MisterLoader
New Member
I've been reading these forums for months because I like to know what I'm getting into, but I need someone to translate what I'm experiencing.
To begin, my hub has 4 belts with 1 pre-load "trainer" per belt. They start you with one (beginner) trainer before moving you through the belts to the hub's "best" trainer.
Day 1:
I started with one truck before gaining a second truck <10mins later. By the end of the shift, my trainer told me I had a "phenomenal" load quality, and she made a point to tell one of my drivers who came onto the truck in disbelief. He likely came in early to check his truck when he heard a new hire was on it. As far as I could tell, I was doing well, and my FT Sup mentioned the trainer's comment the next day when discussing donation paperwork.
Day 2:
I was back with the same trainer but with three trucks. I struggled at first to establish a good pace and had no choice but to stack in or resign to blow-by hell. She was sharing my top truck and kept me from becoming swamped until I found my rhythm. During all of this, the loader across from me was absolutely slammed. He stacked in to the point he couldn't leave his middle truck to access the rest of his assignment. My trainer called for the belt to stop, hopped across, and began working on one of his trucks. I quickly realized all of her trucks would start spilling into mine, so I did the only thing that made sense: I took over her trucks and spent 30mins frantically stacking her two trucks while loading my three. She hopped back across periodically to slim her stacks down, but I did this for the second half of my shift. When she came over to audit my trucks, she seemed surprised that my load quality was still "excellent" and had me stay longer to help other loaders finish their assignments.
Day 3-5:
I bounced back and forth between two trainers, but as I expected after reading these forums, my "speed" kept being called into question. Eventually, one of the trainers told me I wasn't using my shelves efficiently while the other trainer told me my load quality was amazing and that she couldn't ask for anything more. . . but I needed to work on my speed (of course). I had no idea what to make of this as their recommend belt methods were also in direct conflict. Given that I had to load 30 something sets of tires onto one of my trucks, I figured I'd grow into the speed as I got stronger.
Day 6-9:
I spent the next three days with the "best" trainer, and she had me running four trucks at the top of the belt right after the splitters. I couldn't scan up ahead of my top truck because the splitters spread packages/totes/irregs all across my assignment's belt area (behind me), and my bottom truck always had 60+ large RDC's that, when stacked, prevent me from having any room under the belt or even on my middle trucks for bulk stops.
Today, I barely kept up with my assignment until the splitters began sprinkling tote after tote of smalls all over the belt. I couldn't stack up efficient carries (4-5 at a time) fast enough to get everything on my shelves before the guy after me eventually started tossing my blow-by's everywhere. In his defense, he didn't have a choice as my bottom truck was stacked in with RDC's. My stacks were quickly mixed all over the place, and the best I could do was stack my top truck while frantically trying to pick up carries for my middle trucks. I completely ignored my bottom truck blow-by's, and it still wasn't enough.
My trainer, who left me alone today, came back after break (which I used to sort my piles) and was less than pleased. To my credit, I had exactly one misload (5900 something, which is what my 2-3 misloads have all been, X900's that weren't far enough into the truck for me to compare to nearby pkgs), but she explained I wasn't using the belt efficiently, I spent too much time on the trucks, and my stacked piles were a mess. The day before, she praised (for the only time) my PAL peeling, but that's one of the biggest drains on my time.
In her words, "you've got to pick up the pace, because this speed won't be unacceptable for long. All the loaders around you are finishing the assignments, and I have two guy loading your stacks yet you haven't even started bulking in. By now, you should be able to efficiently load four trucks."
What, exactly, should I prioritize in a situation like this, and what, if anything, could I have done differently? I've seen the shelves of loaders around me, and they are horrid. I want to keep my shelves clean, but I can't do that and maintain the pace expected of me if they keep adding trucks (this assignment is normally five trucks at around 1100 packages).
Also, I feel like I haven't been given the chance to get used to any amount of trucks or pace because they keep adding trucks (or the trainers practically live inside my trucks which slows me down as they get in my way) and moving me up the belt. Is there anything I can do about this?
To begin, my hub has 4 belts with 1 pre-load "trainer" per belt. They start you with one (beginner) trainer before moving you through the belts to the hub's "best" trainer.
Day 1:
I started with one truck before gaining a second truck <10mins later. By the end of the shift, my trainer told me I had a "phenomenal" load quality, and she made a point to tell one of my drivers who came onto the truck in disbelief. He likely came in early to check his truck when he heard a new hire was on it. As far as I could tell, I was doing well, and my FT Sup mentioned the trainer's comment the next day when discussing donation paperwork.
Day 2:
I was back with the same trainer but with three trucks. I struggled at first to establish a good pace and had no choice but to stack in or resign to blow-by hell. She was sharing my top truck and kept me from becoming swamped until I found my rhythm. During all of this, the loader across from me was absolutely slammed. He stacked in to the point he couldn't leave his middle truck to access the rest of his assignment. My trainer called for the belt to stop, hopped across, and began working on one of his trucks. I quickly realized all of her trucks would start spilling into mine, so I did the only thing that made sense: I took over her trucks and spent 30mins frantically stacking her two trucks while loading my three. She hopped back across periodically to slim her stacks down, but I did this for the second half of my shift. When she came over to audit my trucks, she seemed surprised that my load quality was still "excellent" and had me stay longer to help other loaders finish their assignments.
Day 3-5:
I bounced back and forth between two trainers, but as I expected after reading these forums, my "speed" kept being called into question. Eventually, one of the trainers told me I wasn't using my shelves efficiently while the other trainer told me my load quality was amazing and that she couldn't ask for anything more. . . but I needed to work on my speed (of course). I had no idea what to make of this as their recommend belt methods were also in direct conflict. Given that I had to load 30 something sets of tires onto one of my trucks, I figured I'd grow into the speed as I got stronger.
Day 6-9:
I spent the next three days with the "best" trainer, and she had me running four trucks at the top of the belt right after the splitters. I couldn't scan up ahead of my top truck because the splitters spread packages/totes/irregs all across my assignment's belt area (behind me), and my bottom truck always had 60+ large RDC's that, when stacked, prevent me from having any room under the belt or even on my middle trucks for bulk stops.
Today, I barely kept up with my assignment until the splitters began sprinkling tote after tote of smalls all over the belt. I couldn't stack up efficient carries (4-5 at a time) fast enough to get everything on my shelves before the guy after me eventually started tossing my blow-by's everywhere. In his defense, he didn't have a choice as my bottom truck was stacked in with RDC's. My stacks were quickly mixed all over the place, and the best I could do was stack my top truck while frantically trying to pick up carries for my middle trucks. I completely ignored my bottom truck blow-by's, and it still wasn't enough.
My trainer, who left me alone today, came back after break (which I used to sort my piles) and was less than pleased. To my credit, I had exactly one misload (5900 something, which is what my 2-3 misloads have all been, X900's that weren't far enough into the truck for me to compare to nearby pkgs), but she explained I wasn't using the belt efficiently, I spent too much time on the trucks, and my stacked piles were a mess. The day before, she praised (for the only time) my PAL peeling, but that's one of the biggest drains on my time.
In her words, "you've got to pick up the pace, because this speed won't be unacceptable for long. All the loaders around you are finishing the assignments, and I have two guy loading your stacks yet you haven't even started bulking in. By now, you should be able to efficiently load four trucks."
What, exactly, should I prioritize in a situation like this, and what, if anything, could I have done differently? I've seen the shelves of loaders around me, and they are horrid. I want to keep my shelves clean, but I can't do that and maintain the pace expected of me if they keep adding trucks (this assignment is normally five trucks at around 1100 packages).
Also, I feel like I haven't been given the chance to get used to any amount of trucks or pace because they keep adding trucks (or the trainers practically live inside my trucks which slows me down as they get in my way) and moving me up the belt. Is there anything I can do about this?
er. If that causes accuracy issues, your response should be that you've had it under control working at a slower pace but you're still learning the job, so going faster means that you're not able to do your absolute best when loading the packages (don't be so verbose, though... just be like when they push you to go faster and you're already doing your best trying to learn a difficult job, mistakes are bound to happen but you'll try harder to keep it from happening) ....
