UPS Averts Strike

[Devilwin]

It appears our rival UPS has reached an agreement to avert a threatened strike. It had everyone at Fedex Ground on edge for weeks.
We are already maxing out on our volume, to the extent that at least two days a week are approaching Christmas style numbers. A strike by Big Brown would have forced us to add even more on our people, who are already stressed by the increase of online shopping. As an example, all of our contractors are adding more routes, but many drivers are leaving anyway. People used to getting home around five are finding it tough to finish by seven o'clock now.
August is my last month on the road. I am a driver supervisor, but still run a small route in downtown King. After August, all I will be doing is getting drivers out the door and taking care of company issues, then heading home by eight. Really looking forward to it..lol
We are just thankful an agreement was reached by our rival, because it could have been devastating for all involved, especially online shoppers. There is talk around that we are going on a six day work week. If that happens, I can promise you we will lose more drivers. I have brought the subject up to my people, and only one of the twelve said they might do it. Everyone else said no way, and I can understand that. The stress today in this business is enormous, and the only way it will improve is to add more routes and more package handlers, which is harder than it appears on the surface. We cannot hire just anyone off the streets, applicants must have an impeccable criminal record, driving experience, and be able to pass a DOT physical.

[PackMan97]

We cannot hire just anyone off the streets,

Time to send in the drones!

[HereBeforeCoachK]

Worst job I ever had was working "pre load" for the UPS plant in Columbia SC. It was a 4 hour shift, and it was so terrible, that I dreaded the next day for all 20 hours I was off. The trucks I pre loaded were on an industrial route, so I had a lot of small bearings packages and stuff that weighed like 68 pounds. It was brutal.

In my experience, at the time, (80s) - the drivers were union, but a lot of the slaves at the facilities were not. There were definitely protected classes of people at UPS.

[Devilwin]

Time to send in the drones!

For the small stuff, yeah. But many packages are just too heavy for drones. It would be a blessing though because it would bring down the driver's stop counts to acceptable levels.
Talk about unacceptable requests. We have a customer in a certain small town that gets 35 pound boxes of Gatorade. She is a commissioner of some kind of kid's soccer league. She is asking for my driver (a 120 pound female) to take these boxes to the second floor of her warehouse. In the past, she wanted them left at the roll up door of the warehouse which was not an issue, just back up and drop them off. But now, she is asking for my girl to lug them up a flight of steps one at a time. There are sixty one of these boxes. As much as I want to accommodate the lady, this would take way too long to accomplish. So tomorrow I have to contact her and explain why we cannot do that. Really looking forward to making that call..

[HereBeforeCoachK]

For the small stuff, yeah. But many packages are just too heavy for drones. It would be a blessing though because it would bring down the driver's stop counts to acceptable levels.
Talk about unacceptable requests. We have a customer in a certain small town that gets 35 pound boxes of Gatorade. She is a commissioner of some kind of kid's soccer league. She is asking for my driver (a 120 pound female) to take these boxes to the second floor of her warehouse. In the past, she wanted them left at the roll up door of the warehouse which was not an issue, just back up and drop them off. But now, she is asking for my girl to lug them up a flight of steps one at a time. There are sixty one of these boxes. As much as I want to accommodate the lady, this would take way too long to accomplish. So tomorrow I have to contact her and explain why we cannot do that. Really looking forward to making that call..

Assuming you are delivering the powder, I think you should have to provide the cups, and mix the gatorade for them....


..(is sarc tag needed?)

[Acymetric]

For the small stuff, yeah. But many packages are just too heavy for drones. It would be a blessing though because it would bring down the driver's stop counts to acceptable levels.
Talk about unacceptable requests. We have a customer in a certain small town that gets 35 pound boxes of Gatorade. She is a commissioner of some kind of kid's soccer league. She is asking for my driver (a 120 pound female) to take these boxes to the second floor of her warehouse. In the past, she wanted them left at the roll up door of the warehouse which was not an issue, just back up and drop them off. But now, she is asking for my girl to lug them up a flight of steps one at a time. There are sixty one of these boxes. As much as I want to accommodate the lady, this would take way too long to accomplish. So tomorrow I have to contact her and explain why we cannot do that. Really looking forward to making that call..

Shouldn't they just slap that on a pallet and ship it freight? Would probably be cheaper, at least.

[Devilwin]

Shouldn't they just slap that on a pallet and ship it freight? Would probably be cheaper, at least.

You would think so. And this isn't powder, it's the bottled variety..

[camion]

You would think so. And this isn't powder, it's the bottled variety..

Toting wet Gatorade around is just so inefficient.

[Bluedog]

Toting wet Gatorade around is just so inefficient.

Yep. I did a project for a retail pharmacy and the amount of bottled water they ship is absolute insanity...they could basically eliminate an entire distribution center (about 5% of their capacity) if they didn't have to deal with water.

[HereBeforeCoachK]

You would think so. And this isn't powder, it's the bottled variety..

There is no way that's efficient, and they shouldn't force their inefficiency onto you and your workers....

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Yep. I did a project for a retail pharmacy and the amount of bottled water they ship is absolute insanity...they could basically eliminate an entire distribution center (about 5% of their capacity) if they didn't have to deal with water.

They should dehydrate the water and then refill them at the store!

[PSurprise]

They should dehydrate the water and then refill them at the store!

They have evaporated milk, they should be able to do water too!

[PackMan97]

They should dehydrate the water and then refill them at the store!

Brings back good times! Haven't thought about this in 30 years.



http://spacequest.wikia.com/wiki/Dehydrated_water

A product of Pelvitron. Consists of enormous amounts of water compressed into a small bottle via extracting the "unnecessary" oxygen which is later automatically added during consumption.

A label on the can reads: "Pelvitron's Dehydrated water (H2) - All you add is air! Makes 10 gallons! Caution - Do not attempt to open or rupture container! Misuse could result in personal injury and/or flash flooding."

The product belonged to the standard set of supplies inside the survival kit in the escape pods on board the Arcada. One of these bottles was used by Roger Wilco in Space Quest 1 to survive and, according to one theory, to kill the Orat...

Technically, this is "deoxydized" water.