Whats the logic behind 'Eliminating' routes

[NI1]

I have been driving now for 13 years and I still could not figure out WTF is the logic/reasoning behind 'eliminating' routes? Yeah yeah they tell us that it is because "the volume is too low"....

Ok lets say that it is but wouldnt it be more reasonable to just add stops to the route that is suppose to be 'low in stop count' rather than dividing it and giving it to 4 - 5 routes? wouldnt it be "CHEAPER" to run that truck and give it to a driver and do less hours than giving it to 4 other drivers that will eventually have 3-4 hours of overtime? that is time and a half?

I know its like barking at the wrong tree but this is a forum and I might learn something from my fellow upsers in regards to this issue. Again, WTF is the reasoning/logic behind this because business wise it really doesnt make sense, Not when you want to 'save' money.

and oh btw, I did not even mention the 'AM' time thats wasted because they have to eliminate a route at 815 when we are suppose to be on the road at 840.

 

[toonertoo]

Great post by the way.
WTF, eliminate routes.
Well PAS?EDD i dont know anything. I just know that in our building, it came about after the great Ups never fixed the numbers when we went diad instead of pen and paper, like that would happen, hahahaha. A major hi tech company just forgot to give themselves credit for a major innovation. Ok that coulda happened

And then since no one really knew the dispatch we took a little of 45 c and added it to 45 b, then since it didnt all fit we added it to 45a and paid absolutely no attention to loop detail which now is an unknown term, and decided well it wont save money but...if we send 45 a to a split 15 mi away, and give him 45 stops at 23sporh, we will look good on paper and so what if we totally screw 15/20 customers so long as it looks good on the or.
Then if they call and complain , we will tell 45 b that they have to get the 45a am work to them by noon, plus keep all those already use to am delivery happy, and they will pull another 15 miles to serve those customers and maybe get in a rythm by noon. After delivering all of a. b and c air, that those routes can no longer get to since they are somewhere totally not on route.
You are so totally right, and Im guessing you like I are just a truck driver, how could we know. This cycle is based on numbers, when they look at the operating expense somewhere down the road, someones head will roll, and not the one forced by upper to do these ridiculous moves.
I do know dispatch, I was very good at it, you used what worked, kept the splits close to the building, kept mileage in mind, and service. Right now its balls to the wall, to cut a route, to a minimal number, when easily, 1,2 or three could have made a whole lot people less money, and UPS a whole lot more, but the trade off would be people got to see their families, its summer, it should not be dark when you get home.
Say Im bitter, no I actually dont care. I can sling qvc at 40 plus per hr, I dont have a family, and I dont need the money. You want to pay me to do something so silly, knock yourself out, Im at your beck and call. But on a financial side, its stupid for ups and the stockholders.

 

[brownrodster]

For that matter why add routes? Why not just give each driver more stops?

 

[upsgrunt]

Great post by the way.
WTF, eliminate routes.
Well PAS?EDD i dont know anything. I just know that in our building, it came about after the great Ups never fixed the numbers when we went diad instead of pen and paper, like that would happen, hahahaha. A major hi tech company just forgot to give themselves credit for a major innovation. Ok that coulda happened

And then since no one really knew the dispatch we took a little of 45 c and added it to 45 b, then since it didnt all fit we added it to 45a and paid absolutely no attention to loop detail which now is an unknown term, and decided well it wont save money but...if we send 45 a to a split 15 mi away, and give him 45 stops at 23sporh, we will look good on paper and so what if we totally screw 15/20 customers so long as it looks good on the or.
Then if they call and complain , we will tell 45 b that they have to get the 45a am work to them by noon, plus keep all those already use to am delivery happy, and they will pull another 15 miles to serve those customers and maybe get in a rythm by noon. After delivering all of a. b and c air, that those routes can no longer get to since they are somewhere totally not on route.
You are so totally right, and Im guessing you like I are just a truck driver, how could we know. This cycle is based on numbers, when they look at the operating expense somewhere down the road, someones head will roll, and not the one forced by upper to do these ridiculous moves.
I do know dispatch, I was very good at it, you used what worked, kept the splits close to the building, kept mileage in mind, and service. Right now its balls to the wall, to cut a route, to a minimal number, when easily, 1,2 or three could have made a whole lot people less money, and UPS a whole lot more, but the trade off would be people got to see their families, its summer, it should not be dark when you get home.
Say Im bitter, no I actually dont care. I can sling qvc at 40 plus per hr, I dont have a family, and I dont need the money. You want to pay me to do something so silly, knock yourself out, Im at your beck and call. But on a financial side, its stupid for ups and the stockholders.

Tooner- you put into words so well what all of us have burning in our guts! It could be sooooo easy and so many employees and customers could be made happy if just one thing was used more abundantly: COMMON SENSE!!! Thanks first for the great thread and thanks second for an A1 response from Tooner. I'm with Over9five on this--Tooner for president!

 

[toonertoo]

For that matter why add routes? Why not just give each driver more stops?

Great idea, you have a career in IE I would bet.

 

[upsgrunt]

For that matter why add routes? Why not just give each driver more stops?

Why not just give each center manager two centers; each division manager two divisions; each COD processor an extra phone to answer the PICKUPS phone calls; each preloader another pull.....etc. Back to my point--COMMON SENSE!!! You can only get so much juice from an orange before all thats left is pulp and that is what us drivers feel like most of the time except it is more like beaten, not squeezed.

 

[Cole]

Bonuses, bonuses, bonuses! Nuff said!

 

[NI1]

Great post by the way.
WTF, eliminate routes.
Well PAS?EDD i dont know anything. I just know that in our building, it came about after the great Ups never fixed the numbers when we went diad instead of pen and paper, like that would happen, hahahaha. A major hi tech company just forgot to give themselves credit for a major innovation. Ok that coulda happened

And then since no one really knew the dispatch we took a little of 45 c and added it to 45 b, then since it didnt all fit we added it to 45a and paid absolutely no attention to loop detail which now is an unknown term, and decided well it wont save money but...if we send 45 a to a split 15 mi away, and give him 45 stops at 23sporh, we will look good on paper and so what if we totally screw 15/20 customers so long as it looks good on the or.
Then if they call and complain , we will tell 45 b that they have to get the 45a am work to them by noon, plus keep all those already use to am delivery happy, and they will pull another 15 miles to serve those customers and maybe get in a rythm by noon. After delivering all of a. b and c air, that those routes can no longer get to since they are somewhere totally not on route.
You are so totally right, and Im guessing you like I are just a truck driver, how could we know. This cycle is based on numbers, when they look at the operating expense somewhere down the road, someones head will roll, and not the one forced by upper to do these ridiculous moves.
I do know dispatch, I was very good at it, you used what worked, kept the splits close to the building, kept mileage in mind, and service. Right now its balls to the wall, to cut a route, to a minimal number, when easily, 1,2 or three could have made a whole lot people less money, and UPS a whole lot more, but the trade off would be people got to see their families, its summer, it should not be dark when you get home.
Say Im bitter, no I actually dont care. I can sling qvc at 40 plus per hr, I dont have a family, and I dont need the money. You want to pay me to do something so silly, knock yourself out, Im at your beck and call. But on a financial side, its stupid for ups and the stockholders.

Great post Bro! Now I know I am not the only one. lol

I know this is an old saying but ups is really synonym to doesnt make sense.

Its not like I am just playing around at my route for them to figure out if I am 'over' dispatch or not. Paper and PC stats are just that, reality is still what we all need to handle everyday.

Like you, I started to just not care at all. By that I mean I just show up to work everyday and do the best I can. I dont know how people survive this job all stressed out and yapping at their managers every single day.

thaks for reading

 

[NI1]

Bonuses, bonuses, bonuses! Nuff said!

yeah, that too....

But what they dont realize it, when you have service failures you lose customers....And here they are preaching about 'sales lead' isnt that hypocracy?

 

[toonertoo]

It is hypocrasy, when I have a small customer that I have to help as no one else will take the time.
Dont even see a sales rep anymore.
Good thing I do know a little about pc shipping, etc, or Id ld lose the ones I do have, coz guess what FED EX does have reps, and if a customer needs help, they get there. And more than once Ive seen large shippers switch for that reason. I can help them make a label, etc. I cant help them figure out how to use UPS freight, or us and all the other companies I see with UPS shirts, totally different trucks, and no idea about the services they offer.
Instead of sending us messages about lifting and lowering, which does not remind me to be safe, it frustrates me beyond belief, how about teaching us what we need to know, like all the new and improved service corporations operating in one name. The things we really need to keep our people happy and our jobs secure!!! An informed driver gives customers confidence.

 

[DS]

It is hypocrasy, when I have a small customer that I have to help as no one else will take the time.
Good thing I do know a little about pc shipping, etc, or Id ld lose the ones I do have, coz guess what FED EX does have reps, and if a An informed driver gives customers confidence.

I wish they would teach us that...I know how to click the
little truck and end of day,but thats the extent of my knowledge.

 

[NI1]

It is embarassing especially if you are the driver for years and when your customer ask how to close the end of day you have to say "pls call the 800 number"....wait, now when they do call, I know for a fact that those customer service reps sometimes doesnt know too

 

[helenofcalifornia]

Isn't it funny that we all know what is wrong with the company and what would make it run better and no one in corporate cares. But by God, send us that infuriating safety tip in the middle of a delivery, or write us up for running over all the time even though the route is always over dispatched, or cram more trucks on the over worked preloaders. DOES ANYONE CARE ANYMORE!!!!

 

[NI1]

I know one thing, the car washer stopped washing cars too. So yeah, I dont think 'care' is popular nowadays.

 

[DS]

Helen,a lot of us care but our hands are tied by ups bureauocracy

 

[tieguy]

Bonuses, bonuses, bonuses! Nuff said!

Ve must maintain productivity at all costs. Er um and reduce costs.

We have a system that is almost foolproof , unfortunately we have also developed a new form of fool that is almost system proof.

When discussing our difficulties in application of our processes you have to understand that we had processes that were difficult to apply.

The addition of A plus B plus C did not equal D so we threw C out.

We thought about coming up with a system that worked but that would have required asking you for help.

We think we are very close to a solution and only require some minor tweaks. We will be ready to implement as soon as we realign the sun and moon.

A idle mind is a wasted mind therefore its our goal to keep you confused.

I hope my explanation has helped you better understand our logic.

 

[Cole]

LOL Tie!

That's seems to be how they come up with cutting runs!

Actually often it's from micromanagmnt as well. I can see if the volume is truley down, but when they cut them here both the runs effected are heavy that day, and customers do not think highly of it.

Here's an example: One day I del to one of my reg customers about 16:55, whereas I usually get there about 10:00 am, or right after my nda's, anyway, he told me Fed Ex ground called asking him to switch to them, and he asked "isn't that the driver that delivers here right at 5:00 everyday, I don't need that my UPS driver is here early". Then he said I came in delivering and picking up right after he hung up w/ them!

Also they hold pkgs and put "known closed" on there disposition, and alot of them are not closed on that day. Another bogus stat, that is not customer friendly, nor wise to any of our livelyhoods.

 

[toonertoo]

Thanks so much for explaining, the plan!!
I knew it was something to do with trying to move heaven and earth.
But we have begun to have the mentality again of being the only game in town, and not taking care of the customer. We only want the goliaths. But we need to remember, where did Microsoft start out?

 

[Catatonic]

3 yrs later

 

[thessalonian13]

In our center they have been sending 5 to 10 drivers home every day... They have about 15 helpers going out. They expect the helper teams to be back before 630pm. LMFAO Then, at 6pm they are scrambling to get drivers to take work off of eachother in order to be by 8pm. We always have 5 or more drivers past 8pm. Management/dispatching are clueless. LMFAO I don't bother complaining about it. It is what it is.