TForce | Yikes whats going on?The more I talk to don't like UPS.

[Apostolic]

The parcel drivers I see on my route say they don't like working for UPS.
I ask is it because they have a lot of rules,they have all said yes.
They have the union,but even with the union they say theres little protection as you break UPS rules,and you can get fired.
These parcel drivers I've been talking to lately,can't wait to get there time in for a pension,and they can get out.

I see new faces coming to my terminal from the HRS. hub bringing our freight up here.

Some that I was able to have time to talk to say they aren't getting full weeks work anymore since UPS took Overnite over.

One guy told me that the contract drivers are taking their work away.

He said if he has a load ready to go out,and a contractor comes in the gate.
The contractor gets the load,and our driver doesn't go anywhere.

Here we all thought UPS buying us was a good thing.
I guess we were all wrong on that idea.

Oh my the more UPS employees,on both the parcel,and the freight, I have a chance to talk to really don't like working here,how sad is this?

 

[Rocketman]

Apo
Haven't been w/ Buster Freight long enough probably, to compare it to before when it was "O" BUT!!!
I like yourself, have been around this game for a few years.
Apo, when we started, If we could see the future, How many of the changes that have occured would we welcome. ? My guess is next to none.
Remember "wildcat strikes" ??? One union member was all it took to yell "strike" and the entire terminal was shut down until the "isssue" was resolved.Now the "issue" is greived, talked about, sometimes litigated,and eventually resolved in a poltically correct and "for the common good" mannner.
I was in a lecture the other day totally unrelated to work, the subject was "Changes". The speaker made the point there are three "R" 's as far as employees are concerned when it comes to change. RESIST, RESOLVE, REINVENT.
Some employees RESIST the change, some RESOLVE to go with the flow and do "whatever it takes" to get through, and some help REINVENT, the way things are being done so, as a whole, everyone benefits. I guess the point I'm trying to make is This aint your fathers Oldsmobile, and we may not like it BUT. It is what it is. This is where we are. That does not mean that we must fail to continue to struggle on a daily basis for the fair and equitiable treatment,that as employees we deserve , but we must temper that with the knowledge that it is a ever changing, and more competetive envrionment that we toil in.
Let us not curse the darkness, but instead light a candle as to lead us into the next days light
Take Care
B Safe

 

[accelerator]

Apo
Haven't been w/ Buster Freight long enough probably, to compare it to before when it was "O" BUT!!!
I like yourself, have been around this game for a few years.
Apo, when we started, If we could see the future, How many of the changes that have occured would we welcome. ? My guess is next to none.
Remember "wildcat strikes" ??? One union member was all it took to yell "strike" and the entire terminal was shut down until the "isssue" was resolved.Now the "issue" is greived, talked about, sometimes litigated,and eventually resolved in a poltically correct and "for the common good" mannner.
I was in a lecture the other day totally unrelated to work, the subject was "Changes". The speaker made the point there are three "R" 's as far as employees are concerned when it comes to change. RESIST, RESOLVE, REINVENT.
Some employees RESIST the change, some RESOLVE to go with the flow and do "whatever it takes" to get through, and some help REINVENT, the way things are being done so, as a whole, everyone benefits. I guess the point I'm trying to make is This aint your fathers Oldsmobile, and we may not like it BUT. It is what it is. This is where we are. That does not mean that we must fail to continue to struggle on a daily basis for the fair and equitiable treatment,that as employees we deserve , but we must temper that with the knowledge that it is a ever changing, and more competetive envrionment that we toil in.
Let us not curse the darkness, but instead light a candle as to lead us into the next days light
Take Care
B Safe

Rocketman, do you people study shakespear in the breakroom in the morning? Or hold bible class?

Resist, resolve , reinvent. As I have said in many posts, and I will explain, and define, this being our situation in your format, and my bluntness is not directed towards you ,so please take no offence.

Resist = Myself and others not working 8 hrs. a day being fulltime, linehaul being replaced by independants, and not getting paid for all time spent on the clock.

Resolve= UPS mgnt. could have resolved this by giving us 8 hrs. worth of work ,across the board, and not treating us like parttime personell, giving work to road drivers instead of independants, and giving us paid time for all time spent on the clock.

Reinvent= Calling in the union, everything is cause and effect, if you do something drastic expect the unexpected.

Although I think truer words to some degree was never spoken, I feel the person who made this comment is short of a reaslist.

Lets be practical here, I am fulltime and I get below 8 hrs. a day, well our economy is based virtually on people who work an 8 hr. day. Why should my livelyhood be less because someone wants to make more. And if the company has the responsibility of employing peoples livelyhood essentially, I think it is the employers responsibility too ensure their is enough work for me to make 8 hrs. a day. and if not, lay me off. that is why we have an unemployment system. Cause and effect.

Cause and effect. Things do change in this economy, But I think our forefathers when this great institution of the United States was made umpteen years ago, it was thier goal to make everyone enriched in mind and spirit with good intentions of freedom in mind.

Instead we bask in tyranny, opression, and glamour. I am quite sure GEORGE is spinning in his grave. So as far as I am concerned the three "R's " Is a philosophy to keep the feeble minded and the naive's mouth's shut. A security blanket sort of speak.

 

[Rocketman]

Accelerator
No offense taken, as I have said before, the topics on this board are a very small part of my life and, I like all the rest here merely use this forum to express our opinions.

Maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been in my response to the original post.
You are correct when you state that we have to continue to attempt to improve our lot in life in regards to our livelyhoods.In kind our employers must remain competitive, so we have that opportunity. If you re-read the last part of my post I stated that we must continue to struggle daily for fair and eqiutable treatment.

As far as the thre R's are concerned, and again, I may not have been clear on this, but it was the speakers point that those are 3 ways that employees react to change, not saying that those are the ways that employees should be treated or catogorized.

I really think that we are probably on the same page, it's just that when something is typed or written it is sometimes misconstrued because the two people discussing the topic lack the interaction that is sometimes needed to clarify the points being made.
BTW No I don't study Shakespeare or the Good Book while on break!!!
Take Care
B Safe

 

[accelerator]

Accelerator
No offense taken, as I have said before, the topics on this board are a very small part of my life and, I like all the rest here merely use this forum to express our opinions.

Maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been in my response to the original post.
You are correct when you state that we have to continue to attempt to improve our lot in life in regards to our livelyhoods.In kind our employers must remain competitive, so we have that opportunity. If you re-read the last part of my post I stated that we must continue to struggle daily for fair and eqiutable treatment.

As far as the thre R's are concerned, and again, I may not have been clear on this, but it was the speakers point that those are 3 ways that employees react to change, not saying that those are the ways that employees should be treated or catogorized.

I really think that we are probably on the same page, it's just that when something is typed or written it is sometimes misconstrued because the two people discussing the topic lack the interaction that is sometimes needed to clarify the points being made.
BTW No I don't study Shakespeare or the Good Book while on break!!!
Take Care
B Safe

No, you made your points very clear and I understood them, the Three R"S have been an itch in my craw for some time.

The three R's although true to an extent is a political belief myself and alot of others believe is part of a bigger political theory. Again not in practice, as everything with , big government and business alike.

The big R's is in support of a socialistic society, and that is where my problem lies.

Bigger GOV. does not make things better, those who believe it does has not been looking at the poles,The same with big business, and the security blanket of the Three R'S.

 

[imported_krash]

Apo,
"Complaining" is what a pkg car driver does best. They do have protection and UPS cannot fire them for "every little thing". The productivity expectations are rather insane at times. But all one has to do is follow the methods, do what they can and by all means stay upbeat. All that complaining and negativity will do nothing but make you miserable. It's only a job for goodness sakes. It's not your whole life so don't treat it as such. You should ask the driver next time why doesn't he quit if it's so doggone bad

 

[romeo55]

You guys have some valid points and the only way anything is ever going to change is for management to be pushed aside by the us the bottom feeders of today. The management in place today is living by yesterdays rules and only making it harder for the rest of the company to be productive today. In my terminal our manager is only looking out for himself and dreading the day he will be replaced which is why he only thinks as far ahead as yesterday as long as he threatens and get his workers to work under his budget to get his bonus then nothing else matters. He could sit there and think how will this decision will effect the terminal six months to a year from now and be proactive but rather thinks how will this effect my bottom line today and be reactive tommorrow. One example at the start of the summer months we had around 50 city drivers every driver had a truck to use and the production was on track and no real problems but he decided to take on new drivers move the hostlers into the city work place dock workers as hostlers part time and now we have around 80 drivers not nearly enough trucks to many accidents and as the slow down in the trucking industry continues not enough work for half of the drivers. Rather than stop when he had a decent amount of drivers and equipment to move the freight safely and effeciently he kept going till the drivers werent working as much and now he has to pay for the constant damages and mishaps from unskilled hosters and drivers with no spare equipment in case anything breaks down. This is our company today and I believe I am not speaking only for one terminal but rather am seeing this type of management across the board from these post here. My conclusion is that we as drivers today are really the future of this company and if management isnt ready to leave there post for our brand of leadership then we have to push them out of the way or this will continue to get worse.

 

[wassesname]

how much did it cost to get in to that lecture? you can buy a book on how to make money and it will tell you to write a book on how to make money and sell it for 19.95 not a word about going to WORK.

 

[Apostolic]

Well I guess my UPS Freight world is kind of small seeing I'm just a city driver.
I don't get out,and around to anyother terminals to see what else is going on with our company.
My only outlet is these truckingboards,and my UPS Freight co-workers on here sharing their thoughts about our company.

I do try to talk to the road drivers that come to my terminal whenever I have a free momment which is rare.
Usualy before I clock in,or after I'm done at night.

I was surprised to learn how much a lot of linehaul drivers are getting robbed of time,and miles.

As far as the regular UPS parcel drivers I see at different points on my route.
Most don't have much time to talk to me unless we are waiting for a door to get unloaded.

When I get them to share their view of our company thats when I really get an ear full.

As for me I can be a real cry baby myself at times.
But for the most part,I just try to shake off the negative thoughts put a big grin on my face,and do the best I can.

Which I'm sad to say isn't always good enough for UPS.

I've told my TM when he is giving me the lecture on not doing enough work.

I say I always do my work unto God.
Some days everything falls off my trailer,then there are days when you get held up at a few places,and theres no way to catch up.

UPS can crunch all the numbers they want on their computer,but we are dealling with people.
I call this the human factor.
People have to unload ,or load us,and they can be moody because of one thing,or another.
Thats life,but of course he never wants to hear it.

 

[Dockworker]

Pretty soon we will have ride-alongs with timed deliveries.
Due to D.I.A.D times, my barn is already replacing run drivers with more efficient ones and putting the slower ones on something else like switches.
Regardless of how many deliveries and/or pick-ups these people had, they come in at about 10 hours a day.

 

[MFASU]

The Union can only protect your job if you are right or the mgmt is weak. UPS mgmt is hard core and will go exactly by the rules and that is why more O mgrs will be gone in the near future because they are not use to the structure. UPS is a pathetic company and absolutely does not have the best interest of the employees, that is why we need the UNION. We will need the strength in the number the teamsters will give. The teamsters can not gurantee us anything other than representation and that is a much deal than we will have without them and enough for me.

 

[Apostolic]

I was doing a special short turn to deliver many loads of Lowes freight to a new store thats going to be opening in a few weeks.

It was only a 34 mile turn,I pulled rented vans to the store,another driver was waiting for them to unload the ones I was bringing.

I'd take one out,and pull an empty back to the terminal.
Well first thing in the morning our expressway is a parking lot during the traffic hours.
So I took an alternet route on the side streets,and was running into school bus stops.

My TM,and morning dispatcher were getting antsy with me taking so long,on the first few runs.

They let me know I wasn't doing it fast enough.

Thats when I explaned I heard on my radio there was a wreak on the expressway,so I went around and had to deal with school bus stops.

Then I through out the magic term.
I said what about safety first?
Do you want me to do this safe,or not?
Well how about that I got my way.
As it turned out I ran 9 trailers,out,and 8 back in 10 hours,I don't know how I could have done any better then that?

I wish we were still the old Overnite,it wasn't all of this push,push,back then.
We did our work,and they pretty much left us alone.

 

[Dockworker]

I was doing a special short turn to deliver many loads of Lowes freight to a new store thats going to be opening in a few weeks.

It was only a 34 mile turn,I pulled rented vans to the store,another driver was waiting for them to unload the ones I was bringing.

I'd take one out,and pull an empty back to the terminal.
Well first thing in the morning our expressway is a parking lot during the traffic hours.
So I took an alternet route on the side streets,and was running into school bus stops.

My TM,and morning dispatcher were getting antsy with me taking so long,on the first few runs.

They let me know I wasn't doing it fast enough.

Thats when I explaned I heard on my radio there was a wreak on the expressway,so I went around and had to deal with school bus stops.

Then I through out the magic term.
I said what about safety first?
Do you want me to do this safe,or not?
Well how about that I got my way.
As it turned out I ran 9 trailers,out,and 8 back in 10 hours,I don't know how I could have done any better then that?

I wish we were still the old Overnite,it wasn't all of this push,push,back then.
We did our work,and they pretty much left us alone.

When ever I get stuck in unusual traffic jams, I hit delay and stuck in traffic on my diad. Not sure what it justifies but at least I'm still communicating while enroute to the terminal.

 

[Apostolic]

It really doesn't matter what delays we punch into our DIAD when your dealling with pushy authority figures.

Say I asked a parcel driver if he had the stuck in traffic,and waiting for train delays on his Diad?
He says that UPS doesn't give them any delays,and he got a real good laugh out of me telling him about the delays on our Diad.

now isn't that something.
We've all got the same brown plastic idiot narco boxes,and yet the parcel Diad is way different then the freight ones.

 

[MFASU]

Wait until they use the GPS in the DIAD's to monitor everyone which they have been done since day one when they passed them out. Everyone has been wanting change but not these type of changes. Don't worry about these managers they want be here in a year.

 

[Dockworker]

Wait until they use the GPS in the DIAD's to monitor everyone which they have been done since day one when they passed them out. Everyone has been wanting change but not these type of changes. Don't worry about these managers they want be here in a year.

The GPS is going to change the way drivers do business. They say it's not for that purpose but we are all smarter than that!

A parcel driver told me his GPS Diad was trackable up to 200 yards of the current location.

I agree, some of the old school "O" management will either embrace change or find another job. My TM has embraced this change and is doing a great job in weaning us a little at a time.

 

[Apostolic]

I've posted this thought in the past regarding the GPS sytem.
our expressways are the most direct ways around town.
but during traffic hours in the morning,and evening they can become parking lots with the smallests of fender bender accidents.

So if I dicide I don't want to crawl along our expressway during the traffic hours,and use the side streets to get where I want to go.
Will I be busted for going off route?

If this is going to be the way its set up,well then heres to missed pickups,and overtime, come friday.
Whatever UPS wants,just let me know I can live with it either way.

 

[Dockworker]

It really doesn't matter what delays we punch into our DIAD when your dealling with pushy authority figures.

Say I asked a parcel driver if he had the stuck in traffic,and waiting for train delays on his Diad?
He says that UPS doesn't give them any delays,and he got a real good laugh out of me telling him about the delays on our Diad.

now isn't that something.
We've all got the same brown plastic idiot narco boxes,and yet the parcel Diad is way different then the freight ones.

I'm going to ask my TM if those delay entries make any difference. It should, otherwise it makes no sense to have them in there.

 

[Apostolic]

Yeah let me know what you find out.
I don't think my TM knows to much about the delays?
Or if he does,he doesn't want to share it with us?

But of course his thoughts on this subject is just speculation on my part.
I don't recall this issue every being brought up by any of us?

 

[romeo55]

The delays only help them out when their numbers are due. That why they push and push they want their numbers inline with what someone in Atlanta or Virginia decide how long it should take. The want a 1000lbs delivery to take no more than 15min and if its on a pallet then half that time. I laugh at their numbers yes one day that delivery could take five minutes that is if you drop on the street and the unloader is ready to go but if you got to back in to a dock then walk around to the entrance then get someone to unload sign then close back the trailer the walk back around and leave it takes time and that is what they dont understand and possibly never will. The offices are full of people who have never or would never get in the truck and see how long it generally takes. We here have learned the majic phrase "Its not safe" youll be amazed at what it can do for your peace of mind