What's the normal day like for a PM driver?

[Sour Shoes]

First off, is 30 hours considered FT for Express? Saw a job for a FT PM carrier... 30 hours a week.

Can someone take me through an average day from start to finish in a little detail. The AM shift seems pretty straight forward. As far as PM goes, I'm confused. Do those guys mainly take care of drop off boxes or what? Sorry if this is a lame question, I just wanted to get an idea before I jump in.

Feel free to give any negatives and positives feedback.

Thank you

 

[Star B]

It depends on your station. Some of our PM drivers have a light delivery route then pickups. Some of them start early and have a busy pickup schedule. Some of them start pretty late, have a lighter pickup route but then work the reload.

 

[Operational needs]

First off, is 30 hours considered FT for Express? Saw a job for a FT PM carrier... 30 hours a week.

Can someone take me through an average day from start to finish in a little detail. The AM shift seems pretty straight forward. As far as PM goes, I'm confused. Do those guys mainly take care of drop off boxes or what? Sorry if this is a lame question, I just wanted to get an idea before I jump in.

Feel free to give any negatives and positives feedback.

Thank you

FT has a minimum guarantee of 35 hours.

 

[Sour Shoes]

Hmmm ok, mine starts at 3:30pm. Not sure if that is considered early or late.

 

[Operational needs]

Hmmm ok, mine starts at 3:30pm. Not sure if that is considered early or late.

Average.

 

[McFeely]

With a 3:30 start time, you'd most likely be doing only pickups (no deliveries). Those pickups would consist of regular stops and the occasional on-call pickup. Mainly regular businesses on your route that have stuff ready to go out the door at a particular time window. You may also have some dropboxes and a FedEx Office to pickup from.

After that, I'm assuming your station would have you on the PM sort loading all of that freight that you and other pickup drivers have to get to your local ramp/hub that night. Depending on what city your station is in, your PM sort may be done by 7pm or maybe later like 9pm.

As Operational said, if you have a FT position you'll be paid for 35 hours a week even if you only work 30 hours. They may call you on occasion and ask if you can come in early to deliver a handful of stops too.

 

[vantexan]

With a 3:30 start time, you'd most likely be doing only pickups (no deliveries). Those pickups would consist of regular stops and the occasional on-call pickup. Mainly regular businesses on your route that have stuff ready to go out the door at a particular time window. You may also have some dropboxes and a FedEx Office to pickup from.

After that, I'm assuming your station would have you on the PM sort loading all of that freight that you and other pickup drivers have to get to your local ramp/hub that night. Depending on what city your station is in, your PM sort may be done by 7pm or maybe later like 9pm.

As Operational said, if you have a FT position you'll be paid for 35 hours a week even if you only work 30 hours. They may call you on occasion and ask if you can come in early to deliver a handful of stops too.

I wonder if it's Tuesday through Saturday? I've seen people get their hours in working all day Saturday. I've never seen FedEx just give away free money so doubtful he'd only be working 30.

 

[McFeely]

My station pays quite a few people minimums every week. I’ve never once gotten minimum pay, so it all depends on station and the route I guess.

 

[Cactus]

With a 3:30 start time, you'd most likely be doing only pickups (no deliveries). Those pickups would consist of regular stops and the occasional on-call pickup.

Huh?

At our station, in-town p/u routes had just as many on-call's as they did regulars. Some even more.

Pretty tough to do a route slammed with on-calls especially from idiot customers who have the bad habit of calling in 3 or times an afternoon.

 

[McFeely]

Huh?

At our station, in-town p/u routes had just as many on-call's as they did regulars. Some even more.

Pretty tough to do a route slammed with on-calls especially from idiot customers who have the bad habit of calling in 3 or times an afternoon.

I run a full delivery route and a pup route so I have no idea how many oncalls go to the pup-only drivers. Depends on the cutoff times as some of our zip codes are cut off at 15:30 out here so a pup driver may not even see any of those.

About a third of my pups are oncalls but I’m on road all day to weave them into my route.

 

[MrBates]

It depends on the needs of the center. I know one guy that did nothing but dropboxes and on call airs from 1800 to 2200. At 2200 he would then report to the air building to shuttle all the late airs coming into the hub to the airport. He was always done by 2300. He said he preferred PM air because there was less pressure (no AM commits).

 

[Sour Shoes]

Thanks guys. Now how do oncalls work? Does the customer call you or do you get that info from a manager? I can see how that could be tough if you are doing some regular stops and then have to go to the other side of your route to do an oncall.

 

[McFeely]

Oncalls are sent to you by your dispatcher. They are put in Fedex’s system by the customer over the phone or online and your dispatcher is supposed to send it to the correct route.

Oncalls can work just fine with your flow or they can completely hose you. We all have at least one oncall that makes us all scream $&@?! into our powerpad.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

It depends on the needs of the center. I know one guy that did nothing but dropboxes and on call airs from 1800 to 2200. At 2200 he would then report to the air building to shuttle all the late airs coming into the hub to the airport. He was always done by 2300. He said he preferred PM air because there was less pressure (no AM commits).

2200 air pull? Is your station next door to a major air hub?

 

[Operational needs]

2200 air pull? Is your station next door to a major air hub?

Sounds like UPS to me.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Sounds like UPS to me.

Not here. We are asked to have our air back NLT 1900 as they leave for the airport NLT 1930. Wheels up at 2000.

Express here recently announced that they were pushing their air pull time back several hours.

 

[Operational needs]

Not here. We are asked to have our air back NLT 1900 as they leave for the airport NLT 1930. Wheels up at 2000.

Express here recently announced that they were pushing their air pull time back several hours.

Regular time here. Our last plane leaves at 2220 every night. Front counter at my station closes at 2200.

 

[MrBates]

2200 air pull? Is your station next door to a major air hub?

Exactly 23 minutes to Newark Airport. I used to do that run a few years ago, and we would have 3 air shuttles at the end of hub sort with the last one leaving no later than 2220. It was pretty cool driving right into the runway next to the plane headed for Louisville. The hanger with the air cans was right next to it.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Ours (PBG) is a small airport. We send our air to Syracuse.

 

[Cactus]

Oncalls are sent to you by your dispatcher. They are put in Fedex’s system by the customer over the phone or online and your dispatcher is supposed to send it to the correct route.

Oncalls can work just fine with your flow or they can completely hose you. We all have at least one oncall that makes us all scream $&@?! into our powerpad.

Highlighted a few words here.

When dispatch doesn't do this, you're screwed. Trying to get them to correct it is sometimes like pulling teeth and sometimes not. Just depends who your dispatcher is I guess.