Who is UPS CEO Scott Davis kidding?

In this recent video, Mr. Davis claims that the United States leads the world in exports.

Say what?

In this US government report by the CIA, the European Union was ranked first, China second and Germany third. The US ranked 4th based on 2009 estimates.

And it was reported earlier this year with some fanfare that China had in fact taken over the number one spot. China is now the world’s leading exporter of manufactured goods.

I don’t think this comes as a surprise to anyone, except maybe Scott Davis.

The handheld device that UPS drivers use as the primary tool of their trade is getting smaller and smarter. It could soon be as small as a fancy remote control.

UPS and Honeywell International announced Wednesday they are creating a new device – called the DIAD V, or Delivery Information Acquisition Device, fifth-generation.

Brown-clad drivers use the DIADs to scan packages on pick-up, track them during transit and confirm delivery. The devices also have route maps and can send messages to redirect drivers. FedEx drivers use a similar device.

Next year, after testing is completed, 100,000 devices will begin to hit the streets worldwide. The primary improvement is a new microprocessor that can support video, a camera and a navigation system. The camera could be used to confirm delivery or the condition of a package, UPS said.

It’s the first time Honeywell, the Morris Township, N.J.-based technology company, will create a DIAD for UPS. Three previous devices were made by Motorola, and the most recent one, the DIAD IV, was made by Symbol Technologies, a company Motorola has since bought, UPS spokeswoman Donna Longino said.

Sandy Springs-based UPS was the first shipping company to give a sophisticated technology to their drivers back in 1991, said Longino. The first devices were the size of a clipboard, she said.

The devices that will be deployed next year will weigh only 1.3 pounds and measure 3.5 inches across, about half the size of what’s in the field now, she said.

UPS spent about $22 million to develop the DIAD IV that is currently in use, Longino said. She would not reveal the cost to develop and deploy the newest version.

Doug Caldwell, a principal with ParcelResearch.com, an Oregon-based small package consultancy, said delivery is where things tend to go wrong in the package delivery business.

So the better the quality of the technology certainly leads to a better delivery which is the make-or-break situation for individual package delivery.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In a move that underlines the company’s need for “belt-tightening” in a gradually-recovering economy, the world’s leading package delivery shipper, the Atlanta-based United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS), intends laying-off as least 300 pilots.

The proposed lay-offs – which will comprise nearly 11 percent of UPS’ 2,800 pilots – will take effect in May, in case the company, in consultation with its employees union, fails to work out a way to increase its savings.

Already in the process of slashing 1,800 small-package jobs in US operating districts, UPS averted the pilot layoffs last year, largely because it was working jointly with the Independent Pilots Association to identify ways to reduce its operating costs. An agreement for $131 million in labor concessions over a three-year period had forestalled the layoff situation last year.

If the talks come to a naught, the pilots to be furloughed will be intimated in May, and 170 of them will likely be laid-off this year alone.

Commenting on the company’s need to take the pilot layoff route, UPS Airlines President Bob Lekites said: “Even though the economy has begun to turn around, UPS anticipates a very gradual recovery and a continued need for belt-tightening.” Lekites added that the layoff is “a painful decision for our people, but one that is right for the on-going health of our business.”
TopNewsNetwork

                                         Here is a story from 2008 that just begs to be repeated.
Enjoy…

    When employees conduct informational picketing, they hope to raise public awareness of their workplace problems and send a message to the employer.
    But a Thursday march involving about 50 ASTAR Air Cargo pilots outside UPS’s Atlanta headquarters reached different eyes: A UPS software engineer on lunch decided to join the protest and, after leaving the picket line, resigned on the spot when approached back at work by two security workers and two Human Resources staffers.
    Tony Bordoli said by phone Friday he came upon the picketing while walking with a friend, and was touched when he saw a big sign on a vehicle that said the proposed UPS-DHL deal could devastate 10,000 families.
    “It affected me and there was something I knew that I could do about it, so I did. And I took a stance against an unethical action by my company. It’s probably not going to change things. I know I’m one person but it may slow it down,” Bordoli mused.
    Bordoli said his work was not related to the proposed contract, but that as a UPS software engineer in a financial office, he created programs that produced detailed analysis reports regarding which workers should have their hours cut.
    “I just felt I was really being used as a tool to devastate families and communities, and it was just simple. I mean, how could I not put the two together? I’m not going to be used as a tool to devastate families and communities anymore. I can’t conscientiously be a part of that,” said the 36-year-old Bordoli, who had worked at UPS for 10-plus years.
    In a way, the picketing indirectly woke me up,” he feels.
    He had been working on his current project for the past four months, said Bordoli, and had gotten to the “second plot point, if you will.”
    “It’s a big burden off my mind and off my back,” he said Friday concerning his decision to quit UPS. “Because I was feeling very conflicted with this particular project to begin with.”
    On Thursday evening, after joining the ranks of the unemployed, Bordoli did some research on the DHL-UPS deal and about the picketing ASTAR pilots in an attempt “to get more educated in what exactly I had chosen to do,” he chuckled.
    “And that’s when I was reassured that I was making the right decision,” he said.
    “This was by no means premeditated. I just went by my conscience when I saw the picketing, and the information of the families being devastated. It dawned on me that what I was doing by my actions, you know by my involvement, I wasn’t that far from that, you understand.”
    Bordoli said it may sound like a rash act and he admitted he did “get a little harshness this morning from my father.”
    “This time, I’ll pick a better company,” Bordoli said. “One that actually exercises proper social responsibility.”
    When he joined the picketing with the pilots, all in their pilots uniform, the picketers started asking him who he worked for?
    “I said UPS, and everyone, it was like a cheer moment,” he said.
    Later he told Human Resources staff and security in the stairwell that he was tendering his resignation, and let fall his UPS identification badge to the floor in protest.
    “I wish the cause well, because I have a family. You know, my family won’t be devastated from this because in the Atlanta area, I have marketable enough skills to quickly recover. So, I’m not worried about myself in particular. But I know things in our breadbasket up in Ohio, those guys are going through a lot more than I am. I’m actually fortunate,” said Bordoli.
    UPS spokesman Norman Black said Friday it is company policy not to publicly discuss individual personnel matters.
wnewsj.com

[Author’s note: I worked for UPS Corporate for about 2.5 years from 2005 to 2007. I made a lot of observations while working there. I thought I’d share them here in a series of never-ending articles. If I end up being assassinated for writing this article, I’ll leave the evidence in that place I left that thing that time before.

1. The people who handle your packages are known internally as “throwers.”
   
2. A UPS driver makes only left-handed turns, unless he’s stopping by to have sex with your wife – then any turn, left or right, is fair game.
   
3. UPS owns the patent to the color Pullman Brown. Any use of this color by anyone else is strictly prohibited.
   
4. Jim Casey, the UPS founder, got his start by delivering heroin to drug addicts, and by tailing people. Of course, in those days, it was all perfectly legal. Today, we would frown upon his shady shenanigans.
   
5. Each year, UPS displays a United Way fundraising progress meter on the wall of the entrance to corporate. Unfortunately, it resembles a giant, engorged penis.
   
6. You are allowed to have a maximum of fifteen items on your desk. In the old days, desk patrol would write tickets for disorderly desks. These days, your boss will indicate violations through passive-aggressive behavior.
   
7. Tyler Perry, playwright and creator of the character Madea, is a former UPS employee.
   
8. UPS is the largest shipper of pornography in the world.
   
9. There is a bell in the UPS lobby. The CEO rings it whenever some major event happens, like a layoff or an acquisition. If you (a non-CEO) ring the bell without a corresponding major event, you’re fired.
   
10. I wasn’t kidding about the roaches in the coffee machine.
    
11. Brad Brown is not Antony Bordoli, but I am jealous of the publicity Antony has received, just for quitting his job.
    
12. The frozen body of founder Jim Casey is in a cryogenic chamber in the documentation archive in the basement at corporate headquarters.
    
13. It’s illegal to send non-urgent letters via UPS. This allows the United States Postal Service to maintain their postal monopoly for the good of mankind.
    
14. UPS employees don’t get discounts on shipping, which is why the majority of UPS employees ship DHL.
    
15. UPS employee badges contain RFID tags, which allow the company to track employee movement throughout every corporate-owned building. If you spend more that five minutes per hour in the bathroom, you are severely penalized.
    
16. UPS was approached by the producers of the movie “Castaway.” The producers asked if UPS wanted to be the shipping company that would appear in the movie. UPS said “no.” FedEx said “yes.” The movie grossed 483 million dollars.
    
17. Some guy (we’ll call him Dick) retired after 35 years. Dick took a celebratory vacation to Hawaii where he promptly died on the fourth hole of his first round of golf after retirement.
    
18. When UPS first opened in Germany, they had a hard time attracting customers due to public perception. They finally determined that they weren’t popular with the Germans because the UPS uniforms looked too much like Hitler’s SS uniforms. Today, German delivery drivers wear red unitards.