Dumbest thing a supervisor has done?

[scratch]

We had a Swingdriver who had turned in her letter of intent. On one of her last days as an hourly, she backed into a customer's overhead door at a dock and tore it completely off. She just drove off, didn't report it at all. She went on to be one of the worst supervisors I have ever seen, and is now a Center Manager somewhere else.1

 

[ups_vette]

I don't know who the supervisors were, but the dumbest thing they have done was to hire some of the posters ( who shall remain nameless) on this board.

 

[trickpony1]

....and would that include persons such as yourself that assume others are gay based on the nature of their posts?.....and, of course, you "....don't have a problem with that.".

 

[david]

One day a the corner of a smalls bag got caught in the belt. We couldn't get it out, so I asked the Supervisor to call for a mechanic to get it out. The Sup told me to turn the belt back on until the mechanic arrived. "What harm could it do?" he asked.
Immediately after the belt went back on, the bag was pulled another foot into the rollers, damaging several other packages. "Oh," the supervisor said.

 

[tieguy]

One of the dumbest things we often do is to to show someone some kindness. We usually end up paying for it in some way. Thus you will often hear a mangement person especially a labor guy use the expression " no kind deed goes unpunished"

Driver screws up. We give him a break because he is a "nice guy" a "good guy" who cares about the job he does. Low and behold that guy will repay us by either screwing up again or jamming us when we really need him.

Has happened more often then I would care to admit. Something to think about when the company man draws the line in the sand and gives no ground or shows no mercy.

Don't worry though we in the management ranks are gluttons for punishment. We will make this mistake many times over.

 

[mrbill]

The word "kindness" is not even in the UPS VOCAB.Its real hard to make a mistake sitting in the office following every drivers second of the day to see how many times they make a mistake.GPS IS REALLY NEEDED TO HELP DRIVERS FIND STREETS TO DELIVER!!!! They deal with a lot more elements out in the REAL WORLD. Ten thousand plus pounds of packages, 150 stops, 130 degree temps in the summer in vehicle, finally got fans,WOW, 0 degree winters, 11 hour days and of course all the perfect drivers out there in the world. I am sure I missed some.
Just some of the every day facts of being the perfect person!!!

 

[trickpony1]

I have found there are two types of management people:

1) The first type are the kind that I really enjoy working with/for. They are here for the same reason we are....the money, not the zen, not the metaphysics and not the adrenalin rush. They, more often than not, went into management to get the heck out of package cars. They, most likely, have been screwed by management and feel there is a different way to relate to the worker, that being kindness, fairness and the realization that nobody, including themselves, is/are perfect. These people are real humans whose actions/deeds/words convey the essence of a decent human being who may believe in a higher power. Noticeably, they may not want to be promoted/advanced up the ladder of "success" and may, at some point, have been demoted for refusing to execute an order from on high. These are the people that I would go to great lengths to help out, to get them out of a bind as they have so graciously done for me.

2) Then there is the supervisor(s) who it is common knowledge not to turn your back on. They are mindless automatons whose only goal is to retire rich and in an elevated postion and who feel no guilt for their actions. They will not go to bat for an employee because they don't want to rock the boat and place the primrose image their boss has of them in peril. They are strictly "yes" men and, if in a group of their peers, will NOT be the first to say hello to an hourly person passing by. These are the people that so illustrate the philosophy, "if what you have doesn't make you happy, don't be surprised if no one else wants it.", because they are clearly not happy.

I fully expect some management posters to rip my opinion to shreds but, before they do, they may want to decide which of the aforementioned management persons they are.

 

[tieguy]

Not sure what I am supposed to rip to shreds on this one.

You don't think I trust every management person I work with or for do you?

 

[ups_vette]

trick...

I have an observation and a few questions on you most lenghty and opionated types of management.

My observation is you didn't give a percentage of management that fall within your two types. I'm certain your assesment (knowing your bias from previous posts) is that 99% of management fall within one of your types.

My question is how many types of drivers do you believe there are , which type do you feel you fall in, and what is the percent of each type?

Thanking you in advance for your quick and honest reply.

 

[cachsux]

I saw the feeder division manager at the Cach facility driving a shifter horse during a peak "emergency" period. He went next door to the BNSF railyard and promptly brought back the wrong tlr,a fully loaded outgoing box. No biggie just 2000+ service failures. His penalty =zippo,yet he loves trying to fire drivers for the least little thing he can think of.

A full time feeder manager was going on the street,also during this peak period. 2am on a cold monday chicago winter morning naturally is a tad cold,his problem? Frozen brakes on a 28 ft flat pup. His solution,to drag the tlr down the length of the outbound wing at a high rate of speed before giving up an calling for a mechanic who arives and tells him the load ain`t going anywhere now that it has 3 flat tires. The managers response is to threaten the mech`s job for not magically fixing the tlr.
His penalty=zippo.

 

[mrbill]

We had a guy who worked 24 hours straight and they did not even figure it out

 

[spidey]

My sup told a new hire she would not qualify him if he called in *one more time* during his 30 days.

This one could be the new hires fault. If you have an employee who is showing within the first 30 days that they can't be counted on you have to do what you can to impress upon them that they need to change before ALL OF US are stuck with them. If he were sick all the previous days, really sick, all that would have been needed was a note from a doc. If he overslept 1 day the first week and called in sick twice the 2nd it's the sups job to let them know when they call in Monday am of the 3rd week they need to come in or find something else to do for a living. The fact that they were really sick is secondary if they abused the call ins previously.

Every center has the employee that the other hourlys have to pick up the slack for over and over again. If you can weed them out before they make senority it makes the job better for everyone.

 

[aspenleaf]

Spidey, I agree however he was really sick - I'd rather have a call in than a coworker throwing up on the boxline (which he was).

 

[Airstrike]

When I was first hired I worked with a loader who was extremely hyper. He would continuously punch the walls of trailers, metal slides, oh and 'boxes.' Not just punching boxes mind you - but also surfing down the rollers on top of one, or jumping off of the rollers and giving flying elbows to boxes or just propelling his entire body into a wall of helpless merchandise. Yes, everyone including our supervisor and our Lead supervisor knew he did this and he never got so much as written up for it.
Then one day an axe with only a flimsy loose cardboard flap over half of the blade happens to come down the belt and into our trailer. What does this employee do you might ask? Well, he hacks away at about 4 or five boxes with a huge smile on his face, at which time i immediately leave the trailer to go to the 'restroom' I was scared to death of this guy. When I returned there were now two holes in the sides of the trailer, you could see all the way through, and the axe currently was stuck in the floor of the trailer, he couldn't get it out While I was away apparantly three people had joined in on all of the fun!!! and seemed to be urging him on. The head of security happened to walk by at that moment.

BEST PART YET TO COME:

This individual was immediately fired, however, those good ole' teamsters got him his job back two months later, when he said he was "pressured" by people on our belt to do what he did. And then less than a year later he became a SUPand he still IS!!!!!!!

 

[bisongolfer]

however, those good ole' teamsters got him his job back two months later

This would need to fall under Dumbest thing a driver has done, because the good ole' teamsters should have never wasted anyone's time trying to get this guy his job back. There are some things worth defending, and some not. But hey...is anyone really suprised?, I think not...

 

[Thetopper]

OK, hope you all are sitting down reading this one but here is the dumbest of the dumb. We had a H.R. supervisor who was put in his position strictly on the basis of his....merit....well the geneous didnt know what to do with the extra holiday birds that were ordered. The good news, he donated them to charity. The bad news, he had them stored for OVER 16 MONTHS before he decided which charity. But he at least he was bright enough to pay for cold storage, with UPS's money. Darn those H/R guys dont have enough time over 16 MONTHS to make a phone call or a decision.

 

[rod]

Well at least he put them in cold storage unlike our sup who locked them in a storage closet in the managers office. That was on a friday and the following tuesday when they started to stink he remembered them.

 

[nkprescott]

A few years back now we had an on-road-sup who succumed to pressure from the next higher level of incompentence, his boss that is. Anyway he was forced to do a very extended route and demonstrate to a 35yr driver that his route could not possibly take as long as this 35 yr pro safely did routinely. The sup on his way back from the mountains was puttin the pedal to the metal, encountered on-coming vehicle, had to get on the brakes hard, lost control of the P37 because of wheel hop on washboarded dirt roads, rolled the truck, fortunately was not injured seriously, and of course had missed pkgs. Needless to say he was on the fast-track to a very short career at UPS. By the way, the 35yr pro retired with the distinguished Circle of Honor award. 35 years of safe driving, never a service failure, way to go Bill. We decided not to file a greivance for management doing hourly work because of SURPRISE, failing again to adaquetly staff the workforce. The naive sup had suffered enough, he's lucky to be alive!

 

[tieguy]

"Last best final offer" for those were around in "97".

that one fits in both catagories sup and drivers.

 

[sendagain]

Thirty five years without a service failure? I know drivers who couldn't go thirty five hours without a service failure. That will sound good at his retirement party, but there'll be some snickering to go with it.