Turning point coming

[NC man]

Response was a response to the surge caused by COVID. As bad as it was, doing nothing would have been worse and not even the armchair experts had any better ideas.

DRA was a small component of ROADS, with SRA being the primary component. For all the complaining about DRA, the overall impact of ROADS was outstanding. The software is easy to use at the station level and it doesn't take long to train someone on proper ACO.

What someone sees standing on the frontline is only part of it. There's another world on the other side.

 

[NC man]

DRA outstanding? It would send me 8 miles away to do stop 2 in another routes area, then meander back near stop 1 to do nbr 10.
It would plot a Street that was on maps 5 miles from where it actually was. Told the engineer and he says need printout and map.Give it to him,never got fixed. A street off a street that existed for over 20 years.when we went back to SRA it was wonderful.

 

[bbsam]

DRA outstanding? It would send me 8 miles away to do stop 2 in another routes area, then meander back near stop 1 to do nbr 10.
It would plot a Street that was on maps 5 miles from where it actually was. Told the engineer and he says need printout and map.Give it to him,never got fixed. A street off a street that existed for over 20 years.when we went back to SRA it was wonderful.

DRA was so wonderful they changed the “A” to “O”, scrapped it and sent it to Ground where it’s been a friend’n disaster.

 

[59 Dano]

The foresight this company has is horrible. How can you not know what is going to succeed or fail at this place? What works in one location and horribly fails in another should be written on the wall for all upper managment to see. What works is for all couriers in this entire company to run their routes how they see fit.

"The best thing is for couriers to do it however they want." Sounds like a winner!

And it’s clear they’re trying to create software that essentially runs your route for you and tells you exactly where to go… so any idiot off the street can come in with zero training and do the job. Make the job less and less skilled to justify weak pay. That’s the goal. Can’t wait until all the “old school” map couriers who know their routes are gone. One cyber attack that shuts down the E-star and couriers won’t be going on road haha.

This talk has been around for a few years. "They can't read a map." Well, I think that's sad but they don't need to read a map. Your fantasy that no one can run a route better than a slow old man with a paper map is just that - a fantasy.

 

[59 Dano]

Wh
Why would FedEx need to buy out thousands of contractors? The contracts are not permanent and either party can end the contract.

OK, they aren't permanent and don't buy out contracts. They still have to buy thousands of vehicles, hire thousands of people, and so forth.

 

[59 Dano]

DRA outstanding?

Well, if you say so. I didn't.

 

[NC man]

Well, if you say so. I didn't.

No? Prev page

For all the complaining about DRA, the overall impact of ROADS was outstanding. The software is easy to use at the station level and it doesn't take long to train someone on proper ACO.

 

[bacha29]

Turning point? Tonight on Mad Money a caller called in and asked Cramer about buying some UPS stock. Cramer said that he would not comment on UPS either way until FDX earnings report comes out Thursday,

 

[MAKAVELI]

OK, they aren't permanent and don't buy out contracts. They still have to buy thousands of vehicles, hire thousands of people, and so forth.

FedEx spends $billions on capital expenditures every year. It would be no different than any other year or years. Having two separate systems servicing the same customers is highly inefficient and expensive.

 

[Aquaman]

"The best thing is for couriers to do it however they want." Sounds like a winner!


This talk has been around for a few years. "They can't read a map." Well, I think that's sad but they don't need to read a map. Your fantasy that no one can run a route better than a slow old man with a paper map is just that - a fantasy.

Have you ever even been a courier? If you had you’d know that couriers know the routes about 2 times better than the average dispatcher, 5 times better than the average engineer.. and about 10 times better than the average manager. And on road route knowledge is still the fastest most productive tool this company has. Who’s faster when a detour happens or a random on-call pops up? A old veteran courier who knows his area like the back of his hand and just goes. Or a new kid who didn’t get properly trained because the software does the job for him, and is pulled over trying to look up the fastest way to get there on his phone? Oh ya and it’s a rural area with bad cell service so he’s just following a goofy LEO program that’s taking him down a road with a low bridge. A road the veteran knew to stay off of no matter what the dumb software told him. Or when the new kid is sitting at the train tracks waiting on a train because he doesn’t know to avoid that road around 4pm. There’s nothing superior to knowing your area. And it’s a proven researched fact that drivers following navigation retain less knowledge of how they actually got there.

 

[bacha29]

Have you ever even been a courier? If you had you’d know that couriers know the routes about 2 times better than the average dispatcher, 5 times better than the average engineer.. and about 10 times better than the average manager. And on road route knowledge is still the fastest most productive tool this company has. Who’s faster when a detour happens or a random on-call pops up? A old veteran courier who knows his area like the back of his hand and just goes. Or a new kid who didn’t get properly trained because the software does the job for him, and is pulled over trying to look up the fastest way to get there on his phone? Oh ya and it’s a rural area with bad cell service so he’s just following a goofy LEO program that’s taking him down a road with a low bridge. A road the veteran knew to stay off of no matter what the dumb software told him. Or when the new kid is sitting at the train tracks waiting on a train because he doesn’t know to avoid that road around 4pm. There’s nothing superior to knowing your area. And it’s a proven researched fact that drivers following navigation retain less knowledge of how they actually got there.

GPS coordinates are only as accurate as the information that is loaded into it. And believe me, while there has been improvements made the road first has to be registered with the county, state and township. There are still some in my area that to this day are not registered with the county. I've seen situations where you have two different roads both with the same name served by the same zip but are located more than 10 miles away from one another and it's because they are under different township jurisdictions.
There is still no substitute for human knowledge of a given route and geographical area.

 

[bacha29]

FedEx spends $billions on capital expenditures every year. It would be no different than any other year or years. Having two separate systems servicing the same customers is highly inefficient and expensive.

In a matter of hours we will see if Wall Street is convinced that FDX can operate successfully in the new high wage, high energy, high inflation environment.

 

[bbsam]

GPS coordinates are only as accurate as the information that is loaded into it. And believe me, while there has been improvements made the road first has to be registered with the county, state and township. There are still some in my area that to this day are not registered with the county. I've seen situations where you have two different roads both with the same name served by the same zip but are located more than 10 miles away from one another and it's because they are under different township jurisdictions.
There is still no substitute for human knowledge of a given route and geographical area.

Our experience around here is that GPS devices are accurate far higher than 99% of the time.

Where driver knowledge comes most into play is in denser business areas where knowing which entrance to deliver to or pickup from comes into play. Even those things can be programmed in over time but not knowing those things can cost A LOT of time.

 

[Mutineer]

Our experience around here is that GPS devices are accurate far higher than 99% of the time.

Where driver knowledge comes most into play is in denser business areas where knowing which entrance to deliver to or pickup from comes into play. Even those things can be programmed in over time but not knowing those things can cost A LOT of time.

Absolutely true. Sometimes finding the physical address is the easy part, and only a small fraction of what needs to be known in order to complete the stop.

There are routes that are like that all day long.

 

[Fred's Myth]

Absolutely true. Sometimes finding the physical address is the easy part, and only a small fraction of what needs to be known in order to complete the stop.

There are routes that are like that all day long.

Nothing more frustrating than delivering to the receiving dock only to be told it goes to the front desk, or vice versa. Especially after waiting to even GET to the dock.

And only those willing to make their own job obsolete will enter that information into E-notes.

 

[Mutineer]

And only those willing to make their own job obsolete will enter that information into E-notes.

Absolutely true. Tribal Knowledge is the only ace that blue-collar people have remaining.

Don't surrender it to the tech/college-weenies!

On a route that was new to me, I strode through the front door of a pharmacy chain with an envelope containing an ad. The manager scolded me as if I was the most malignant person on the planet for daring to deliver through the front door. The complaint actually reached the management I was working under! For many years after, I rang the buzzer and delivered absolutely everything through the back door only.

After being away from that route and store for a few years, I rang the buzzer and waited at the back door to deliver an envelope. A manager new to me opened the door and scolded me for wasting her time for having to "walk all the way to the back" and told me "to deliver through the front door from now on."

 

[bbsam]

Absolutely true. Tribal Knowledge is the only ace that blue-collar people have remaining.

Don't surrender it to the tech/college-weenies!

On a route that was new to me, I strode through the front door of a pharmacy chain with an envelope containing an ad. The manager scolded me as if I was the most malignant person on the planet for daring to deliver through the front door. The complaint actually reached the management I was working under! For many years after, I rang the buzzer and delivered absolutely everything through the back door only.

After being away from that route and store for a few years, I rang the buzzer and waited at the back door to deliver an envelope. A manager new to me opened the door and scolded me for wasting her time for having to "walk all the way to the back" and told me "to deliver through the front door from now on."

Yep!

 

[P1 Failure]

Never use E-Notes?! Yeah let the poor swing driver figure it out. You guys kill me. Why not make life a little easier for the person running your rte when you are out?

 

[Mutineer]

Never use E-Notes?! Yeah let the poor swing driver figure it out. You guys kill me. Why not make life a little easier for the person running your rte when you are out?

In Utopia, or when I was young and naive, I would absolutely agree.

As a young adult, I often wondered why older people in the workplace were so back-stabbing, irritable, and mean.

I figured out why. And wish I'd never learned.

 

[whenIgetthere]

Never use E-Notes?! Yeah let the poor swing driver figure it out. You guys kill me. Why not make life a little easier for the person running your rte when you are out?

I used E-notes many, many times. I always appreciated those notes when I was a swing.