UPS old school

[DELACROIX]

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Things were a lot different back then! You are pretty much a paper boy now just following ORION

We had a pretty lady working at our customer counter who was forced to wear that name tag back in the 90’s...you can guess the rest of the story...

 

[oldngray]

We had a pretty lady working at our customer counter who was forced to wear that name tag back in the 90’s...you can guess the rest of the story...

@Turdferguson still wears his.

Proudly (if you know what I mean)

 

[DriverNerd]

I remember learning the primary sort. Seven pages to memorize, $400 bonus for learning it, and a dollar an hour raise.

 

[badpal]

I started peak '87, so I had the polaroid style ID, with SS# as my employee number as someone else mentioned.

I do remember cash COD's and hearing that flea markets were notorious for being almost all COD's with drivers walking around with thousands of dollars cash in their pockets.

Always fun at county fair time with carnies circling u giving u stacks of ones and fives.

 

[quad decade guy]

Here we go....

I started in 1981.

I was paid $11.70 back then! As a part-timer.....insurance....vacation. No progression.

There was no Next Day Air.....that came in 1985...we had these little perforated tags you took off the pkg with your clipboard "knife". Turned them in each night.

COD money....I had a rural industrial area near a small town. Always kept my COD money in the turn in envelope with the pickup log(brown with clear plastic) between the windshield and heater tower). Never thought twice about it. Safe as could be. Despite the threat of termination....somebody ALWAYS got fired for rolling COD money/COD's. Some places always had cash. Remember the running battles over "cash only" tags. Customers would be enraged....."Let me call the shipper..." "No Sir...gotta go...I'll be back tomorrow".....with their whole operation shut down...waiting on that pkg...

Pkgs only "tracked by shipper number". Proof of delivery was matching a shipper number to the records and by weight and when it "should" have gotten there.

Pkg cars....wooden shelves and big wheels and tires and narrow side doors. Tall... and twisted many an ankle getting out. No power steering meant Popeye arms and tendenitis in your left elbow(park brake). Automatics a distant dream.....alien technology stuff. Were told UPS WILL NEVER have power steering or auto...."don't need it".

I.D.'s....still don't work. Here, you just sign in(if no i.d.).....absolutely no proof you belong there. I see it all day every day. I was forced to upgrade my old original i.d. from 1981. to the modern one. The guards always disinterested and watching videos on their phones.. With sleeper teams circumventing security in plain sight/daylight.

Original DIADS.....20x(50 maybe) heavier than paper clipboards......very fragile...if that scanner went out.....you were screwed and back to paper....with the MGT folks having to manually reenter and scan every pkg to upload.

True story: Gathered everyone at PCM.....Division Mgr on down. Lined up 20 boxes 2 lines 10 each. Had 1 driver scan one line, 1 the other line on paper. To show how much faster scanning was....they then went on to tell us "We forgot to change the allowances...." "So, from now on the allowances will be different..." . I never "bonused" again....Not one word was ever said about it...ever again. By anyone.

A simpler time. Though no shorts but came later. 100+ degree degrees...80% humidity in brown long pants....multiple salt stains all over......having the customer sign your sweaty clipboard after carrying it under your arm...chicks really dug that......

 

[oldngray]

Always fun at county fair time with carnies circling u giving u stacks of ones and fives.

and those gypsies would cheat you in a heartbeat if you gave them a chance

 

[BlackFriday]

Back then the Center Manager told the customer to use another carrier if they had a complaint. Knowing there was only the PO. Now an anomalous complaint will see you fighting for your job. UPS can replace a $40/hr delivery driver with a $20/hr new hire tomorrow.

What! Better WATCH that kinda talk. I've been threatened with, wait for it, BEING BANNED for such talk!

View attachment 363366

Things were a lot different back then! You are pretty much a paper boy now just following ORION

See above.

I delivered to a town with a lot of immigrants in the 90s. For some reason they bought a lot of gold and it always came COD and they paid me in cash.

It wasn’t uncommon to have several thousand in COD cash in my pocket. I also did a lot of booking back then as well.. so I usually had a pretty large sum of cash of my own on me as well.

Are handguns allowed? Obviously a PVD is allowed but drivers?

We had a pretty lady working at our customer counter who was forced to wear that name tag back in the 90’s...you can guess the rest of the story...

"My eyes are up here"

 

[quad decade guy]

What! Better WATCH that kinda talk. I've been threatened with, wait for it, BEING BANNED for such talk!

See above.

Are handguns allowed? Obviously a PVD is allowed but drivers?

"My eyes are up here"

Oh?

 

[Re-Raise]

Are handguns allowed?

Possibly

 

[freeloader]

I remember learning the primary sort. Seven pages to memorize, $400 bonus for learning it, and a dollar an hour raise.

ahh yes dollar bump for learning to sort.

also the annual bonus: $500 for part timers and $1000 for full timers. dont remember what year that went away.

 

[IVE GOTTA PACKAGE 4U]

ahh yes dollar bump for learning to sort.

also the annual bonus: $500 for part timers and $1000 for full timers. dont remember what year that went away.

That was probably a good 30 years ago.

Don't you remember dump the lump campaign?
Yes that $1,000 was nice we usually getting a 20 or 30 cent raise

 

[PT Car Washer]

ahh yes dollar bump for learning to sort.

also the annual bonus: $500 for part timers and $1000 for full timers. dont remember what year that went away.

Vote yes contract bonus. $350 after taxes.

 

[728ups]

i ALWAYS hated when Mcnair Amusements came to town and set up in the Walmart Parking lot.They would get COD's every day and pay in rolls of quarters. I lost more time opening each roll of quarters to count and make sure the Carnies weren't shorting me

 

[burrheadd]

i ALWAYS hated when Mcnair Amusements came to town and set up in the Walmart Parking lot.They would get COD's every day and pay in rolls of quarters. I lost more time opening each roll of quarters to count and make sure the Carnies weren't shorting me

I did that a couple of times then I told the boss how much time I was wasting. He told me to have them get a cashiers check Never had any more problems after that they would normally come find me on route

 

[Almost]

I was a UPSer way back when. Started as a peak worker on the evening / local sort before there was any type of scanning and left right around the time PAS was implemented in the preloads. Reading and hearing how things are now makes me think of how different things were back in the late 80's / early 90's:

• Prior to scanning, there was no guaranteed delivery. Packages got there when they got there.
• Scanning slowed down hub PPH alot (bottlenecks were at the outbounds).
• Most everything was done on paper. Scanning, DIAD and IVIS didnt come along till the early 90's.
• Sorters had to memorize all the sort splits (not sure if that is the case these days).
• Loaders had to know some of the splits (most outbound trailers had a reader and a loader).
• Preloaders had to know splits for the package cars they were loading (PAS did away with that).
• We use to use crayons and hand stamps to mark packages.
• Before my time, package drivers used to load their own package cars (introduction of PT employees did away with that).
• Walking on moving belts was prohibited but it still happened often. (Adding the belt lockout devices helped reduce that)
• There were virtually no yard rules like there are today.
• As a yard shifter, didnt wear seat belt most of the time, loosely enforced.
• As a yard shifter, only used red line on trailers. No yellow line or lights. (dont know if that is required now or not).
• Not sure if MAR's have changed, but I remember unloader was 1200 pph, small sorter was 1800 pph (cant remember what regular sorter was), smalls bagger was 100 bph.
• ID's were super crappy. They were laminated polaroids with your name and SS# written with a sharpie. How do I know this? I still have one.

I'm curious if there's any other old timers and what they might remember from way back when.

Good Lord! I'm still using the same laminated phot ID from 1988. LOL.

 

[pkgdriver]

I am one. Driver hired in 1986
You forgot to mention every package had to be signed for on paper, or a SDN stapled to the delivery records.
Only 2 none deliveries allowed per shift.
Having to file the original paper and the carbon copies where they then were placed in your file held in the office.
Every night you filled out your paper time card by hand.
COD money placed into a envelope and dropped in a lock box then had to sign a form that you dropped the money.
Dress code/ personal grooming standards.
Every pkg car was washed nightly.
Road audits by Sups. They would stop you on the road and take your records of the last 20 stops and back track and confirm delivery.
Citation audits, basically they would observe you delivering and write you a ticket if they saw you broke the 340 delivery methods.
Loss Prevention presumed all employees were possible thieves.
Your employee number was your Social Security number.
You could be fired over a customer rudeness complaint.
Hard to forget the way back when.

On the dropped money COD form….It was prudent to have the supervisor count the cash and initial it also. Ill be damned if my envelope with 20,000 came up missing and they wanted me to cover it. Actually had to use two envelopes a few times.

 

[clean hairy]

Here we go....

I started in 1981.

I was paid $11.70 back then! As a part-timer.....insurance....vacation. No progression.

There was no Next Day Air.....that came in 1985...we had these little perforated tags you took off the pkg with your clipboard "knife". Turned them in each night.

COD money....I had a rural industrial area near a small town. Always kept my COD money in the turn in envelope with the pickup log(brown with clear plastic) between the windshield and heater tower). Never thought twice about it. Safe as could be. Despite the threat of termination....somebody ALWAYS got fired for rolling COD money/COD's. Some places always had cash. Remember the running battles over "cash only" tags. Customers would be enraged....."Let me call the shipper..." "No Sir...gotta go...I'll be back tomorrow".....with their whole operation shut down...waiting on that pkg...

Pkgs only "tracked by shipper number". Proof of delivery was matching a shipper number to the records and by weight and when it "should" have gotten there.

Pkg cars....wooden shelves and big wheels and tires and narrow side doors. Tall... and twisted many an ankle getting out. No power steering meant Popeye arms and tendenitis in your left elbow(park brake). Automatics a distant dream.....alien technology stuff. Were told UPS WILL NEVER have power steering or auto...."don't need it".

I.D.'s....still don't work. Here, you just sign in(if no i.d.).....absolutely no proof you belong there. I see it all day every day. I was forced to upgrade my old original i.d. from 1981. to the modern one. The guards always disinterested and watching videos on their phones.. With sleeper teams circumventing security in plain sight/daylight.

Original DIADS.....20x(50 maybe) heavier than paper clipboards......very fragile...if that scanner went out.....you were screwed and back to paper....with the MGT folks having to manually reenter and scan every pkg to upload.

True story: Gathered everyone at PCM.....Division Mgr on down. Lined up 20 boxes 2 lines 10 each. Had 1 driver scan one line, 1 the other line on paper. To show how much faster scanning was....they then went on to tell us "We forgot to change the allowances...." "So, from now on the allowances will be different..." . I never "bonused" again....Not one word was ever said about it...ever again. By anyone.

A simpler time. Though no shorts but came later. 100+ degree degrees...80% humidity in brown long pants....multiple salt stains all over......having the customer sign your sweaty clipboard after carrying it under your arm...chicks really dug that......

Also the clutches were nearly as hard to push in as a modern race car!
Turning circle of maybe 1/2 a parking lot.

 

[freeloader]

Also the clutches were nearly as hard to push in as a modern race car!
Turning circle of maybe 1/2 a parking lot.

I was a carwasher and shifter. Trying to park some of them package cars with heavy clutches and no power steering in the lineup, oof. Also those old mack cabover tractors were no joke either.

 

[freeloader]

I also remember that the first DIAD's were referred to as dog-beaters. And you could put the DIAD speaker onto a telephone receiver to upload data just like an old school modem.

 

[quad decade guy]

I also remember that the first DIAD's were referred to as dog-beaters. And you could put the DIAD speaker onto a telephone receiver to upload data just like an old school modem.

And customers would just gee whiz gawk when you asked to use their phone. Mgt just expected they would.....demanded it....