Awwrrigghht!!! Good stuff Tie - Let's chop this up (you know what I mean) I am going to try and take a page out of your book Tie, and do this in a somewhat abbreviated fashion.
were you rewarded for your performance. How has your career gone.
Yes, I have been rewarded, not solely financially though. I have earned the respect and ear of quite a few of my management brethren. I have also been recognized professionally for my efforts. I am no longer looked at as someone who is disruptive, but a major contributor to the effort we all face every day. I go about it differently, and the road has been long, but you know the old saying - “I chose the road less traveled by, and it has made all the difference.”
wow break the union?
Bad choice of words? I would cop to that… but, I dunno...how do you say this lightly. I don't believe that we can compete with a union platform. There must be some compelling reason that we have been lobbying in DC all of these years; FedEx is classified differently than us. I don't think our motivation was to compete on a different scale, it was to level the playing field and ultimately see them organized, How many millions have we spent in that pursuit? That doesn’t seem to be a viable option anymore, so what next?
You could reasonably make an argument that the company is growing not being crippled. What measurement do you use in deterring the company is being crippled?
Good point - record profits, an outstanding credit rating and solid leadership status in our industry - this point is easily contested. My opinion-the return to shareholder has been very poor in the years since going public, also, the presence of competition in our marketplace has impacted us severely. We have a tremendous amount of strife and angst in our jobs that is eroding this company’s morale and efforts to move forward. Lastly, our work force is more educated and the big reward for a 25 year career is not nearly what it used to be, people leave UPS at a much higher rate than they used to, our competition is more than happy to take these folks and brain drain hurts a company that promotes from within.
I have to disagree with you on this one. You have no idea of the tremendous amount of pressure all management are under to achieve results. You really slap them in the face when you make this assessment from the outside.
How long do you have to work at UPS to not be considered from the outside. If someone has 40 years experience and you have 20, are you still from the outside? I am not from the outside, I have been here almost 14 years, 10+ when I wrote that in 2003. I feel the same pressures you do every day, we all do. You don't need to work at UPS for 10 years before you are considered an insider, you also don’t need to drive a package car to negotiate a contract - 2 years at any job will give you a very solid perspective of the company and its nuances. It doesn't mean that you have knowledge of every position in the company, but you will certainly know what is going on. Light from the outside can be a very good thing, that is why so many successful companies DON'T entirely promote from within.
sounds like positive qualities?
They are expected qualities. If someone were to come up for promotion it would be expected that they didn't do those things or they wouldn’t even be a consideration. For arguments sake, let's say that they were also indecisive, not well respected by their boss, peers or people. Let's also say that their performance overall in their respective areas was very poor and the performance indicators reflected a consistent track record of such. Could they still be promoted, of course - maybe they were passed over 3-4 times, but eventually they could very well find themselves in management. After all, they are trying the best that they can, right?
how can you be both? Your poor results for having the latter traits would seem to contradict your achieving the former traits?
How so? Many good people with solid character are completely overwhelmed by their jobs at UPS every day. It doesn't mean that they are late, won‘t cover vacation and aren’t really, really nice people, it just means that they are incapable of running the area that they have been assigned, and developing the people who are in their charge.
yez zer we jist gots done postin dat managment seniority list yisterday
Education is not found in textbooks. It is found in the interaction of ideas, wisdom and experiences of individuals. Individuals who have chosen to share the aforementioned in a manner that is respectful and open to the ideas of different people from all walks of life. Every religion, creed and color. It makes EVERY job easier because it gives the individual the ability to listen to almost anything without losing his/her temper or self confidence.
Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.
It is not the degree on the wall that allows one the ability to overcome difficult obstacles-it is what that degree represents.
No organization in the world can ever find itself in a position of having TOO many educated people in its employ.
Your basis for this assertion when you get done looking down your nose at us hicks.
Again; education makes EVERY job easier because it gives the individual the ability to listen to almost anything without losing his/her temper or self confidence. In short; I am not talking about any one person specifically on this issue, just an issue -
you just happen to take it personally. There is a big difference.
It would be interesting to see how you feel when you have 28 years of service and you're trying to hang on for two years while all those bright eyed youngsters and their new fangled computer toys run circles around you. Should we fire the old managers and sups when they are close to retirement?
You shouldn’t fire tenured management for the same reasons that you promote tenured management; solely because they are tenured. You should eliminate incapable management regardless of their tenure. Hire slow - fire fast.
oops answered that question.
Ditto.
You seem to indicate this traits are to be associated with a senior partner. Wouldn't that person be weeded out early. If they somehow slip through the cracks should we then discharge them when they are a couple of years away from retirement. Interesting case you are making here.
This is a toughie, you are dead right, many are tenured and close to retirement. The ultimate goal of any corporation is to make money, not be charitable. Return to the shareholder is king, period. The day we went public we stopped being a private club who made their own rules. Nobody who is a long time UPS employee wanted to see that MIP change, I mean nobody. Nobody wants our pension to go away, but eventually it will. The shareholders don’t care and they forced our hand. If we are going to compete in the world of big business, cuts have to be made, that is reality.
how do they make their millions? It would seem a company led by senioractacy would quickly fold?
No. It is too big to quickly fold, it can erode though. It can lose market share, suffer layoffs, cutbacks. It can reduce it’s bonus structure and also do away with it’s pension and it can also suffer a bad reputation that makes it hard to find good people. I think that this thread started with an innocent question-Is UPS really this bad?
I know I'm gratefull you have alerted us to this horror. I'm curious though how do you think this company survived and keeps posting record profits with such a screwed up management mentality?
Money begets money. How many years were we absolutely the only game in town. In many respects we are still the only carrier that does what we do on such a huge scale. We have never really measured ourselves against anyone else, so what pressure was there? How could you not make money? The game has changed.
and yet per your words you wish to reward this teamster work force by breaking the union getting rid of them?
See above. Question 2
No doubt you will lead us to your vision of a company that no longer values years of service and rewards our teamster employees by breaking their union. What will this phoenix that rises from these ashes look like. What will the management morale be like when they see their partners fired within years of retirement. How will our younger partners perform when they no longer have any old farts around to teach them how to talk to people. Should be interesting. I look forward to more discussions as we rebuild this company in your vision.
I am sticking around for the ride - there is a lot of work to do, that’s for sure - but in the end the new UPS will be leaner, stronger and hopefully, much more profitable-remember, the shareholders demand it.
