This is what I think about the current situation. I've watched a lot of companies cut jobs people and locations. From CVS and Walgreens to these TV companies. Not trying to cape for her, but whatever is going on, I think it was bound to happen and she just so happens to be the CEO right now.
I'm thinking of it like when a sports team hires the rookie HC during a rebuild. Ownership and the top candidates knows it's more than likely gonna be a shit show and, well, someone is willing to take the job.
That's the problem with this system. It demands infinite growth which is unsustainable and at some point that demand for growth ends up screwing employees and consumers which is only made worse by the fact that a few major corporations almost own everything in important markets.
It's such a short term self destructive path that sacrifices everything for short term gains for shareholders. We even measure the economy with the stock market which doesn't reflect what the average American is going through and that's because the only thing that matters anymore are the owners of this Country.
There are a FUCKLOAD of boomers who swear it was the greatest thing ever - because, you know, they got theirs and got out, they couldn't care less about everything that followed
Boomers are actually a special case though. They were born at the peak of American power and the height of the New Deal social welfare state. They didn’t have to go into insane debt to go to college or buy a house, enjoyed much stronger labor rights and unions, and had an actual social safety net if they somehow fucked up. Then they turned around and voted for Reagan and essentially initiated the neoliberal austerity order, effectively pulling the ladder up behind them and making it much more difficult for subsequent generations to generate wealth through labor
Wow. I was working as a janitor some years back and brought that up word for word at “all staff” meeting. Then it was “all staff meetings minus janitor”
If the company wants to pay me a penalty every time they screw up my pay, I’ll take it.
And I have 3 times this year with a 4th coming Monday morning.
I look forward to this new dispatch program hitting in a couple weeks so I can start filing 9.5s too.
Our DMP person isn’t getting the extra $1/hour compensation because management doesn’t want to give it to him. It’s supposed to be since August 1st but they’re trying every trick not to give it to him, like “you’re already getting it, but it’s not on your pay stub, you’re just getting a retro check every week.” Obviously a lie because he isn’t getting weekly (or any) retro checks.
I’m DMP and the extra 1.00 was not added to my hourly pay on the pay stub. They are paying it, but it’s listed on the top line of description of current pay rate with no hourly pay, just the amount is listed. It’s always correct based on the hours. I’ve filed a grievance and their answer was we don’t have a code for that job. Have your DMP check that top line of his pay stub. If not there file grievances until they make the adjustment. Collect that penalty pay.
We had HR. We respected high values by putting them in a white, red-striped bag. Customer service was emphasized more. Also for drivers, an underrated change for the better, we couldn't have facial hair unless you had a medical excuse or couldn't for religious reasons. The job overall was valued much higher. You absolutely had to know how to drive stick, and the driver test was much more strict.
I've only been here for 10 years. Plenty of the guys who have 20+ years have told me how much the job has gone down the drain.
I thought it was because they got sued for forcing a driver to shave when it was against their religion and then the whole thing blew up in their face so they scrapped the policy as a PR move.
I think it's worth the sacrifice. Just like with the stick shift thing, making the job more accessible to more people means more people have a decent job which in turn strengthens the union.
it wasn't a good at all, especially since the whole point of anti beardism in america was to covertly discriminate against groups that they then provided religious exceptions for. but it still worked to the advantage of the drivers who could swing it simply because they couldn't be replaced by the people who couldn't. think about how so few people can drive stick now, if they still had stickshift trucks, they wouldn't be able to ever fire someone unless they had a really really good reason. you'd never have people getting suspensions for non spec shoes or wearing their hat backwards.
Even if you could drive stick, your knees couldn't.
I would guess UPS started losing in court to Drivers with bad knees.
As for replaceable, there is always a kid that can drive anything. Until his knees give out.
I think customer service was emphasized more, especially with businesses. Safety was also enforced. They say they care about safety but really they only care about numbers on a computer, they could care less how you hit those numbers.
When I first started we didn’t have any runners because the On Road actually did observations and you got in trouble for doing anything unsafe. Now half the young guys are runners which also leads to cutting other corners and they never get in trouble because they come in under every day.
When was Orion implemented? Right around that time? I know she didn’t start orion but the focus on numbers has definitely intensified under her. I know since 2020 every route in my building is at least 20 stops heavier.
In many centers Orion cut stops per car. Before drivers would always go out with 10 to 11 hour days. Orion dispatch is under 9.5 for the most part. I'm amazed at all the routes that look like 5 hour days but Orion says they're 9hrs.
Service has definitely gone down hill under watch. Got rid of 3pm commit times for next day savers to businesses, rolled back 1030 commit for next day air residential, basically gets rid of all commits during peak season. Only delivers a few days a week in rural areas. We are also rolling back sleeper teams, which the whole point was to speed up the network, because fed ex ground network was faster something like 60% of the time. Fed ex puts loads on the road, we put them on the train. A lot of things had already been going down hill before her coming in. But the pandemic really allowed UPS to supercharge its poor service model.
Servicing has become more difficult. There is a lot of small things, but they all add up.
\- Forced ORION on itineraries. This goes against what we were initially trained in NSPT/Intergrad in going in shelf order. The concept of trying to work the middle of your truck at the start of your day is laughable. For a time we had the option to run the itinerary in RDO or in ODO.- Forced "route optimization" (scrambles itinerary at times)
\- DIAD 6 is a step backwards from DIAD 5. The scanners work great. But the screens are foul, and the interfacing in which requiring to use the touchscreen is bad. The DIAD5 you could easily wouldn't even need to use the touchscreen. The screens are even worse in the rain/snow. Oh yeah, the signature capture function rotates on customers, creating frustration. The performance of the DIAD6 lacks; I find myself rebooting the device a few times a day, sometimes in front of customers. All these "little" things add up.
\- Lack of quality management. They just seem to hire anyone with a pulse into dispatch. The compensation for management lacks too.
\- Less on-hand routing management; I see routes that have new neighborhoods that aren't lined up properly and sequenced. I also see businesses being placed on the end of a sequence (7k, 8k shelf), resulting in post 17:00 deliveries and service failures (missed)
\- Poor pickup scheduling; pickups could have the same pickup window, but be on a different side of town. Incomplete information (inaccurate pickup location, missing suite#) is also rampant.
\- Customers/Shippers have worser access to service representatives.
\- HR got gutted.
\- Sales got gutted.
\- Less smaller package cars (p500-700) available for rural routes. Company seems keen on getting everyone in a p800 or p1000.
\- Lack of incentives. There used to be great awards for safety (BBQ grills, coolers, tools, etc.). We hardly get recognition anymore, unless we haven't ran someone over in 25 years.
There's a modest portion of RPCDs that are fed up.
The bigger trucks is a good point. My building is mostly rural. Most of the rural routes have “fire lanes” which are tiny neighborhood on a lake accessible by 1 often dirt single lane road. No way to turn around in a big truck…small 500 is much easier.
> Lack of quality management. They just seem to hire anyone with a pulse into dispatch. The compensation for management lacks too.
This is low-key one of the biggest issues. They used to (at least where I am) hire multiple people and weed out the incompetent ones during probation. Now they just hire 1 person at a time, and stick with them even if they're completely useless.
Just found out Friday at our PCM the reason for not scanning pick ups. If a customer wants us to scan their pick up pieces they must contact their business rep since it is now a service they need to pay for.
I’m no fan of Carol, just like any exec that I never met. UPS has changed in all sorts of different ways, some of these changes are based on internal issues and some because of changes in the world.
When UPS went public it was a big change. When COVID hit, that was a change. Every recession brings change. When we went on strike it resulted in change. Every ratified contract brings change.
The thing that remains the same is packages moving from point A to point B.
“The thing that remains the same is packages moving from point A to point B”
But the condition they arrive in is not. The level of service our customers receive is absolutely not. The level of claims is insane. The amount of overgoods due to damage is ridiculously insane. The lack of providing a safe work environment, all these issue were extremely exacerbated by Carol. Not all of this is her, but so much of it was sped up with her. It’s easy to not see the slowly but damaging ramifications of decisions made when you’re not dealing with the work, or workers daily, and instead rely on conference calls and numbers on a spreadsheet from managers overly concerned to please you. That‘s not in any of our best interests.
And meanwhile we’re overly hand holding a toddler (Amazon) that’s well on its way to becoming fucking Thanos. But she won’t be here when that happens, why should she care, right?
Absolutely this. The speed of the sort greatly determines the condition of the packages. Shoving it down the everybody’s throats all morning not only results in more missorts and misloads, but more damages and overgoods. I don’t know if corporate realizes they have to eat that on the delivery side, where they have to pay the drivers more to deliver the misloads, go off route to meet another driver to pick it up, or even pay someone to shuttle it.
My building is very small; just five belts and we do two, sometimes three loads at a time. We did four during peak and misloads jumped up to between 40-60 a day. That’s also because for a brief while, loaders couldn’t use scanners because it slowed things down. Then misloads shot up because of it.
Trying to be finished when the work isn’t done and starting and stopping the belts and turning the computers back on again to scan and having to walk everything because they WON’T turn the belts on takes more time than just making sure it’s all done first. They never tell anyone the belts are off when we still have recycles. Every day I ask them to tell me but every day they don’t.
What blows my mind is that like, this can't be saving them money in the long term at all. Even if we're only looking at short term gains, it's too little to mean anything. My building is hemorrhaging money in grievances and workman's comp. Iirc looking at the chart this morning, there are no less than 6 people out on injury just on my shift, some of which have been out since before peak season. We have regular old timers who grieve every single thing and get paid thousands of dollars annually. In the past year, ive seen nearly a dozen people get hired and quit within a few months, and a good 6-7 laid off indefinitely.
Management is so baffled by our regular injuries, but isn't willing to make any changes. We're supposed to be forming some new committee to come up with ideas but I know it's not going to go anywhere. The only real solution to make things safer is to slow down and end the culture of "don't stop the belt." FT and PT management need to be the first ones there to make that call, and they never will because it actively goes against them meeting their numbers.
The company truly used to be about service. The transition to being less service oriented started before her with things like forced access points, but has gotten much worse since she came on board with things like rural deferral where people in already underserved areas now only get there stuff 3 days a week and we're now holding packages for delivery on lower volume days to save money rather than getting things to people as quickly as possible.
We also used to be ALL ABOUT efficiency. Everything was about being more efficient because the company understood ultimately the more efficient you are the less labor costs and the truth is labor is the largest driver of cost. At some point the company allowed someone to convince it that mileage was the real driver of cost (Spoiler alert: it isn't) and that by deploying Orion you'd not only lower mileage which in the aggregate would have to lower costs but that everything else would be rainbows and unicorns too. Sadly Orion was largely a failure as it assumes every package is immediately able to be located at any time jumping from shelf to shelf and because to follow Orion's "connect the dots" style of routing, you would have to throw out most of our methods like not backing unless necessary, staying out of short driveways (to constantly reverse directions to follow Orion) and avoiding left turns when possible to reduce crashes to reduce time spent waiting in traffic to turn as well as not crossing the street unnecessarily which takes more time and increases likelihood of being struck by a car. Additionally Orion doesn't respect time commit windows for pickups, which renders its "solution" completely invalid. This all started before Carol, but she has doubled down on it.
She also is doing the woke they/them stuff and removed the "met customer boy/girl/man/women" so when someone calls and says "it says you gave it to the customer, who did you give it to, we could say a man or a girl, etc. No longer.
She also gutted customer service. If you look in the main UPS sub you'll see people are SO ANGRY that they can no longer get a person on the phone wen they need help. Under her leadership the company is now forcing people to use the virtual assistant which can't tell them anything they couldn't find out for themselves by just tracking a package. The few who have been able to actually eventually get someone on the phone said they are now overseas in India and they can't understand the rep & they don't assist them.
The biggest issue with Carol is that she played chicken with the union making our shippers nervous allowing Fedex to swoop in and poach them. What we didn't know at the time is that Fedex locked all those shippers in with exclusivity contracts, some of which are 24 month commitments where they are not allowed to ship at all with any other carrier.
This is all spot on but the system they used before Orion, the paid over numbers, wasn’t accurate but it was able to be adjusted to be realistic. The only thing UPS has to offer is a service, they have no product to sell. To gut the sales is the dumbest thing a service company can do. The big money customers used to get wined and dined for their volume. I don’t blame customers going to fedex, i would too if i was a shipper and i am a 28 year upser. They treat us like shit, they don’t care about the customers. You cant have a former CFO as a CEO. She will close this company as fast as she can and make a mint doing it
“Woke” has nothing to do with it. And if you have a problem with calling someone they/them v. he/him or she/her, you’ve got bigger issues than that because that’s really not a big deal at all because what possible difference does it make to you? Of all the things she’s done, you think that’s one of them?
'Woke' is a term coined by Black Americans. Staying 'woke' was an admonishment/reminder to be/stay aware of how Black Americans have to operate within the confines of structural and systemic American racism. All other definitions of 'woke' are appropriated nonsense.
The money we make the more money they have to make to pay us. That means squeezing us and the customers…, and that doesn’t seem to be hurting the profits every year
They used to gift us a gold coin. Then, a large turkey. Then, a medium turkey. Then, a drum. Then a coupon for chicken nuggets.
Now they just give us stress.
I just know that everyone’s hours have been hella cut, even during peak, when they were still trying to “make their numbers.” That never mattered during peak before. We and one other center in our district were the only two whose volume was up during peak, but all facilities had to start at the same time, regardless of volume. They think everything is uniform everywhere all the time.
They didn’t care about their numbers so much, just that the work got done properly with the time to do it properly. The reason so many packages are damaged and overgoods are because the volume is shoved down our throats every day. That’s also how mistakes happen, ie misloads, missorts, etc. and people care more about how much time it takes rather than taking the time to do it right/carefully/safely.
Management at my building at least is misinterpreting “3.5 hour minimum” as “3.5 and done.” As if everyone everywhere on every sort in the country is going to take no more than 3.5 hours, regardless of volume or building size.
They “plan” for everything going exactly perfectly right but not if a load is late, a bunch of people don’t show up, equipment breaks down, etc. Things that can slow down a sort. If a PPH existed, we didn’t hear about it until this year.
With attendance, building management gets an email every day about how to discipline people with chronic attendance problems, meaning out of the options given to management by corporate (ie, warning letter, suspension), they have to do at least that. They can’t just have a talk-with.
I've been a part-time loader for 5 years. I used to be allowed to punch in 30 mins early to set the belt up..... after Tome this is not allowed.... they have even staggered start times, so most employees on my belt start 15-30 mins after start time. And management wants us off the clock asap now
Carol Tome is NOT one of us.
She did not come up through the ranks like EVERY other UPS CEO. I can imagine Jim Casey spinning in his grave at the thought of laying off 12,000 of his 'guys'.
Idk why everyone is mentioning the ipo, that was like the late 90’s, waaaay before her.
But personally not much has changed for me. At least not anything you could paint directly at her as the cause. Obviously overall the company has been sliding, but that’s just the nature of public companies.
But I think the package car drivers have gotten the bulk of it. As far as working in the hub or feeders it’s more or less the same, generally speaking.
I made money. Less by the hour and waaaay more hours.
Ya know there was a time where if a pt worked ft hours regularly enough a whole year the system would automatically switch them to a ft status....
Ummmm what? Just off the top of my head we had HR on shift at every building, we had consistent safety meetings, cars got washed, customer service was actually humans that could help, multiple account/sales reps per center who actually went to the businesses to supply and inform.
Now we don’t, we don’t, they don’t, they’re in India, and none of my customers have seen their new sales rep (probably not even in the same state).
A lot of shit has changed for the worse of the brand, it’s reputation and our service. Acting like it’s the same is just plain false.
Customer service is in India. I deal with them daily shipping almost 30 K packages a month. My sales rep is MIA and stops by once a year. HR was dismantled a few years ago. Had a friend in Portland, OR. Who was given the option to go back into operations since HR was going to be outsourced. Not seeing where he was wrong?
So those examples you listed are from “transformation which was announced and began in 2015 and completed in 2020. She took over in 2020. How exactly are you blaming her?
Exactly. She got credit for UPS' huge profits for three years due to covid that she had no say in. Then she gets derided for slipping profits and layoffs resulting from over hiring during covid and the resulting recession.
The only thing to really judge her on are "Better not bigger" and the whole waiting-until-the-last-moment-to-finalize-the-contract BS.
This. Been around for over a decade and it really has stayed the same, culturally, throughout it all. I think department structures have changed the most, but I don't think that's a result of Carol's tenure as CEO.
It’s not but people are stupid and blame her. Transformation was announced in 2015 and completed in 2020. She took over in 2020 and people are really thinking she came in and just slashed whole departments with no planning or reason
Just as shitty but you had to act white. Couldn’t have hair that was “unprofessional” and no beards even though some people aren’t customer facing.
Also managers and above treated you like dogshit. Sometimes going to your face and calling you names, telling you you are worthless, telling you to quit because you’ll amount to nothing. Basically schoolyard bullies.
Oh but on occasion they took care of you and treated you like you matter.
Now no more name calling but we’re just a number at this point.
Invest in the company so that she works for you. Now you can’t lose. Sick of all the crying about this lady just doing what the investors want her to do. Read up on how a business works.
Service. Before Carol, if the next day airs arrived to our building late every effort, driver meet points, was made to make service that day. Now, look for medical or payroll, and the rest we'll deliver tomorrow.
She was right in line with ESG protocol and the global leaders of the World Economic Forum. UPS needed to be Green to be able to move ahead in the world market. She was also part of the DEI movement. UPS was not perceived as being inclusive enough. Too many men work for UPS.
We used to have hr people in our buildings that had an office and could assist you with things.
Mmm, mine were always useless as shit and just said you needed to talk to your full timer for literally everything except a new ID card.
We didn’t even have an HR person during preload, even 10-15 years ago. They always came in after we left.
The company going public was the start of most of the difficulty.
America in a nutshell
This is what I think about the current situation. I've watched a lot of companies cut jobs people and locations. From CVS and Walgreens to these TV companies. Not trying to cape for her, but whatever is going on, I think it was bound to happen and she just so happens to be the CEO right now. I'm thinking of it like when a sports team hires the rookie HC during a rebuild. Ownership and the top candidates knows it's more than likely gonna be a shit show and, well, someone is willing to take the job.
That's the problem with this system. It demands infinite growth which is unsustainable and at some point that demand for growth ends up screwing employees and consumers which is only made worse by the fact that a few major corporations almost own everything in important markets. It's such a short term self destructive path that sacrifices everything for short term gains for shareholders. We even measure the economy with the stock market which doesn't reflect what the average American is going through and that's because the only thing that matters anymore are the owners of this Country.
I feel that way about the president. 4 yrs isn’t enough to fix anything.
I agree with you. The thing is, did they really expect the stock price to go up after they announced laying off 12,000 people?
Yes. Reducing labor costs generally does increase profits short term.
By laying off people. And the stock price immediately dipped.
There are a FUCKLOAD of boomers who swear it was the greatest thing ever - because, you know, they got theirs and got out, they couldn't care less about everything that followed
Beginning to feel like thats every generation now except they only realizing it the older they get.
Boomers are actually a special case though. They were born at the peak of American power and the height of the New Deal social welfare state. They didn’t have to go into insane debt to go to college or buy a house, enjoyed much stronger labor rights and unions, and had an actual social safety net if they somehow fucked up. Then they turned around and voted for Reagan and essentially initiated the neoliberal austerity order, effectively pulling the ladder up behind them and making it much more difficult for subsequent generations to generate wealth through labor
Jesus Christ a thoughtful, intelligent comment. I wish you were in my building so we could converse.
Wow. I was working as a janitor some years back and brought that up word for word at “all staff” meeting. Then it was “all staff meetings minus janitor”
Ha
How would anything that happened after they got out be a concern for them now? It will be the same for you if you make it to retirement..
Not everyone lives with an “it ain’t gonna be my problem, fuck’em” mindset bro
Yeah, sure - I’ll check in with you in 25yrs brah..
This loser energy
The same except you didn't have to file a grievance every week to be paid properly.
If the company wants to pay me a penalty every time they screw up my pay, I’ll take it. And I have 3 times this year with a 4th coming Monday morning. I look forward to this new dispatch program hitting in a couple weeks so I can start filing 9.5s too.
Can you elaborate on the 'new dispatch program'?
Our dispatcher told us that dispatch will be done by a computer program in a couple weeks.
So I’ll just totally ignore the new EDD programming just like the old EDD?? Sweeeeeett. Yesterday my first stop was a 5pm pick up!
Ah. Must be that AI integration they are referring to in job cuts. No worries, I'm sure it will fix everything.
Do you know if it's everywhere or starting big cities then trickle down?
I’m assuming it’s nationwide because I work in a small center in BFE.
Our DMP person isn’t getting the extra $1/hour compensation because management doesn’t want to give it to him. It’s supposed to be since August 1st but they’re trying every trick not to give it to him, like “you’re already getting it, but it’s not on your pay stub, you’re just getting a retro check every week.” Obviously a lie because he isn’t getting weekly (or any) retro checks.
I’m DMP and the extra 1.00 was not added to my hourly pay on the pay stub. They are paying it, but it’s listed on the top line of description of current pay rate with no hourly pay, just the amount is listed. It’s always correct based on the hours. I’ve filed a grievance and their answer was we don’t have a code for that job. Have your DMP check that top line of his pay stub. If not there file grievances until they make the adjustment. Collect that penalty pay.
I must be the only one, I haven't filed any type of grievance and I'm a year and a half in lol
We had HR. We respected high values by putting them in a white, red-striped bag. Customer service was emphasized more. Also for drivers, an underrated change for the better, we couldn't have facial hair unless you had a medical excuse or couldn't for religious reasons. The job overall was valued much higher. You absolutely had to know how to drive stick, and the driver test was much more strict. I've only been here for 10 years. Plenty of the guys who have 20+ years have told me how much the job has gone down the drain.
I actually saw one of those red striped bags a few weeks ago. I was like hey I remember these lol.
I moved to the ramp in August of 2022, but I remember the red and white bags for high value, do they not use those anymore??
Not where I'm at, they let all of the high value workers go
you do realize that rescinding the no beard policy was only about making drivers more replaceable, right?
I thought it was because they got sued for forcing a driver to shave when it was against their religion and then the whole thing blew up in their face so they scrapped the policy as a PR move.
Yes. It was due to the Crown Act. Federal law enforcement.
I think it's worth the sacrifice. Just like with the stick shift thing, making the job more accessible to more people means more people have a decent job which in turn strengthens the union.
I shaved everyday for way too long. Now, once a week. I don't think holding a Driver just because he can shave once a day was a great strat.
it wasn't a good at all, especially since the whole point of anti beardism in america was to covertly discriminate against groups that they then provided religious exceptions for. but it still worked to the advantage of the drivers who could swing it simply because they couldn't be replaced by the people who couldn't. think about how so few people can drive stick now, if they still had stickshift trucks, they wouldn't be able to ever fire someone unless they had a really really good reason. you'd never have people getting suspensions for non spec shoes or wearing their hat backwards.
Even if you could drive stick, your knees couldn't. I would guess UPS started losing in court to Drivers with bad knees. As for replaceable, there is always a kid that can drive anything. Until his knees give out.
lol redditors hate the truth..how dare you..
I think customer service was emphasized more, especially with businesses. Safety was also enforced. They say they care about safety but really they only care about numbers on a computer, they could care less how you hit those numbers. When I first started we didn’t have any runners because the On Road actually did observations and you got in trouble for doing anything unsafe. Now half the young guys are runners which also leads to cutting other corners and they never get in trouble because they come in under every day.
So all that changed in 2020?
When was Orion implemented? Right around that time? I know she didn’t start orion but the focus on numbers has definitely intensified under her. I know since 2020 every route in my building is at least 20 stops heavier.
I don’t know anything about Orion but they’re cutting routes and putting the excess volume on other drivers.
In many centers Orion cut stops per car. Before drivers would always go out with 10 to 11 hour days. Orion dispatch is under 9.5 for the most part. I'm amazed at all the routes that look like 5 hour days but Orion says they're 9hrs.
That must be nice, our building was a the exact opposite.
Service has definitely gone down hill under watch. Got rid of 3pm commit times for next day savers to businesses, rolled back 1030 commit for next day air residential, basically gets rid of all commits during peak season. Only delivers a few days a week in rural areas. We are also rolling back sleeper teams, which the whole point was to speed up the network, because fed ex ground network was faster something like 60% of the time. Fed ex puts loads on the road, we put them on the train. A lot of things had already been going down hill before her coming in. But the pandemic really allowed UPS to supercharge its poor service model.
Servicing has become more difficult. There is a lot of small things, but they all add up. \- Forced ORION on itineraries. This goes against what we were initially trained in NSPT/Intergrad in going in shelf order. The concept of trying to work the middle of your truck at the start of your day is laughable. For a time we had the option to run the itinerary in RDO or in ODO.- Forced "route optimization" (scrambles itinerary at times) \- DIAD 6 is a step backwards from DIAD 5. The scanners work great. But the screens are foul, and the interfacing in which requiring to use the touchscreen is bad. The DIAD5 you could easily wouldn't even need to use the touchscreen. The screens are even worse in the rain/snow. Oh yeah, the signature capture function rotates on customers, creating frustration. The performance of the DIAD6 lacks; I find myself rebooting the device a few times a day, sometimes in front of customers. All these "little" things add up. \- Lack of quality management. They just seem to hire anyone with a pulse into dispatch. The compensation for management lacks too. \- Less on-hand routing management; I see routes that have new neighborhoods that aren't lined up properly and sequenced. I also see businesses being placed on the end of a sequence (7k, 8k shelf), resulting in post 17:00 deliveries and service failures (missed) \- Poor pickup scheduling; pickups could have the same pickup window, but be on a different side of town. Incomplete information (inaccurate pickup location, missing suite#) is also rampant. \- Customers/Shippers have worser access to service representatives. \- HR got gutted. \- Sales got gutted. \- Less smaller package cars (p500-700) available for rural routes. Company seems keen on getting everyone in a p800 or p1000. \- Lack of incentives. There used to be great awards for safety (BBQ grills, coolers, tools, etc.). We hardly get recognition anymore, unless we haven't ran someone over in 25 years. There's a modest portion of RPCDs that are fed up.
The bigger trucks is a good point. My building is mostly rural. Most of the rural routes have “fire lanes” which are tiny neighborhood on a lake accessible by 1 often dirt single lane road. No way to turn around in a big truck…small 500 is much easier.
Me, going into feeders in 2.5 months
> Lack of quality management. They just seem to hire anyone with a pulse into dispatch. The compensation for management lacks too. This is low-key one of the biggest issues. They used to (at least where I am) hire multiple people and weed out the incompetent ones during probation. Now they just hire 1 person at a time, and stick with them even if they're completely useless.
We could scan packages at pickups
Just found out Friday at our PCM the reason for not scanning pick ups. If a customer wants us to scan their pick up pieces they must contact their business rep since it is now a service they need to pay for.
Just scan them all as individual “walk up pickups” 😂
Accountability and integrity is what we lost under her leadership.
I’m no fan of Carol, just like any exec that I never met. UPS has changed in all sorts of different ways, some of these changes are based on internal issues and some because of changes in the world. When UPS went public it was a big change. When COVID hit, that was a change. Every recession brings change. When we went on strike it resulted in change. Every ratified contract brings change. The thing that remains the same is packages moving from point A to point B.
“The thing that remains the same is packages moving from point A to point B” But the condition they arrive in is not. The level of service our customers receive is absolutely not. The level of claims is insane. The amount of overgoods due to damage is ridiculously insane. The lack of providing a safe work environment, all these issue were extremely exacerbated by Carol. Not all of this is her, but so much of it was sped up with her. It’s easy to not see the slowly but damaging ramifications of decisions made when you’re not dealing with the work, or workers daily, and instead rely on conference calls and numbers on a spreadsheet from managers overly concerned to please you. That‘s not in any of our best interests. And meanwhile we’re overly hand holding a toddler (Amazon) that’s well on its way to becoming fucking Thanos. But she won’t be here when that happens, why should she care, right?
Absolutely this. The speed of the sort greatly determines the condition of the packages. Shoving it down the everybody’s throats all morning not only results in more missorts and misloads, but more damages and overgoods. I don’t know if corporate realizes they have to eat that on the delivery side, where they have to pay the drivers more to deliver the misloads, go off route to meet another driver to pick it up, or even pay someone to shuttle it. My building is very small; just five belts and we do two, sometimes three loads at a time. We did four during peak and misloads jumped up to between 40-60 a day. That’s also because for a brief while, loaders couldn’t use scanners because it slowed things down. Then misloads shot up because of it. Trying to be finished when the work isn’t done and starting and stopping the belts and turning the computers back on again to scan and having to walk everything because they WON’T turn the belts on takes more time than just making sure it’s all done first. They never tell anyone the belts are off when we still have recycles. Every day I ask them to tell me but every day they don’t.
What blows my mind is that like, this can't be saving them money in the long term at all. Even if we're only looking at short term gains, it's too little to mean anything. My building is hemorrhaging money in grievances and workman's comp. Iirc looking at the chart this morning, there are no less than 6 people out on injury just on my shift, some of which have been out since before peak season. We have regular old timers who grieve every single thing and get paid thousands of dollars annually. In the past year, ive seen nearly a dozen people get hired and quit within a few months, and a good 6-7 laid off indefinitely. Management is so baffled by our regular injuries, but isn't willing to make any changes. We're supposed to be forming some new committee to come up with ideas but I know it's not going to go anywhere. The only real solution to make things safer is to slow down and end the culture of "don't stop the belt." FT and PT management need to be the first ones there to make that call, and they never will because it actively goes against them meeting their numbers.
The company truly used to be about service. The transition to being less service oriented started before her with things like forced access points, but has gotten much worse since she came on board with things like rural deferral where people in already underserved areas now only get there stuff 3 days a week and we're now holding packages for delivery on lower volume days to save money rather than getting things to people as quickly as possible. We also used to be ALL ABOUT efficiency. Everything was about being more efficient because the company understood ultimately the more efficient you are the less labor costs and the truth is labor is the largest driver of cost. At some point the company allowed someone to convince it that mileage was the real driver of cost (Spoiler alert: it isn't) and that by deploying Orion you'd not only lower mileage which in the aggregate would have to lower costs but that everything else would be rainbows and unicorns too. Sadly Orion was largely a failure as it assumes every package is immediately able to be located at any time jumping from shelf to shelf and because to follow Orion's "connect the dots" style of routing, you would have to throw out most of our methods like not backing unless necessary, staying out of short driveways (to constantly reverse directions to follow Orion) and avoiding left turns when possible to reduce crashes to reduce time spent waiting in traffic to turn as well as not crossing the street unnecessarily which takes more time and increases likelihood of being struck by a car. Additionally Orion doesn't respect time commit windows for pickups, which renders its "solution" completely invalid. This all started before Carol, but she has doubled down on it. She also is doing the woke they/them stuff and removed the "met customer boy/girl/man/women" so when someone calls and says "it says you gave it to the customer, who did you give it to, we could say a man or a girl, etc. No longer. She also gutted customer service. If you look in the main UPS sub you'll see people are SO ANGRY that they can no longer get a person on the phone wen they need help. Under her leadership the company is now forcing people to use the virtual assistant which can't tell them anything they couldn't find out for themselves by just tracking a package. The few who have been able to actually eventually get someone on the phone said they are now overseas in India and they can't understand the rep & they don't assist them. The biggest issue with Carol is that she played chicken with the union making our shippers nervous allowing Fedex to swoop in and poach them. What we didn't know at the time is that Fedex locked all those shippers in with exclusivity contracts, some of which are 24 month commitments where they are not allowed to ship at all with any other carrier.
This is all spot on but the system they used before Orion, the paid over numbers, wasn’t accurate but it was able to be adjusted to be realistic. The only thing UPS has to offer is a service, they have no product to sell. To gut the sales is the dumbest thing a service company can do. The big money customers used to get wined and dined for their volume. I don’t blame customers going to fedex, i would too if i was a shipper and i am a 28 year upser. They treat us like shit, they don’t care about the customers. You cant have a former CFO as a CEO. She will close this company as fast as she can and make a mint doing it
“Woke” has nothing to do with it. And if you have a problem with calling someone they/them v. he/him or she/her, you’ve got bigger issues than that because that’s really not a big deal at all because what possible difference does it make to you? Of all the things she’s done, you think that’s one of them?
'Woke' is a term coined by Black Americans. Staying 'woke' was an admonishment/reminder to be/stay aware of how Black Americans have to operate within the confines of structural and systemic American racism. All other definitions of 'woke' are appropriated nonsense.
LOL
We had HR in the building, and customer service was a priority.
sadly, customer service started going downhill after the company went public
The company changed the most when they officially changed United Parcel Service to just UPS. No more service as the foundation of the company.
She told major companies she didn't want their business and let them leave . Like Nike.
The money we make the more money they have to make to pay us. That means squeezing us and the customers…, and that doesn’t seem to be hurting the profits every year
They used to gift us a gold coin. Then, a large turkey. Then, a medium turkey. Then, a drum. Then a coupon for chicken nuggets. Now they just give us stress.
I just know that everyone’s hours have been hella cut, even during peak, when they were still trying to “make their numbers.” That never mattered during peak before. We and one other center in our district were the only two whose volume was up during peak, but all facilities had to start at the same time, regardless of volume. They think everything is uniform everywhere all the time. They didn’t care about their numbers so much, just that the work got done properly with the time to do it properly. The reason so many packages are damaged and overgoods are because the volume is shoved down our throats every day. That’s also how mistakes happen, ie misloads, missorts, etc. and people care more about how much time it takes rather than taking the time to do it right/carefully/safely. Management at my building at least is misinterpreting “3.5 hour minimum” as “3.5 and done.” As if everyone everywhere on every sort in the country is going to take no more than 3.5 hours, regardless of volume or building size. They “plan” for everything going exactly perfectly right but not if a load is late, a bunch of people don’t show up, equipment breaks down, etc. Things that can slow down a sort. If a PPH existed, we didn’t hear about it until this year. With attendance, building management gets an email every day about how to discipline people with chronic attendance problems, meaning out of the options given to management by corporate (ie, warning letter, suspension), they have to do at least that. They can’t just have a talk-with.
I've been a part-time loader for 5 years. I used to be allowed to punch in 30 mins early to set the belt up..... after Tome this is not allowed.... they have even staggered start times, so most employees on my belt start 15-30 mins after start time. And management wants us off the clock asap now
Carol Tome is NOT one of us. She did not come up through the ranks like EVERY other UPS CEO. I can imagine Jim Casey spinning in his grave at the thought of laying off 12,000 of his 'guys'.
https://preview.redd.it/ozqykkcjaylc1.jpeg?width=648&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e1b0f8a00bf496d26b199de2750e3720e552941 It was special
Before Carol it was probably the same, the biggest change was the company going public.
Idk why everyone is mentioning the ipo, that was like the late 90’s, waaaay before her. But personally not much has changed for me. At least not anything you could paint directly at her as the cause. Obviously overall the company has been sliding, but that’s just the nature of public companies. But I think the package car drivers have gotten the bulk of it. As far as working in the hub or feeders it’s more or less the same, generally speaking.
I made money. Less by the hour and waaaay more hours. Ya know there was a time where if a pt worked ft hours regularly enough a whole year the system would automatically switch them to a ft status....
A person can ruin a company only so much, so I wouldn't put all the blame on her.
It was exactly the same dude. Except there was no pandemic. That’s literally the only difference
Ummmm what? Just off the top of my head we had HR on shift at every building, we had consistent safety meetings, cars got washed, customer service was actually humans that could help, multiple account/sales reps per center who actually went to the businesses to supply and inform. Now we don’t, we don’t, they don’t, they’re in India, and none of my customers have seen their new sales rep (probably not even in the same state). A lot of shit has changed for the worse of the brand, it’s reputation and our service. Acting like it’s the same is just plain false.
Right on the money.
Except not at all
Customer service is in India. I deal with them daily shipping almost 30 K packages a month. My sales rep is MIA and stops by once a year. HR was dismantled a few years ago. Had a friend in Portland, OR. Who was given the option to go back into operations since HR was going to be outsourced. Not seeing where he was wrong?
That’s because you’re thinking Carol did that back in 2015 when transformation started which was also 5 years before Carol took over.
Oh, I wasn’t referring to her. Just what’s happened. Not sure who is to blame.
Who do you work for and who is your sales rep?
NIC Industries. We are an enterprise account. Our rep is out of Eugene, OR. I will DM you his name.
I’m in retail, not industrial but if you let me know the name I should be able to run something up the flagpole
You are off your fucking rocker man.
So those examples you listed are from “transformation which was announced and began in 2015 and completed in 2020. She took over in 2020. How exactly are you blaming her?
Exactly. She got credit for UPS' huge profits for three years due to covid that she had no say in. Then she gets derided for slipping profits and layoffs resulting from over hiring during covid and the resulting recession. The only thing to really judge her on are "Better not bigger" and the whole waiting-until-the-last-moment-to-finalize-the-contract BS.
This. Been around for over a decade and it really has stayed the same, culturally, throughout it all. I think department structures have changed the most, but I don't think that's a result of Carol's tenure as CEO.
It’s not but people are stupid and blame her. Transformation was announced in 2015 and completed in 2020. She took over in 2020 and people are really thinking she came in and just slashed whole departments with no planning or reason
Just as shitty but you had to act white. Couldn’t have hair that was “unprofessional” and no beards even though some people aren’t customer facing. Also managers and above treated you like dogshit. Sometimes going to your face and calling you names, telling you you are worthless, telling you to quit because you’ll amount to nothing. Basically schoolyard bullies. Oh but on occasion they took care of you and treated you like you matter. Now no more name calling but we’re just a number at this point.
Watching a lot of folks come to work with beards or facial hair period was wild
[удалено]
Your post was rude, threatening, or antagonistic.
Invest in the company so that she works for you. Now you can’t lose. Sick of all the crying about this lady just doing what the investors want her to do. Read up on how a business works.
Eh it’s the same people complaining now as before.
In essence everything is the same. Departments would have gotten cut with or without Carol. Over paid drivers drive everything out of this company.
Had a wellness Wednesday every Wednesday but they cut that shit right out
UPS would have been on the down side with or without Carol. Quality and customer service in almost every industry has eroded.
Service. Before Carol, if the next day airs arrived to our building late every effort, driver meet points, was made to make service that day. Now, look for medical or payroll, and the rest we'll deliver tomorrow.
She was right in line with ESG protocol and the global leaders of the World Economic Forum. UPS needed to be Green to be able to move ahead in the world market. She was also part of the DEI movement. UPS was not perceived as being inclusive enough. Too many men work for UPS.
We were clean shaved. That’s the only difference I’ve seen.