I love it when UPS shoots themselves in the head. I don’t know how many years you have to go to college to lose contact with the real world, but UPS management must be in a post graduate program. 

     Here is the latest brainstorm by management. Anyone who works 3 days over 9.5 hours has to take the 4th day off. That’s punishment. A day off without pay. They always think that anyone working excessive hours is doing so intentionally to rip off the company. And the best way to punish that scumbag is to send them home without pay. 

     They never even consider that maybe the dispatch is f****d up and that maybe they are sending this driver out with too much work. Oh no, this guy is ripping the company off and they are going to pay him back by sending him home. 

     The part that they don’t understand is that anyone working 3 days over 9.5 probably WANTS the day off. And they can afford it.  And it’s a contract violation since the drivers are guaranteed eight hour a day. 

     Unless you mutually agree to go home without pay, a simple grievance will get you paid for that day. So what they think is a great way to punish the drivers they don’t like is really a contract violation and a welcome blessing to any driver working too many hours. In fact, maybe you could go over 9.5 every Tues, Weds and Thurs and get a nice 3 day weekend whenever you need it. 

     It must take a college education to come up with this kind of a program.    
    

     Life at Brown has been interesting over the last couple of years. Given the economic downturn, a number of things have happened due to the financial stresses the company has been under.
     Management promotions have essentially been stopped. The usual movement of management has also been stopped. Everyone basically has been told they will be successful where they are or they will be gone. The question would be, what has happened to the drivers? The most noticeable would be the lack of new hires, but everyone continues to work, and through attrition, no one has suffered an extended layoff.
     Management has had to pay more for their benefit package. Their “out of pocket” cost has increased in order for the company to offset some of their costs of providing benefits. What have the drivers faced? No change in the benefit package and it’s cost to the drivers. It’s a very good thing at a bad time. Of course it raised the eyebrows of management.
     Management has taken a decrease in wage levels. No raises were given, and rumor was that most management actually took a pay cut. The drivers on the other hand not only kept their wage levels intact, but were awarded all contractual wage increases provided for under the contract. It wasn’t for the lack of the company asking.
     Given these changes that have occurred in the last couple of years, what would you think will come next?
     Let me again remind you of a very special year. 2013. That is the year of the expiration of the Teamster/UPS contract. July 31st to be exact. Would any self respecting driver expect that management will take all of these cuts, then turn around and give the hourlys wage and benefit increases? Also with the competitive climate the way it is, would any driver expect the company to maintain wage levels when the nearest competition is taking wage cuts, and benefit cuts across the board?
     There is such a thing as pricing one’s self out of the market. While you would never hear the Teamsters make such a forecast, (it would be political suicide), the worries have been expressed behind closed doors.
     So back to that “self respecting driver”. Without involvement both politically, and within the Union, the s.r. driver is going to take a hit in those contract negotiations. The support can’t suddenly come on the 30th of July, 2013, it has to happen in the years preceding the expiration of the contract. The more formidable front the Teamsters present, the less demanding the company will be upon negotiation time.
     That includes an increase in Union membership outside the company. One of the biggest fears of large corporation is the “boots on the ground” mentality of the Unions. If the corporations are successful in reducing the membership of the Unions to a meaningless number of people, they will win. Your wages go down, your benefits disappear, and you get to do the job of being a driver with the same amount of hassle, for less, and less benefit.
     We all need to wake up to the “Ogre in the den”. The corporations want you to believe the “Ogre” is the government. 
                             The “Ogres” are the Corporations. Wake up!

     I love to look into my mind’s eye. As long as I hide out inside my head, I am whatever I want to be. When I’m in there it’s easy for everyone else to see what a wonderful, thoughtful, all knowing, tough, individualist I am. 
     I am never influenced from the outside because I know what’s right and wrong in my mind’s eye. I am terribly intelligent also in my mind’s eye. I get to treat other people the way I think they should be treated in my mind’s eye.
     I am the toughest person on earth in my mind’s eye. Since I know best, I get to spout whatever I want. I know I am right to be a racist in my mind’s eye. Since I know everything, I get to tell everyone how screwed up the government is, and what the solution to everything the government does, would be. My mind’s eye tells me who is right, (they’re right if they agree with my vast intellect), so I know what and who to listen to, and who is a truth distorting jerk. I know all of that in my mind’s eye.
     In my mind’s eye I believe the Unions are all crooked. I believe what I have heard about them because I once had that thought, and they take my money every month, and of course I know everything in my mind’s eye. When I heard some talking head radio guy say it also, I knew he was right because my “all knowing” mind’s eye had already had that thought.
     I am so worth the money I get for what I do, I don’t need the unions to negotiate on my behalf. It is how I see myself in my mind’s eye. I am the best driver ever, and no one can compare to how expert I am at whatever I do, in my mind’s eye. The company would pay me double what I get, if they only knew my value the way my mind’s eye knows my value.
     Listening and learning are not necessary for me, because I am the smartest person on earth. Nobody that disagrees with me should ever question what I think. Don’t they know I am the smartest person in the universe in my mind’s eye? I know how stupid everyone else is, and by damned if they try to question what I think and say, I have the obligation to shout them down, and call them stupid. I know I’m just a driver, but I should be king of the universe, and control all thought with my incredible powers in my mind’s eye.
     I hear people say that I am easily influenced by what I hear, and that I wouldn’t help my own mother cross the road. What they don’t know is that I would let them all starve to death, but my mother would never have to worry in my mind’s eye.
     I want my mommy, in my mind’s eye.

     We all know people with this type of mentality. They usually hide in the background, but leap to the front when they feel empowered. They will never come forth for the people that fight on their behalf because their ego is such that they think they are owed what they have. After all, they are the most important people in the world “in their mind’s eye”.
                We all know where they keep their “mind’s eye”.

     I can see it coming. The end of the gravy train is approaching. The 2013 contract negotiations will tell the tale on the Teamsters that work for Brown. My prediction is that the company is prepared to stomp the living daylights out of the drivers. They are after all the highest paid and compensated drivers in the small package trades division.
     The company has all ready set up the, “we need you to give back for us to remain competitive”, mentality. Given the layoffs, and production pushes currently going on, the only end result can be give backs by the employees.
     We have talked long and hard on these pages about supporting your union, supporting your negotiators, and voting “Labor friendly” politicians. Many drivers just continue to ignore the need for the support of the rank and file.
     Many drivers think the union isn’t necessary, and are in for a rude awakening when the wrecking ball comes to town in 2013. It will be interesting to hear them whine when they reduce wages by 5 bucks an hour. It’ll be interesting to hear them whine when they have to pay 3 grand a year for their healthcare per person. It’ll be interesting when their pension benefits are reduced, or better yet, dropped entirely.
     What a waste of a good thing. What a waste of many good Teamster’s efforts.
                                                      What a waste of a good life!

    
     Are you keeping in shape by working at UPS? I always used to think that the job provided me with enough exercise that I didn’t have to worry about staying fit. Afterall, no one out there physically works as hard as a UPS driver. And if the exercise doesn’t get you, the suana effect will. 
     But not everyone agrees that a UPS driving job provides an adequate amount of exercise. In this article, The Top 5 Fittest Professions , some experts don’t call what a UPS driver does “exercise”. They call it “movement”. 

     “According to Dan McMackin at United Parcel Service, the average UPS driver walks about 4.5 miles and moves thousands of pounds worth of packages each day.

But fitness instructor Matt Probst of Akron’s RP Fitness counters, “I wouldn’t consider it exercise. I would consider it movement. In order to fully stimulate a muscle to grow, it must be pushed to the point of failure. You’d have to carry the packages until you physically can’t take another step.”

     Obviously the fitness instructor from Akron never worked for UPS. If his definition of exercise is being “pushed to the point of failure” and  “physically can’t take another step”, then working for UPS certainly qualifies as exercise.

     It’s the holy grail of exercise.
      

     Every person on earth has a general idea of what they think is honest. To some people, honesty is a hard and fast set of rules a person lives by without ever stretching or straining the rules. The rules of honesty are absolute, and are never a line that can be crossed.
     To other people, honesty is just sort of a guideline to follow. How closely that person follows the rules of honesty is directly related to how dangerous it is that they will be caught, and what the cost to them would be if they are caught.
     For most people there are levels of honesty, and dishonesty. Something slightly dishonest to one person, may be a cardinal sin to another.
     The interesting discussion comes when we talk about what is cardinal dishonesty within the company. Each of us first must understand the goal of this company is the “bottom line”. If something  makes the company more profitable, it is good. Anything that costs the company money, such as return trips, extra handling, lost revenue, public perception, is bad.
     From within the company comes another decision of the “Lord and Master” about what “honesty” is. Most drivers are under the misconception that the Teamsters/UPS contract in some way dictates all of these issues. The reality is, it only dictates the discipline the company can take if an act is deemed dishonest. There is no hard and fast language to say what would be considered a dishonest act.     
     Usually the decision over a driver committing a dishonest act comes after an evaluation in the mind of the company about the past history of the driver. Many times dishonest acts go unpunished because a driver runs under allowed, or is a swing driver, or has buttered up management somewhere along the line. Let the staunch union driver get caught in anything considered dishonest and out comes the righteous indignation from them about how any person could be so dishonest, and so dirty and cheap, that they could perform such a hideous act. Right away, they will leap to the language in the contract that allows them to terminate a driver for dishonesty. They will fly the flag of righteousness, about how every driver is expected to be held to a higher standard, and that no one is above reproach for committing a dishonest act.
     As we all understand, that flag only comes out when the “Lord and Master” says it needs to be waved. Usually an act has been committed millions of times prior to a termination, and very often has been encouraged  before a termination occurs.
     We saw that occasion recently with the terminations over late air. Most of the drivers involved were taught  to sheet potential late air as a delivery discrepancy, then make what looks like a second attempt after the air commit times. It was a practice that went on for many years. 
     Suddenly, with the advent of Telematics, the act of cheating on air commit times became obvious. People were terminated for dishonesty on a number of occasions. Several were unable to get their jobs back because the company said their dishonesty was “so blatant”. The fact is, until recent time, the act was promoted by the company because it saved money, and prevented the company from having to reimburse the customers for air delivered after the commit times. Something they promoted and guaranteed in their advertising. 
     The occasion above is just one example. I would call it “Corporate Honesty”. Again our lives are dictated by the “bottom line”.
      Real honesty is really only a function of money according to them. Real morals are decided by their profitability, not their effect on society. The decisions that are made, regarding honesty and morals, have little to do with people in our corporate society. They are made according to the ability of a corporation to make money.
                  If cheating is profitable, it is good. If cheating costs money, it is bad.
               Isn’t it still cheating? I guess only God, and the “Lord and Master” know!