UPS drivers were voted the “dumbest people on earth” at the annual gathering of the Society of Industrial Engineers. Citing widespread newspaper accounts detailing how the Engineers had restructured all UPS routes to make only right hand turns (thus saving the delivery giant millions of dollars), the Society also named themselves the “smartest people on earth.”
        “If we hadn’t invented Package Flow Technology and introduced UPS Telematics when we did, UPS would be in the crapper right now,” said Tony Bologna, spokesman for the group. “UPS drivers had been running their routes for almost 100 years and never realized that right hand turns were easier to make than left hand turns. And they thought leaving the bulkhead door open saved them time. How dumb are can they be?“
        “All these UPS drivers thought they were so smart when they sat up their own routes and ran them,” Bologna added, “but we just sat down with a map and a magic marker and showed them to be the dumbest people on earth. The new routes, designed by the industrial engineering department, are models of efficiency. Who needs area knowledge when you have Google Earth?”
        A special award went to former CEO and industrial engineer Mike Eskew, for his role in elevating the Industrial Engineering Dept. at UPS to the rank of Godliness. “No one questions the word of IE at UPS,” Bologna noted, “when we speak, it’s as if God Himself has spoken.” Bologna glossed over the fact that UPS stock has been flat for the last 5 years, noting that Eskew was an engineer, not a “Goddamn financial wizard.”
        A large number of UPS drivers picketed the gathering. They held a demonstration on the sidewalk outside the building, singing songs and carrying signs. One poster read ‘Right Hand Turns are for Cowards’. Others sang a stirring rendition of Willie Nelson’s “Momma, don’t let your babies grow up to be engineers.”

        We live in a world of new technology. Every day we are confronted with some new fangled gadget that is supposed to simplify our lives. I remember when a 4-function calculator would draw a crowd, and a cordless telephone was a figment of somebody’s imagination.
        Today we are surrounded by high tech gadgets in our day-to-day lives at home and at work. Life at UPS in the 70’s was very different from a technological standpoint. Deliveries were recorded on a pad of paper. You recorded the 6-digit shipper number and the address. Every package needed a signature so there were no driver-release options. If you ran a residential route you were expected to make at least three indirect attempts on any package in order to prevent a send again. The company had an allowable amount of send agains for each day. You had to call in your stops “off”, and your stops “to go”, and the “number of send agains”. Very often you would be asked to go back and make a second attempt on packages to reduce your send agains.
        You became very good at scanning an entire street for signs of life in order to get rid of your packages. The most innovative change at UPS was the creation of “driver release”, where no signature is required for residential deliveries. The company finally realized that it was going to be physically impossible to obtain a signature for every package. Couple that with the cumbersome ability to search paper records by hand for proof of delivery and you can see why we have come to the technology of today.
        Had UPS not taken the initiative to computerize, we would certainly not exist in today’s economy. Technology has had a very interesting effect on the company. Many drivers feared the loss of their jobs with the implementation of the DIAD. They thought the company could reduce routes to the point that many drivers would lose their jobs. That just didn’t happen.
        Today many drivers are thinking that they will lose their jobs because of PAS. The reality couldn’t be farther from the truth. Technology has served to reduce management positions, not drivers. In the 70’s there was one supervisor for every seven drivers. WOR’s, (work operation reports), were written in pencil. The office people that did the calculations had to wear guards on their sleeves to keep the pencil lead from soiling their clothes.
        Today the WOR is a computer printout. What people were eliminated by this technology? Management. All of the people who did the calculations for your previous day were laid off or transferred. All of the management required to manage the operation under that system were bought out in the largest management reduction push in the history of UPS.
        Today we function in our centers at a level of about one supervisor for 20 drivers. In some locations it is one for 30. The true fact is that technology has replaced management, not the trained driver. In fact the driver has become more valuable because of the cost and difficulty in training new people. If you watch you will see that the percentage of drivers that qualify for driver jobs has dropped. It is very difficult for new people to grasp the nuances of the DIAD, and being able to make proper deliveries. You and I do it every day without thinking, but to the outsider it’s as foreign as a kangaroo.
        My point to you here is that the new technologies make us more valuable. The elimination of management by technology will continue. The frightening thing for the driver is that we will be managed from afar more and more. Some unknown creature sitting behind a computer terminal in Atlanta will dictate our dispatch without any contact to the operation or the people involved.
        You see it daily with the adding or elimination of cars today based on the required stops per car arbitrarily chosen by the “Lord and Master”. Eventually their will be no one to complain to that has any power to affect any changes. Local management will only be there to serve up discipline, and make sure that people show up. (Sounds like today doesn’t it?) The “Lord and Master” will make every decision.
        Does this all sound like a Sci-Fi movie? Is the movie titled…. PAS
        You’re living it today! Look around you!
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     This article was written in 2006 about the implementation of PAS. Today’s article would probably be about Telematics. Every place it says PAS, plug in the word Telematics, and you would see that nothing has changed. The new technology has served to replace management. Drivers that can do the job are even more valuable today than in 2006.
     A driver has nothing to worry about until they create a Robot that can drive, and deliver. Of course the “Lord and Master” is alive and well.

     Every driver that works for UPS will eventually have to deal with harassment from management. No matter how good you run, or how much you promote the company, management will always find a reason to get on your case.
     If you are lucky enough to have a decent sup. or center manager, the level of harassment will be tolerable. If you happen to be unlucky enough to have the Soul selling, go getting, “the world is all about my success”, type of manger, or supervisor, you could be in for the fight of your life.
     Many of the latter type of management cares little for you, your family, or your life. They are all about making themselves look good. They don’t care if the job gets done by cheating, they are all about themselves looking good, and moving themselves ahead.
     These management types do not care if you get hurt, or damage the company’s image with the customer, or even if you sell the company. All they care about is making themselves look good in the eyes of the “Lord and Master”.
     Whatever the situation, they will not be on your side. Given even the smallest situation, they will corner you, write you up, terminate you, scream and yell at you, and basically attack you as if you are a child with an abusive daddy.
     So what’s a self-respecting driver to do?
     The first thing is to remember that you have the Teamsters behind you. Never talk to any manager, particularly this type, without a steward present. These guys function with a, “anything you say will be used against you” attitude. The steward should be able to control the situation, and keep you from being needlessly attacked.
     The second thing to remember is the “Article 37” grievance. While these grievances rarely go very far, it opens the door for you to give it back to the sh-t head manager or supervisor, and also wastes a great deal of their time. I always felt that it also prevented them from harassing someone else, since they had to be in the office meeting with you.
     The third, and most important thing to remember is to communicate what these management types are doing to you, to the drivers around you. Once the rest of the drivers get wind of the type of person they are dealing with, the hammer will come down. Drivers will cease to do any favors for the jerk, and very often they will get moved to another center, or position because the center begins to look bad for whatever reason.
     I have seen many a bad-a– manger change their spots because they just can’t get anything done.
     Many drivers have a very difficult time dealing with the harassment. They get upset. They don’t sleep. They take their anxiety out at home. They start to say, and do stupid things in the hope of getting retaliation on the a–wipe manager. That is when the management JA wins. That is when many drivers get fired for doing something stupid.
     It takes a great deal of mental strength not to let the boss get to you. Remember to do your job as trained. No more, no less. Stick to the methods, be where you are supposed to be, and ride it out. Eventually the a–hole will head off to an easier target. They have a quota of discipline, and harassment that they need to live up to. They cannot afford to be attacking a driver that is doing their job, because they begin to look bad for wasting time in the grievance procedure, only to look bad in the end.
     The last thing to remember is that eventually that manager or supervisor will go away. Each driver needs to remember what it felt like when they were the guy under the gun. Remember how good it felt when the other drivers came to your aid, (and the steward also). When it’s the next guys turn to be singled out, be sure to be there for him or her, as they were for you.
     Oh Yeah, one last thing. If you have a manager or supervisor that treats you well, pay them back. Make it worth their effort to be honest with you, and make your working environment decent. Taking advantage of the guy that treats you decently, only opens the door for the jacka–.