills??

 

[wisedragonfly]

But Danny



He can't admit to his boss that we have internal problems. He can't tell his boss that getting one more account at the cost of losing 3 existing accounts is not a good idea. In fact, I would be surprised if he can tell his boss "Good Morning" without getting his head knocked off.

Hey trplnkl, Just for the record, I am a she. And, I don't have any problem letting my management team know exactly where I stand on any issue. In fact, I've had them ask for my opinion many times over the years. My immediate manager and my immediate supervisor also greet me each morning with a smile and say goodnight when my day is done and I'm headed out the door. I feel lucky to work with the people on my management team. They are all an asset to the UPS and to my department. I'm sorry if your management team does listen to your concerns.

 

[trplnkl]

Just what do you use for a brain? I'm serious, put that sales hype to the side for long enough to use you head for thinking.

Since DHL volume is zero, are we going to allow FedEx to take advantage of that new volume?
Since every other carrier is saying volume is down, where are all this DHL volume? If the post office and FedEx have it, then their other volume is way down. Where did that volume go? p.s. I know the answer to this question, I just want to see if you have thought it out.

Retention does count. If your customer has recently diverted, or upset that they have suffered a service failure and threatening to divert existing UPS volume. Then a Retention Sales Lead should be submitted.
Sure thing, I'll turn in a Retention Sales Lead, you people don't have enough leads to ignore yet. Why ignore 100 sales leads when you can ignore 101.
The secret to retaining customers is doing what we promised them in the first place. A very large portion of the broken promises are do to drivers having to rearrange their routes so they can fulfill some pencil pusher's idea of how to row this boat, when they have never been on the rowing team. Drivers put out more fires daily that should never happen. We try to sooth over the pissed off customer we encounter, we go the extra mile to try to find out why their packages are hidden somewhere in the building(yeah, I believe that one), we spend time we can not afford to lose to explain to a customer the possibilities of why their package hasn't yet arrived, we spned more time that we can not afford to lose so we can show a new customer how to use world ship because they have just had the ssytem dropped in their lap with no training. THAT is business retention.

 

[trplnkl]

Hey trplnkl, Just for the record, I am a she. And, I don't have any problem letting my management team know exactly where I stand on any issue. In fact, I've had them ask for my opinion many times over the years. My immediate manager and my immediate supervisor also greet me each morning with a smile and say goodnight when my day is done and I'm headed out the door. I feel lucky to work with the people on my management team. They are all an asset to the UPS and to my department. I'm sorry if your management team does listen to your concerns.

Hey Wise, just for the record. Gender has nothing to do with the subject at hand. What you quoted is a system wide inclusive statement, not really intended to any one person or one district.

 

[wisedragonfly]

Just what do you use for a brain? I'm serious, put that sales hype to the side for long enough to use you head for thinking.

Since every other carrier is saying volume is down, where are all this DHL volume? If the post office and FedEx have it, then their other volume is way down. Where did that volume go? p.s. I know the answer to this question, I just want to see if you have thought it out.

Sure thing, I'll turn in a Retention Sales Lead, you people don't have enough leads to ignore yet. Why ignore 100 sales leads when you can ignore 101.
The secret to retaining customers is doing what we promised them in the first place. A very large portion of the broken promises are do to drivers having to rearrange their routes so they can fulfill some pencil pusher's idea of how to row this boat, when they have never been on the rowing team. Drivers put out more fires daily that should never happen. We try to sooth over the pissed off customer we encounter, we go the extra mile to try to find out why their packages are hidden somewhere in the building(yeah, I believe that one), we spend time we can not afford to lose to explain to a customer the possibilities of why their package hasn't yet arrived, we spned more time that we can not afford to lose so we can show a new customer how to use world ship because they have just had the ssytem dropped in their lap with no training. THAT is business retention.

Hey trplnkl, it's me again. I see that I have ruffled your feathers this morning.

I realize that volume is down at UPS, as it is with all of our competitors. DHL closed their doors and FedEx has parked some aircrafts. In fact, UPS now has some DHL employee's working with us at UPS, bringing some their DHL account with them. They refer to these accounts as Reseller. Have you heard of them?

Yes, FedEx volume is down, so in my opinion they will be desperate to find the DHL volume that is still out there. They will also need to place themselves in a position where they can rebound once the economy mess is over with. As of Friday, UPS stock is higher than FedEx and that has not been the case for quite a long while. It would be nice if UPS stock could remained higher than FedEx, don't you think? I also heard rumor that I haven't been able to confirm yet; that when FedEx parked their aircraft they hired UPS to carry the packages. That makes a win, win for both UPS and FedEx. FedEx cuts cost by parking their aircraft and UPS can fill their aircraft up.

Perhaps you haven't heard or haven't read the post on BC about drivers who are working in hubs because of declined volume. This morning I also read a few hubs have actually lost some drivers. Perhaps your district is not being impacted by downsizes but my district is being affected by the impact of another district and it scares the hell out of me. It should scare you too!

I realize the SLIM lead program is not perfect. I was hoping to hear some really good valid points of what makes the lead program so disliked by the drivers. Other than blaming BD for being lazy. I am more than willing to stand and argue the valid points in behalf of the drivers to my management team, that drivers claim won't listen to anything. Will it work? I don't know, but to me, it's worth a try.

I don't agree with every decision made in the corporate ivory tower. I also remember when all managers and supervisors had to drive before joining the management team. I even agree with you that it should still be just that way, but it's not. We have to conform the best we can with the decisions made by corporate and by the union. At least you guys do have representation which is more than I can say about my position as a non-union, non-management employee. Don't be bitter at BD and the sales reps because of decisions made by IE, the corporate ivory tower, or Tech Support who installs our CTP and who can also train customers to use worldship. BD works just as hard as drivers and gets dumped on more than any other department in UPS. Now, I'm not saying BD is a perfect environment, but neither are delivery and operations or any other department for that matter. I'm just saying as a company we will do better in the way of service if we drop some of our barriers and try to communicate with each other.

You insult me by acting as if I made up the story about packages being hidden in our building. It is a true fact!

I think most drivers do an awesome job every day, despite poor decisions made by some managers and supervisors. I never said that service failures did not affect a driver. By reading the posts made by a majority of drivers, I'm just defending BD because drivers think we don't do anything except push pencils and make bad decisions. It's just not true!

IE rows the boat and also dictates the sales force as what is expected of them and how long it should take to complete a task. They don't give us time for problem solving either! The boat would move faster if everyone on board rowing skills were in sync with each other, and not rowing against one another.

 

[wisedragonfly]

But Danny



He can't admit to his boss that we have internal problems. He can't tell his boss that getting one more account at the cost of losing 3 existing accounts is not a good idea. In fact, I would be surprised if he can tell his boss "Good Morning" without getting his head knocked off.

Hey trplnkl, Just for the record, I am a she. And, I don't have any problem letting my management team know exactly where I stand on any issue. In fact, I've had them ask for my opinion many times over the years. My immediate manager and my immediate supervisor also greet me each morning with a smile and say goodnight when my day is done and I'm headed out the door. I feel lucky to work with the people on my management team. They are all an asset to the UPS and to my department. I'm sorry if your management team does listen to your concerns.

Hey Wise, just for the record. Gender has nothing to do with the subject at hand. What you quoted is a system wide inclusive statement, not really intended to any one person or one district.

In your post to Danny you referred to me as he. That's the ONLY reason I identified myself as she. My management team is awesome and I thought it should be stated.

 

[dilligaf]

persnickety?

discerning?

Judicious?

Ya ya ya!!!!!!!!!!!!! You got my meaning. LOL I was being lazy and didn't spell check.


Ha, i checked it and I SPELLED it right.

 

[dilligaf]

Hey dilli, We will have to join forces and plead our case to corporate to insist that IE give us the time we need to get the job done.

The AE's and sales reps do work a lot harder than drivers or operations are willing to admit. It is an endless feat for them to stay on top of finding new business while they are constantly putting out flames on service failures that have nothing to do with the sales force and really does fall back on failures in operations.

Here's a fairly recent example. For some unknown reason, one of our larger customer packages would turn up in the weirdest hiding places through out the building, causing major service failures and refunds of shipping. Do you think a BD person was going to the hub to hide the packages to prevent operations from processing the them? Do you think BD likes to refund service charges? No, of course not! I'm not sure who was hiding the packages, or for what reason, but it surely was not BD. It is a fact, when the dirt hits the fan it is always BD's job to clean up the mess. So, in the case of the hidden packages it was decided that a BD person would be assigned to search the building daily, hoping to prevent the customer from diverting. Needless to say, we lost the account fairly recently because we could not find all the hidden packages, every single day. That volume now goes with USPS. Why? Because we failed in service over somebody for some reason hiding the customers packages.

One day 149 packages were found hidden in the building. The packages were carried upstairs and exceptions were entered into the system. Do you realize how much time it takes to enter 149 exceptions, then process 149 package refunds?

How can the sales force find new sales without the help of the drivers, when BD actually spends more than half of their day locating lost packages, inspecting damage packages and fixing many other service related issues, that many times takes place in operations.

Perhaps, it's a better idea to split sales and service issues into different departments, to give customers the service that they pay for.

It's a team effort to find new business and keep our existing business and everyone should help in the process, no matter how you look at it.

LOL How in the world did 149 pkgs get hidden in the building. I can only imagine how long it took to do exceptions on each one. I our building we couldn't hide 1 pkg much less that many. Hell, I can stand at one end of our building and have a conversation with someone at the other end.

I'd be happy to tell our sales rep where to go. Find business that is! But I never see him.

 

[wisedragonfly]

LOL How in the world did 149 pkgs get hidden in the building. I can only imagine how long it took to do exceptions on each one. I our building we couldn't hide 1 pkg much less that many. Hell, I can stand at one end of our building and have a conversation with someone at the other end.

I'd be happy to tell our sales rep where to go. Find business that is! But I never see him.

Hey dilli, I think it's a shame that so many districts are apparently having problems with sales rep visits in the package centers. Granted, their job is to be on the road visiting customers, but ours also have to attend morning PCM's with their centers and once per week have to make visits to hand out Take Charge / SLIM updates to our service providers that submitted leads.

I do work in a very large building. It's our main hub for the district and a switch over hub... where packages come from other districts on feeders, where the packages ae unloaded re-sorted and reloaded back on a feeder, then sent to various districts up and down the east coast. I think that's how it works. The hidden packages were all smalls making them easy to hide. The person or persons hiding the packages would spread them all over the building in different area's. 149 was the biggest find... normally it wasn't that many, but they were hidden every day for months, up until we lost the account.

Sorry, (switch over hub) is my own terminology... I have no idea what it is really called.

 

[trplnkl]

Hey trplnkl, it's me again. I see that I have ruffled your feathers this morning.
Actually you did not ruffle my feathers at all, I was just letting you know how I read your posts. Trust me, if you ever ruffle my feathers, you will see the difference.lol

I realize that volume is down at UPS, as it is with all of our competitors. DHL closed their doors and FedEx has parked some aircrafts. In fact, UPS now has some DHL employee's working with us at UPS, bringing some their DHL account with them. They refer to these accounts as Reseller. Have you heard of them?
Yes I have heard of the resellers and think this is a good idea. Leads that the drivers did not have to take time from their work to acquire.

Yes, FedEx volume is down, so in my opinion they will be desperate to find the DHL volume that is still out there. They will also need to place themselves in a position where they can rebound once the economy mess is over with. True, just as we need to.
As of Friday, UPS stock is higher than FedEx and that has not been the case for quite a long while. It would be nice if UPS stock could remained higher than FedEx, don't you think? OF course I think that would be nice and I hope it does. I think I read on here that the day our stock went higher than BrandEx was the first time since we went public.
I also heard rumor that I haven't been able to confirm yet; that when FedEx parked their aircraft they hired UPS to carry the packages. That makes a win, win for both UPS and FedEx. FedEx cuts cost by parking their aircraft and UPS can fill their aircraft up.
Although I believe it is important to keep our planes full, it seems a little counter productive in the long run to do anything to help BrandEx weather this storm. (one a brief side note, I wonder hoe FedEx likes getting their volume that we are flying for them so late in the day?)

Perhaps you haven't heard or haven't read the post on BC about drivers who are working in hubs because of declined volume. This morning I also read a few hubs have actually lost some drivers. Perhaps your district is not being impacted by downsizes but my district is being affected by the impact of another district and it scares the hell out of me. It should scare you too!
I am well aware that people are being laid off across the country in all areas of commerce and I hate it, but to stay out a political discussion that would reap zero benefits I'll just let it go without further comment. It doesn't scare me, worry a bit...yeah it does. BTW, IMO, the downsizes and consolidations within UPS were only facilitated by the economic crunch. I believe they were in planning way before things got so bad.

I realize the SLIM lead program is not perfect. I was hoping to hear some really good valid points of what makes the lead program so disliked by the drivers. Other than blaming BD for being lazy. I am more than willing to stand and argue the valid points in behalf of the drivers to my management team, that drivers claim won't listen to anything. Will it work? I don't know, but to me, it's worth a try.
If you can filter through all the anger and frustration of many of the driver's posts on the (several) threads discussing this you will find the answers you seek. It's pretty simple really. almost too simple. A driver that is doing physical labor for 9-10-11 hours a day, doesn't get home before their children go to bed and goes to work the next day to be yelled at and berated by someone that couldn't do a bit better and then told he/she has to turn in a sale lead, NO EXCEPTIONS/ NO EXCUSES is not going to be happy. Then when they do turn in a sales lead only to find out that no on has been there to SEE the prospective customer, the anger is multiplied exponentially.
The blaming BD for being lazy probably comes from the people that see their BD people walking around the building seeminly doing nothing. There have been a few examples of other excessive indolent activaties. Only the posters of such know the truth of claimed situations. I have no reason to doubt them.

I don't agree with every decision made in the corporate ivory tower. I also remember when all managers and supervisors had to drive before joining the management team. I even agree with you that it should still be just that way, but it's not. We have to conform the best we can with the decisions made by corporate and by the union. At least you guys do have representation which is more than I can say about my position as a non-union, non-management employee. Don't be bitter at BD and the sales reps because of decisions made by IE, the corporate ivory tower, or Tech Support who installs our CTP and who can also train customers to use worldship. BD works just as hard as drivers and gets dumped on more than any other department in UPS. Now, I'm not saying BD is a perfect environment, but neither are delivery and operations or any other department for that matter. I'm just saying as a company we will do better in the way of service if we drop some of our barriers and try to communicate with each other.
There is really nothing I realy disagree with in this paragraph excet for some of your conclusions. I don't think many drivers really believe the BD doesn't do anything as a dept, just select reps. What you have read here that leans that way are from frustration of being asked to do more and more. To do things they shouldn't be responsible for.
I personally don't mind spending a few minutes to help a customer learn about Worldship or how to properly pack a box, but when I am racing the clock to get all my outcoming volume to the meet point, I simply don't have the time to spend.
When you say that Delivery operations is not a perfect working enviroment, you are preaching to the choir SISTA. AMEN.

You insult me by acting as if I made up the story about packages being hidden in our building. It is a true fact!
OK,OK..I am sorry for that, I should have worded that different. It's not that I don't believe you as much as I find it hard to reconcile it in my mind.
I mean 149 packages in one day, deliberatley hidden in the building? First off why would anyone do that? Secondly, who would have the time to do that unnoticed? Someone would have a hard time intentionally hiding 149 air letters in our building, much less boxes. There has to be more to this story than you are telling or more than you have been told.

Never mind, I read you post up^there.

I think most drivers do an awesome job every day, despite poor decisions made by some managers and supervisors. I never said that service failures did not affect a driver. By reading the posts made by a majority of drivers, I'm just defending BD because drivers think we don't do anything except push pencils and make bad decisions. It's just not true!
I think you may have misunderstood some of the posts. To me the pencil pushers that make bad decissions is the IE dept. We have a couple of IE people on this board that are smart and very helpful to us "dumb truck drivers". In fact I don't blame the actual IE people as much as I do the people above them. the people that tell them..."find a way to show this can work"

IE rows the boat and also dictates the sales force as what is expected of them and how long it should take to complete a task. They don't give us time for problem solving either! The boat would move faster if everyone on board rowing skills were in sync with each other, and not rowing against one another.
The only disagreement I have is that IE rows the boat. No, IE beats the drum for the rowing strokes.The problem is that each department has a different cadence for the rowing strokes.

 

[pudg00]

Once again salesguy proves he does not live on this planet or reality. If I don't do my job on a daily basis I am called to answer for it. But half of the sales leads I have turned in have not been followed up on. If I did not do my job 50% of the time I would be unemployed.

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Hey trplnkl, Just for the record, I am a she. And, I don't have any problem letting my management team know exactly where I stand on any issue. In fact, I've had them ask for my opinion many times over the years. My immediate manager and my immediate supervisor also greet me each morning with a smile and say goodnight when my day is done and I'm headed out the door. I feel lucky to work with the people on my management team. They are all an asset to the UPS and to my department. I'm sorry if your management team does listen to your concerns.

Well isn't that special? So you're given the nice nice treatment as you walk in the door at 10:30am, and then again as you leave at 3pm. It certainly is a hardknock life, for you.

Once again salesguy proves he does not live on this planet or reality. If I don't do my job on a daily basis I am called to answer for it. But half of the sales leads I have turned in have not been followed up on. If I did not do my job 50% of the time I would be unemployed.

Ain't that the truth.

 

[wisedragonfly]

Thank you, bunches and bunches, trplnkl!

IMO, the downsizes and consolidations within UPS were only facilitated by the economic crunch. I believe they were in planning way before things got so bad.

OK, I do have a tendency to agree with you here, since the regions consolidated way before the economy crisis and talks have been in the pipeline, for what seems like forever of possible district merges. We all know how UPS is constantly trying to cut cost. Perhaps the consolidations are a blessing in disguise to the future of UPS in spite of the economy crisis.

If you can filter through all the anger and frustration of many of the driver's posts on the (several) threads discussing this you will find the answers you seek. It's pretty simple really. almost too simple. A driver that is doing physical labor for 9-10-11 hours a day, doesn't get home before their children go to bed and goes to work the next day to be yelled at and berated by someone that couldn't do a bit better and then told he/she has to turn in a sale lead, NO EXCEPTIONS/ NO EXCUSES is not going to be happy. Then when they do turn in a sales lead only to find out that no on has been there to SEE the prospective customer, the anger is multiplied exponentially.
The blaming BD for being lazy probably comes from the people that see their BD people walking around the building seeminly doing nothing. There have been a few examples of other excessive indolent activaties. Only the posters of such know the truth of claimed situations. I have no reason to doubt them.

I can understand this completely. Thank you so much, for summarizing many posts and breaking it down in simple terms. I think most of us know that management will get the best results when they speak with respect and lead by example.

It is ridiculous to think that every single route has competitor opportunity, so demanding leads from driver with such a route, could be a bit overboard. However, the drivers on such routes still have personal lives and business dealings, perhaps there's potential with a friend or family member. Perhaps a new store or office is opening in their neighborhood.


It's not that I don't believe you as much as I find it hard to reconcile it in my mind.
I mean 149 packages in one day, deliberately hidden in the building? First off why would anyone do that? Secondly, who would have the time to do that unnoticed? Someone would have a hard time intentionally hiding 149 air letters in our building, much less boxes. There has to be more to this story than you are telling or more than you have been told.

Your thoughts here sound like the words that came from my mouth every day that these hidden packages were found and brought upstairs to be processed. I agree, the incident is unimaginable! And, you're right again, I don't know all the details that took place within management and it's very likely there were others issues, as well. My point, really was it happened at no fault of BD. Sorry, if I was too emotional. It happens sometimes!

I think you may have misunderstood some of the posts. To me the pencil pushers that make bad decissions is the IE dept. We have a couple of IE people on this board that are smart and very helpful to us "dumb truck drivers". In fact I don't blame the actual IE people as much as I do the people above them. the people that tell them..."find a way to show this can work".

Whew! Thank you for clearing that up. I feel so much better!

The only disagreement I have is that IE rows the boat. No, IE beats the drum for the rowing strokes.The problem is that each department has a different cadence for the rowing strokes.

I think I like the way you look at it a lot better. So, how can we get IE to there beat to a different tune, so we can synchronize our rowing strokes?

 

[wisedragonfly]

Once again salesguy proves he does not live on this planet or reality. If I don't do my job on a daily basis I am called to answer for it. But half of the sales leads I have turned in have not been followed up on. If I did not do my job 50% of the time I would be unemployed.

Hey pudg,
There are many things that will happen with a lead as it goes through the qualification period, whereas a lead would be closed and could appear as though contact had not been made. Especially since your district apparently does not provide lead status follow up, to you directly. In my own district we only send communications to FT Drivers and the center manager. Of course, I don't know how leads are handled in your home district and you might very well have some valid problems. If you do have problems, I'd really like to know some of the specifics. I am bound and determined to bring driver concerns to the attention of my management team. Please help me to help you.

Sometime within the next couple of days, I'm going to post a blog and list the flow of the sales lead process, in my own words. I will list the most common reasons that could have caused a lead to be closed that might make it appear that your lead was never contacted. Hopefully, it will be enough information for you to decide whether or not you have a lead issue and whether or not you want to follow up on it in your home district.