cinamingrl
Animal Lover
It was 2 years ago, and I can still remember how it felt. And no, not all of the managers were so bad. Just the bitch who was my manager when I was being displaced. Her true colors (and my supervisor's) came out once they realized I was gone in a few months. you have to experience it to know what I am talking about.reydluap said:
OK, It's time for me to join in now too. Tie Guy, you must live in a special part of the UPS world, because mine is much darker than yours. Your earlier posts made me sick. I appreciate the more professional approach now, but dang man, you remind me of some of the ineffective management in our company. The attitude behind your posts reflects much of the problem I see in our *leaders*.
Fellow TSG'ers, I hate to see what has become of this company, and now to our team. For those of you that have techs that really *have* time to jack around, I hope these people are getting the axe. If there was one single thing that PMT SHOULD have exposed, it would be this. But we all know too well what this has exposed. Chaotic tracking, no real meat behind the numbers. How accurate could it possibly be with so many changes in 2005, so many new rules, new ways to measure progress. What a waste of time. I always wanted my Franklin planner back. Looks like I will get it back in a few weeks!
PMT - for those that don't know, this is similar to the BD tracking tool called TEAMS. In the TSG case, it was brewed up from corp and slowly dropped in our laps. Now, in the case of my district with TEAMS & BD, we saw the BEST salesforce stand up and walk out of the company due to the massive micromanagement involved with TEAMS during its deployment. I recall clearly the day I said goodbye to one of them. I knew that we lost someone important. And mgt. people unrelated to BD still talk about that mass-exodus in our district. The all-stars walked away with jobs from their UPS customers. None of them took a loss in salary that I know of.
Moving to PMT in TSG. I remember when we were first reported on our planning. And I saw a little writing on the wall. I was getting the verbal slap for not planning my next day out, knowing that the previous day I was in a car traveling around putting out customer fires. Overtime for external logs was no excuse. Planning became the SEV1! I began to see clearly where this was going. Either PMT would be killed off corporately (not likely) or it would spell the end for someone. I started then (about a year ago) to get the word out to our external customers and trusted TSG family that I was on the market. This way I could have a safety net to catch me when UPS kicked me out, or I feel off the brown machine from disgust and disappointment.
On that Tuesday when the entire nation's TSG / TSC workforce received the news, I started to smile immediately as I seen a clear way to fly out of the brown machine, and into a new life. My smile was quicly wiped away as I heard the sniffles and crying of the approx. 20% of the group that would be killed off. No, this wasn't like other districts that either didn't lose anyone, or had the option to find them jobs. We had no option to move into another position. We were / will be canned. This "Tie" is the bitter truth. I should know, I was there. The people that would be leaving where my friends, my family. We are a very tight group in our district. And it brought us all to tears. We where all there, face to face, when the letter was read aloud to us.
In our district, 2 of the people leaving took the severence package because they don't want to work for UPS anymore. It sickens them. The work load left will be unbearable. Those 2 are senior techs, I am one of them. Combined, we have 15 years in the company. Both of us picked up jobs already. And neither of us will lose a dime in pay. So a happy career transition for both of us - how blessed. And the respect we have received from our peers and other departments has been awesome. I can speak for both of us when I say, "We Got to Go!". Neither of us will walk out and wonder .."what if?" Here's why...
In 1997, the strike shocked and rocked us. THe IPO made the elders filthy rich, and the younger ones a little curious as to how this would effect the future of this rock solid company. After all, we never had a strike, until '97. From my position, I saw drastic changes in BD, in mgt., the way they move people around, how quickly they would can someone. All the while, TSG was left alone to install, train, repair, deploy. I felt immune. But it sickened me to see my non-TSG friends getting verbally beaten to death for anything and everything. It got worse year after year. Absurd sales goals, changing plans to make them more unattainable. I have had too many people use my shoulder as a place to cry. Families have been effected, marriages, children. I'm talking about rural heartland USA, where a trip from one end of the district to the other takes an 8 hour drive.
Here's my fear, and the fear of many of my operations friends. We already struggle to support the centers, most of them PAS now. More and more upgrades are center deployed (they don't have the staff to do them). Our external customers have lost "One to One" service, increasing every time they "emerge" their sales team. TSG has been the X-Factor, the fill in. At least in our district, we helped the sales team, stood in for the operations, we dumped the "gotta have a log" mentality and just did what was right - fixed the FRIGGIN problem. We were team players. Many of us delivered packages up until the late nights of Christmas Eve. Last year, almost our entire department dropped TSG work to take on the worst job of peak - Driver Helper Coordinator! The center teams appreciate us. And they're seeing us pushed out. As one very senior ops mgr said "I fear that we've gone way too far." His seriousness put fear into me.
I do apologize for this long diary post. I promise to not post anything this long again. But I do think some people want to read a sort of memoir from a senior TSG that's taking this package as a volunteer. I've learned that UPS isn't the only game in town. The grass really is greener on the other side of parts of the fence. And the #1 thing that I love about the company is the one thing I get to take with me. The relationships with wonderful people. I just don't want to see them go down with the ship - ya know?
TSG_PAPA
Fellow TSG'ers, I hate to see what has become of this company, and now to our team. For those of you that have techs that really *have* time to jack around, I hope these people are getting the axe. If there was one single thing that PMT SHOULD have exposed, it would be this. But we all know too well what this has exposed. Chaotic tracking, no real meat behind the numbers. How accurate could it possibly be with so many changes in 2005, so many new rules, new ways to measure progress. What a waste of time. I always wanted my Franklin planner back. Looks like I will get it back in a few weeks!
PMT - for those that don't know, this is similar to the BD tracking tool called TEAMS. In the TSG case, it was brewed up from corp and slowly dropped in our laps. Now, in the case of my district with TEAMS & BD, we saw the BEST salesforce stand up and walk out of the company due to the massive micromanagement involved with TEAMS during its deployment. I recall clearly the day I said goodbye to one of them. I knew that we lost someone important. And mgt. people unrelated to BD still talk about that mass-exodus in our district. The all-stars walked away with jobs from their UPS customers. None of them took a loss in salary that I know of.
Moving to PMT in TSG. I remember when we were first reported on our planning. And I saw a little writing on the wall. I was getting the verbal slap for not planning my next day out, knowing that the previous day I was in a car traveling around putting out customer fires. Overtime for external logs was no excuse. Planning became the SEV1! I began to see clearly where this was going. Either PMT would be killed off corporately (not likely) or it would spell the end for someone. I started then (about a year ago) to get the word out to our external customers and trusted TSG family that I was on the market. This way I could have a safety net to catch me when UPS kicked me out, or I feel off the brown machine from disgust and disappointment.
On that Tuesday when the entire nation's TSG / TSC workforce received the news, I started to smile immediately as I seen a clear way to fly out of the brown machine, and into a new life. My smile was quicly wiped away as I heard the sniffles and crying of the approx. 20% of the group that would be killed off. No, this wasn't like other districts that either didn't lose anyone, or had the option to find them jobs. We had no option to move into another position. We were / will be canned. This "Tie" is the bitter truth. I should know, I was there. The people that would be leaving where my friends, my family. We are a very tight group in our district. And it brought us all to tears. We where all there, face to face, when the letter was read aloud to us.
In our district, 2 of the people leaving took the severence package because they don't want to work for UPS anymore. It sickens them. The work load left will be unbearable. Those 2 are senior techs, I am one of them. Combined, we have 15 years in the company. Both of us picked up jobs already. And neither of us will lose a dime in pay. So a happy career transition for both of us - how blessed. And the respect we have received from our peers and other departments has been awesome. I can speak for both of us when I say, "We Got to Go!". Neither of us will walk out and wonder .."what if?" Here's why...
In 1997, the strike shocked and rocked us. THe IPO made the elders filthy rich, and the younger ones a little curious as to how this would effect the future of this rock solid company. After all, we never had a strike, until '97. From my position, I saw drastic changes in BD, in mgt., the way they move people around, how quickly they would can someone. All the while, TSG was left alone to install, train, repair, deploy. I felt immune. But it sickened me to see my non-TSG friends getting verbally beaten to death for anything and everything. It got worse year after year. Absurd sales goals, changing plans to make them more unattainable. I have had too many people use my shoulder as a place to cry. Families have been effected, marriages, children. I'm talking about rural heartland USA, where a trip from one end of the district to the other takes an 8 hour drive.
Here's my fear, and the fear of many of my operations friends. We already struggle to support the centers, most of them PAS now. More and more upgrades are center deployed (they don't have the staff to do them). Our external customers have lost "One to One" service, increasing every time they "emerge" their sales team. TSG has been the X-Factor, the fill in. At least in our district, we helped the sales team, stood in for the operations, we dumped the "gotta have a log" mentality and just did what was right - fixed the FRIGGIN problem. We were team players. Many of us delivered packages up until the late nights of Christmas Eve. Last year, almost our entire department dropped TSG work to take on the worst job of peak - Driver Helper Coordinator! The center teams appreciate us. And they're seeing us pushed out. As one very senior ops mgr said "I fear that we've gone way too far." His seriousness put fear into me.
I do apologize for this long diary post. I promise to not post anything this long again. But I do think some people want to read a sort of memoir from a senior TSG that's taking this package as a volunteer. I've learned that UPS isn't the only game in town. The grass really is greener on the other side of parts of the fence. And the #1 thing that I love about the company is the one thing I get to take with me. The relationships with wonderful people. I just don't want to see them go down with the ship - ya know?
TSG_PAPA
broke.in.tsg
Member
Excellent post TSG PAPA!
brown_blood
Member
tieguy said:
The problem is not a lack of response to your "question", it is that you do not like the answer.
Hey here is a great idea...
Call the WorldShip help desk.
Ask them if they are UPS employees (you should probably warm them up first, maybe explain to them you are a clueless bonehead with a selective hearing (reading?) problem).
Do you understand that this support farm in LV is the same place that is going to take over support for your center?
FREE_2_SKI
New Member
TSG_PAPA..amazing post. I had to get out here and let you know. I'm a soon to be ex tsg. If you had asked me 2 weeks ago, I would have told you I planned on retiring from UPS. When they called all the internal and external tsg together for our meeting, and when the announcement was made, I knew, in that moment, my life, our lives could and would change forever. I know business is what it is. I see it in the field. In many company's, TSG is their company's IT staff. I love my job. I love going into a customer site. It's so neat to see what products and/or services they provide. I love setting up a shipping system with best practices and getting that volume for UPS. It's a challenge, a puzzle that I love to put together. I can get those people to give up the volume with nary a finger touching a keyboard. I work with ceo's, co's, presidents, all the way down to the shipping clerk. I've enjoyed it all. Many of the services I was providing came from my heart and my head. I was always scanning the warehouses for pallets and packages from the competitor. Yes, I'm a tsg, but I still wanted every bit of competitor volume, and I would talk to the customer about it right there. So you can see that we do more than just fix a broken computer or printer. There's so much more that we do, and I never minded doing it. I chose to exit. I was told my job was safe, but I chose to take the severance. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to decide. Now I'm going to follow a dream. I am raising a slew of kids on my own, and sometimes, you just have to take a chance, and follow your dreams. Yes, I could have worked for UPS the rest of my life, and I would have too. I will always look back at my time at UPS with fondness and I will miss so many of you. My management isn't perfect, but I challenge you to find a company where it's any different. Those left behind are going to have a lot of work to do, but if you keep your heart into it, you'll do a kick-a job. Maybe while you're doing a kick-a job, showing them what you're made of, maybe you too will decide to follow your dreams. I wish the TSC'ers and TSG'ers everywhere the best of luck. I know I have gained some excellent skills at UPS, and I'll take 'em to another part of this beautiful country, and I'll do a great job, and I'll make my new employer proud and my old employer proud as well. Viva la IT !!!
Excellent post papa. I too see many things happening that worries me. With 10 years in, I'm nearing a big decision point where it would be very difficult for me to leave. In my short time here compared to the age of the company, I have seen a complete shift from planning for the future, to making the numbers look good next quarter. It will get worse before it gets better. Our customers will start complaining, good people will start leaving more frequently, and UPS will lose a ton of business. I'm not sure if it was going public or the current management comittee that's screwing up UPS's future, but I'm not looking forward to 2011. Sorry to hear to are leaving papa, you sound like a true asset to UPS.
A
Anonymous Koward
Guest
FREE_2_SKI said:
Kumbaya, My Lord, Kumbaya
SeniorGeek
Below the Line
I've been lurking, and I got to the point that I must respond to so many things....
I'll start with another set of data points, this from Oregon District (which gets to absorb or shed the Region Techs from the TSC):
Things we've been told by authoritative sources (such as HR, Region TSG Manager or District TSG Management):
I'll start with another set of data points, this from Oregon District (which gets to absorb or shed the Region Techs from the TSC):
- For 38 techs, 14 technician positions and 24 Severance Allowance Packages (SAPs) will be available.
- Once all 14 jobs are taken, the remaining people will be offered only SAPs. In the unlikely situation where all 24 SAPs are taken before the list is completed, the remaining people will not have the SAP option.
- The "line" is drawn at a late-1996 or early-1997 date-of-hire. (Sorry, I don't have the exact info handy.)
Things we've been told by authoritative sources (such as HR, Region TSG Manager or District TSG Management):
- No other positions will be offered to technicians.
- The substitute for TSC will not be UPS staffed, and will not (for now) go overseas.
- UPS Management can not provide any form of reference, but HR will provide us a letter that explains that this is a Workforce Reduction - to help assure potential employers that we weren't fired for incompetence/misconduct/etc.
- Anyone who takes the SAP will be flagged as "No Rehire", and the SAP agreement has a clause "...that I will not seek employment with the Company or any of its affiliates in the future." [I hope "affiliates" doesn't include everyone with a shipping account....]
- Anyone taking the SAP will work until a "mutually-agreed-upon" date, which is to be determined in our one-on-one meetings, based on each individual's situation.
- The one-on-one meetings are scheduled for February 9th, and SAP papers will be ready-to-sign on February 10th.
- A week after hearing "mutually-agreed-upon date", we're told that "February 10th will be the last day for several people". We cross-examined management until we got a date range, and learned that some people might stay as much as a week after signing papers!
S
Sev 2
Guest
SeniorGeek said:
Geek,
How does the date thing work? In our district, we have a bunch of areas that are geographically distanced apart. Does the seniority work by area or district wide. Seems like there is potential to be fat in one area with old folks and lean in those with younger people. That can't be right.
IT_Consultant
Member
Why is this a shock to everyone? since the late 90's, IT has become a revolving door. Just look at all the massive layoffs. The elders are not evil, it is their job to increase profits and reward themselves.
Wake up and smell the corporate roses!
-a|ex
(I do not work for UPS, but have been a victom of IT downsizing and outsourcing in the past 15 years)
Wake up and smell the corporate roses!
-a|ex
(I do not work for UPS, but have been a victom of IT downsizing and outsourcing in the past 15 years)
ncrtscisme
Well-Known Member
great post, TSG PAPA!
and free_2_ski, i love your attitude! this really is a wonderful chance for many people to now "take the money and run" and to follow our dreams. as someone else posted way earlier: love your woman (or man), love your family, love your hobbies...but a job is really just a means to an end and losing it isn't the end of the world. Hell, it could end up being a great beginning to a better world!
cinamingrl, you are now what many of us are about to become. Your comments about management showing their "true colors" is soo familiar. If I were a TSC or TSG management, I would be very sympathetic to my underlings during all of this. I would still want the work to be done and calls answered, but I would expect the numbers to slip when a scare like this happens and I would understand that. I would expect the people affected to have to vent their frustrations and I would be somewhat forgiving of it. But in our case, management is taking the opposite approach. They are watching us like hawks, pulling us into the office for every little thing we do wrong, monitoring everything we do or say on the phone and to each other. In fact, I cannot recall a time when management was more "accessible" than they are now (and in this case, they are "accessible" in a negative way). I would not be the least bit surprised to see people getting fired for any little reason over the next few weeks/months. If they can find something we did to fire us over, any little thing, they will not have to pay us severance and the company will save a few more bucks...nevermind the fact that we are understandably stressed out to the max and kept in the dark with information. "KICK EM WHILE THEY'RE DOWN" seems to be the approach they are taking, and it's so unnerving to me and my coworkers...it's really a scary situation.
and free_2_ski, i love your attitude! this really is a wonderful chance for many people to now "take the money and run" and to follow our dreams. as someone else posted way earlier: love your woman (or man), love your family, love your hobbies...but a job is really just a means to an end and losing it isn't the end of the world. Hell, it could end up being a great beginning to a better world!
cinamingrl, you are now what many of us are about to become. Your comments about management showing their "true colors" is soo familiar. If I were a TSC or TSG management, I would be very sympathetic to my underlings during all of this. I would still want the work to be done and calls answered, but I would expect the numbers to slip when a scare like this happens and I would understand that. I would expect the people affected to have to vent their frustrations and I would be somewhat forgiving of it. But in our case, management is taking the opposite approach. They are watching us like hawks, pulling us into the office for every little thing we do wrong, monitoring everything we do or say on the phone and to each other. In fact, I cannot recall a time when management was more "accessible" than they are now (and in this case, they are "accessible" in a negative way). I would not be the least bit surprised to see people getting fired for any little reason over the next few weeks/months. If they can find something we did to fire us over, any little thing, they will not have to pay us severance and the company will save a few more bucks...nevermind the fact that we are understandably stressed out to the max and kept in the dark with information. "KICK EM WHILE THEY'RE DOWN" seems to be the approach they are taking, and it's so unnerving to me and my coworkers...it's really a scary situation.
Gosh I really enjoy reading the comments of people who have never worked for UPS like it_consultant. You are soo cool and really a breath of fresh air because gosh golly, I never realized that IT people have been downsized before. Thanks sooo much for your clever insight. I also REALLY enjoy the comments from other upsers in different departments telling us to lay off the rhetoric and stay to the facts. Thanks sooo much for your insight as well. When you get the FACTS of what this is about, please post them here. You are obviously very smart, well informed and of course in "the loop". To realisticupser: ONE server running everything? You must be in MGT with clueless responses like that. What a supreme DF you are.
IT_Consultant
Member
TSCer said:
I forgot to mention, I used to be sorter/unloader at the columbus ohio hub (more like hilliard). That was over a century ago...
-a|ex
R
replytotscer
Guest
actually TSCer, there will be only one server. A high powered one running VMware. We can get about 15 servers running on one quad process/2 gig ram box.
cinamingrl
Animal Lover
I'm very sorry this is happening and I do sympathizie.ncrtscisme said:
Now that you've mentioned it, I was getting pulled into ridiculous meetings with my manager or supervisor over petty stupid annoyances that would have otherwise been forgotten. And this started before I even found out I was being displaced. So my bitch manager knew way before I did. I can remember actually being browbeaten and admonished for staying late to give out the turkeys to the drivers. My other supervisor showed up late and so I could not leave the long line of drivers without their turkeys for thanksgiving. So the following Friday, my 23 year-old ignorant little supervisor wanted a meeting with me, about that I had no idea. She spent an hour browbeating me over staying late for 30 minutes. You'd think they would have appreciated that, but they didn't, as usual, their backwards thinking prevailed.
I called the manager that night and arranged a meeting to put in a complaint about the bitch. But later realized it was all the manager's idea in the first place to document my staying late. Although I have no idea what that would have proved.
Later, it got to the point where I was so stressed out that I literally could not even go to work. I called in and said I am not coming into UPS to work any more, unless the bitch manager gets my supervisor under control. I stayed out of work for 3 days, using up my accrued vacation and sick time.
Then the manager began calling me at home leaving messages on my recorder "just callin' to see if everything is okay". She only wanted to make sure she got rid of me during the process, without me suing them.
After that, it was okay, but I took as many days off as I could until it was time for me to go. The bitch supervisor didn't like it a bit, as she then had to do all of the work, including her own which I had been doing up until then. But that she had no control over, if she had learned to treat me with more respect, I may not have taken off so many days. And I asked to be separated 3 days earlier than they had anticipated I'd leave. I even did my own separation form!
IT was horrible, and I even worked in HR.
And to add this;....they are watching you because they are scared out of their wits that you will all unionize. When this all first started in my hub, the entire building in Azusa threatened to unionize and the managers ran out there to "handle" it. I remember hearing my supervisors saying "there was an attempt in Azusa". I later found out it was an attempt to strike. So this is why they are monitoring everything you do and your conversations, they are paranoid. Look at it this way....you have the upper hand. Just start using all of your sick days, and call in as much as you can. Let them do all of the work that you have been doing for so long. That they won't like one bit.
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ncrtscisme
Well-Known Member
Yes, even the mere act of mentioning unionization causes a panic like no other. In fact, just a few weeks before the big announcement of this downsizing happened, management got word of the fact that there was talk of it in our department (TSC/TSG). Literally the moment this happened, our manager and his boss were doing all sorts of running around and having little meetings. And I've never seen such a nervous look on their faces. It was obvious that it put them in a serious "panic mode".
Haven't you all noticed that HR and our managers have been "scrambling" to iron out the details of this downsizing? Why we are given information as if the plans were rushed and drawn out at the last minute? I believe that this move has been planned for quite some time now (as our region tsg manager said...only months after telling us "there are no plans to close the TSCs", might I add), but I don't think it was planned to happen so soon...I think that the mention of the "U" word was their signal to say "we have to do this NOW, before these people can unite". Looks we have our own "Attempt in Azusa" going on, cinamingrl.
Haven't you all noticed that HR and our managers have been "scrambling" to iron out the details of this downsizing? Why we are given information as if the plans were rushed and drawn out at the last minute? I believe that this move has been planned for quite some time now (as our region tsg manager said...only months after telling us "there are no plans to close the TSCs", might I add), but I don't think it was planned to happen so soon...I think that the mention of the "U" word was their signal to say "we have to do this NOW, before these people can unite". Looks we have our own "Attempt in Azusa" going on, cinamingrl.
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UPS_Techie
Informed
tieguy said:
