ORION

[Mugarolla]

Actually you are given a variance on ORION trace.. From this site where we seem to gather, depending on area and center, between 85%-95% compliance. For many routes that's between 10 and 20 'breaks'. In addition we are instructed to not have service failures nor run up our miles.

If you are asked by management to break trace to fix ORION, reduce miles, or prevent customer service failures, then they should give you those instructions in the morning while in building.

Else, if you are asking me to use my knowledge base and better discretion to reduce time, miles and $, well then that was kinda my job before and the reason why you pay me the big $. Simplicity.

Yes. And they want ORION to work so badly so they don't have to pay the big $ anymore.

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can do it if ORION was perfect and they can find any Tom, Dick or Harry to do it for $25/hr with full benefits.

Just look at FedEx Express. $25/hr and Fred has no problem keeping drivers.

FedEx ground may be a different story. Average of $15-$20/hr but it is "their business".

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can do it if ORION was perfect and they can find any Tom, Dick or Harry to do it for $25/hr with full benefits.

This is their ultimate goal.

 

[ArcherUTR]

I usually try to follow ORION until 3:30 when I break off for pickups. Then I have sections left all over the place and I run it the way I want and I beat "The Solution" by two or three mile everyday. I figured out how to outsmart it, it has a lot of flaws in it. Hopefully they will get the kinks out of it one day.

I pretty much do mine the opposite. Most days when I want to get home, I ignore ORION until my 3:50 pick-up run. Hopefully at that point I'm done with my ~90 businesses, apartments, and bulk. Then for the rest of the day I just shut my brain off and piece it back together, even if ORION wants to start my pick up run an hour and a half after my scheduled pick up run and then decides to cutely run my route backwards to get me back to where I was.

I'm easily over 90% compliant but usually about 14 miles over its magical u-turn solution.

 

[Harry Manback]

I pretty much do mine the opposite. Most days when I want to get home, I ignore ORION until my 3:50 pick-up run. Hopefully at that point I'm done with my ~90 businesses, apartments, and bulk. Then for the rest of the day I just shut my brain off and piece it back together, even if ORION wants to start my pick up run an hour and a half after my scheduled pick up run and then decides to cutely run my route backwards to get me back to where I was.

I'm easily over 90% compliant but usually about 14 miles over its magical u-turn solution.

Amazing how that works... If you're compliant, you bust the miles solution. If you're not, you can beat it.

It gets really fun when they start demanding both...

 

[UnconTROLLed]

Amazing how that works... If you're compliant, you bust the miles solution. If you're not, you can beat it.

It gets really fun when they start demanding both...

I said this almost word-for-word today.....basically, major quagmire and a no-win situation.

 

[Harry Manback]

I said this almost word-for-word today.....basically, major quagmire and a no-win situation.

They know they blew a billion dollars on a turd.

They also know that, we know, they bought a billion dollar turd.

What to do now? Hmm...

Spend a few million to promote the turd. Tell the world, "Look at us, y'all, we're (pretending) to save miles!!11!!" "We're (pretending) to reduce fossil fuel consumption and our carbon footprint!!"

Even a dumb truck driver like myself could tell you, a shiny turd is still a turd.

 

[UPSGUY72]

Today they told us that we had to go to the 1st stop in the EDD first no and if or buts. Some I did my 3rd stop 1st. If I did my 1st stop first my car would be facing the wrong way for the first 3 stops.

 

[Harry Manback]

Today they told us that we had to go to the 1st stop in the EDD first no and if or buts. Some I did my 3rd stop 1st. If I did my 1st stop first my car would be facing the wrong way for the first 3 stops.

Apparently, first stop is also a big deal now. (As is, stops per car/mile)

Here's how they spun it to us...

"Gotta run your first stop in trace guys..." "They're beating me over the head on the conference call over it." "What kind of tone does it set for the rest of your day if, you can't trust ORION on your first stop?!?"

Trust the turd. Embrace the turd.

Sha-na-na-na-na....

 

[boxwayne]

While the Orion team admits my odo is highly flawed and tried to fix it the system still wants me to make illegal u turns (posted or not), drive over medians, cross 6 lanes of traffic, etc. They have done nothing to improve it. I have not been talked to in weeks regarding odo even though I only use rdo because it actually lower miles. Hope it stays that way finger crossed

Good luck! My old route was split between two loops. They can't fix it, I was told to use rdo Instead of Orion. I was happy to get a route that works well with Orion. Just one less thing to stress over

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

I like how supervisors are having to ride with those of us that are "over allowed" on our ORION miles. I say go ahead. But don't bring your ORION tablet because I will never have one.

 

[Harry Manback]

Good luck! My old route was split between two loops. They can't fix it, I was told to use rdo Instead of Orion. I was happy to get a route that works well with Orion. Just one less thing to stress over

So, what you're saying is, "ORION sucks and I'm glad I bid a route it sucks less at."

Am I right?

 

[toonertoo]

But my center stopped giving a probably about a month ago.

I wish mine would. The country routes seem to beat Orion by as much as 40 miles, the city driver are 20 over. If I am extremely light, I can follow it 100, and be 10 miles over. If its is heavy I am 20 miles over and always 1.4 or more late.
I will not climb in, on my load to pull a few resis out, over the bulk that needs to be cleaned out, it isnt safe.
When asked how I could reduce my miles, I just said when I am out of miles, I will come in and bring back 40 stops.
I spend so much time waiting to go left, when for spending a mile or two I could go up one side and down the other. Whatever, Ups has lots of money.

 

[Harry Manback]

I wish mine would. The country routes seem to beat Orion by as much as 40 miles, the city driver are 20 over. If I am extremely light, I can follow it 100, and be 10 miles over. If its is heavy I am 20 miles over and always 1.4 or more late.
I will not climb in, on my load to pull a few resis out, over the bulk that needs to be cleaned out, it isnt safe.
When asked how I could reduce my miles, I just said when I am out of miles, I will come in and bring back 40 stops.
I spend so much time waiting to go left, when for spending a mile or two I could go up one side and down the other. Whatever, Ups has lots of money.

They have lots of money, till they don't.

Then they'll blame us and our union for sinking the ship. And all the while, they'll have placed the charges that scuttled it.

When I retire, I'll write a tell-all of my experience in the brown dungeon. I'll send you an autographed copy, Surepost, of course...

 

[By The Book]

After working here all these years and watching people retire, I'm somewhat jealous that they didn't have to deal with the latest thing. What I realized now though is they will be jealous of me in the same way.

 

[By The Book]

I wish mine would. The country routes seem to beat Orion by as much as 40 miles, the city driver are 20 over. If I am extremely light, I can follow it 100, and be 10 miles over. If its is heavy I am 20 miles over and always 1.4 or more late.
I will not climb in, on my load to pull a few resis out, over the bulk that needs to be cleaned out, it isnt safe.
When asked how I could reduce my miles, I just said when I am out of miles, I will come in and bring back 40 stops.
I spend so much time waiting to go left, when for spending a mile or two I could go up one side and down the other. Whatever, Ups has lots of money.

Toon, I want you to check something for me. Look at your Orion arrival time for your first stop. Is it accurate, or is it off by 20 minutes like a lot of the arrival times I'm hearing about.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

They know they blew a billion dollars on a turd.

They also know that, we know, they bought a billion dollar turd.

What to do now? Hmm...

Spend a few million to promote the turd. Tell the world, "Look at us, y'all, we're (pretending) to save miles!!11!!" "We're (pretending) to reduce fossil fuel consumption and our carbon footprint!!"

Even a dumb truck driver like myself could tell you, a shiny turd is still a turd.

Arbitrary demands of the statistical breakdowns and scorecards are silly. Again, it's a no-win balancing act for you all out there, trying to stay within these certain breaks to the point where it falls in an acceptable range for their stats. It's actually a neat little program from the goober behind a screen, frothing at the mouth, watching the trucks go round and round.

 

[Grey]

We have ORION in our center but none of the sups really push it on us or tell us to use it. It's only been a few months since they installed it though. How long until they start putting the pressure on us?

 

[BrownArmy]

I'm on a route, no matter what happens, bad day, worse day, great day, it's always between 37-41 miles, mostly hits 38 miles at least three days a week.

We don't have ORION, but I can see how ORION would only add miles to this route.

Imagine a starfish, that's what this route looks like - it's a city center and this route has three of the starfish arms, the next route has the other two arms, and both routes have resi in outlying areas.

The resi is no problem, but the business differs from day to day:

Monday: lots of stuff closed.
Wednesday: school gets out early, gotta change the way the route is run.
Friday: lots of stuff closed, especially that one dikk dentist building, again, re-order the route to make things happen.

I'm reading the stories about ORION, and my impression is that SKYNET itself couldn't automate a program to run this route I'm on.

 

[ArcherUTR]

Arbitrary demands of the statistical breakdowns and scorecards are silly. Again, it's a no-win balancing act for you all out there, trying to stay within these certain breaks to the point where it falls in an acceptable range for their stats. It's actually a neat little program from the goober behind a screen, frothing at the mouth, watching the trucks go round and round.

I actually think ORION's shortcomings and their desire for us to fix it, is in our favor. The day they can throw someone who barely speaks English (I'm not a conservative) or a robot at a route is they day I need to start putting out a new resume.

The Traveling Salesman Problem is intractable, meaning you can't throw computers at it. I've got student loans to prove that. There are multiple phase roll outs of ORION over the next many years.

We need to start coming together as workers now. Or the persons who own the infrastructure, the equipment, and the government will sweep us all to the side with no s given.

 

[CHALLY9TX]

Any of you fellows drivers actually see how specific Orion can be in its programing? I have. You can literally spend hours and hours tweaking your route. If they pay me I'll do it. Otherwise management can figure it out. They want us to fix a problem they created. Problems that should have been addressed months in advance.