I appreciate the recent safety standards you've introduced at all UPS airport hubs. It's made our workers a lot safer.

Thanks!

Oh you cheeky bugger.
The admins can still see it you know.
Also I too like the changes, I know my packages are in good hands.

I know!

O.o, what are we talking about here?

osha is totally reading this thread

I used to work at UPS (1997-1999) in Louisville, KY (pre-Hub2000). It was my first job right after high school. I was a tug driver for dispatch, unload & load (I was able to get 8 hours each night). We didn't seem to have any standards back then. Half of us were drunk or high & we spend most of our shifts crashing in to things & popping wheelies. I hear the tugs aren't nearly as fast as they used to be (governors).

The union was really good at keeping our jobs. I once saw a tug driver come around to the k-loader as if she was ready to be unloaded. Her supervisor asked her what she was doing & where here load was (6 trailers). The next thing we know, there's a crashing sound & the entire aircraft shook. Basically, she was high & didn't notice that she didn't drop the pin in properly & her load had disconnected & slowly rolled until it hit an engine (the damage appeared to only be aesthetic). A drug test wasn't performed & she was back w/in 48 hours.

There was another time that we were in our crew van & were racing a guy in his tug. He's looking at us, we're looking at him & no one is really looking forward. The poor ******* crashed right in to a k-loader (the elevator portion) & smashed his face up pretty good. Yeah, he was pretty drunk & so were we. That's what happens when you place a bar right next to the employee parking lot.

I ended up quitting because they claimed that my parents made too much money for them to pay for my school. Right after I quit they started paying for everyone & even built a campus on-sight. Bastards. That was one of my favorite places to work.

UPS (the Dallas terminal at least) is an exceedingly unsafe job. It's not so much the facilities, it's the mindless people they hire. I worked there for 6-9 months. Great pay, not worth the hours, stress, or danger.

Now we can all wait for Rob to storm in with his UPS bible

In case you missed it, Rob posted this in some other thread by mistake.

Was any of that supposed promote how good the job was?

Bahaahha that's what I was hoping for. Thanks for the link.

That was me trying to stay awake at school, falling asleep, and then waking up and typing in what I thought was a new post window that I had opened.

These 50 hour weeks + school are killing the dick out of me. Having to memorize about a dozen new asinine rules (which basically exist to protect the fat or the old) is also starting to work my nerves.

So you are basically saying that we shouldn't protect fat or old people?

Not doing so has worked out pretty well so far...

If it means that you are making Rob a drastically more inefficient worker (which he explained in that other post), then yes, these rules protecting fat and old people are a stupid way of going about it.

These blanket guidelines are asinine, and one of the reasons I can't stand when the Fed tries intervene in things they know absolutely nothing about.

It sounds to me like the facility might need to be more ergonomically designed, not so much that the regulations are stupid. I admit, however, that I am not familiar with these specific regulations right now, and I'm definitely not familiar with the facility, so I can't really say you're wrong. Sliding a pallet on its side is a kind of ghetto-rigged solution, and if only young fit employees can handle a task, then it's probably a task that should be done differently.

Edit: Also, inefficiency in all workers that prevents one SINGLE worker from stepping off of a dropoff, hurting himself, and being out of work for a period of time, plus costing the company money, is much better than the other way around.

The people that get hurt stepping off docks are usually overweight, and they usually roll their ankle. The accident data (as provided by our CHSP) shows that most of these aren't even lost time injuries.

I don't drag pallets, I lift them by the slats and carry them. Easily. It isn't dangerous.

Other things that irritate me are when OSHA makes a good rule stupidly. For example, anything over 75 pounds isn't supposed to come down a chute. Makes a lot of sense, except that a smaller box is going to get moving a **** of a lot faster than a large box that weighs just as much. If you ever wonder how a lot of things get smooshed, it isn't the loader most of the time it's the belt/chute system.

Even of you break OSHA rules they're kind of useless. The most they can do is try to get someone six months of jail time. Recent mine accidents show that their regulation is weak.

Unlike FAA regulations a business or individual can't really protest a regulation or suggest a better method. (Where as say an Airworthiness Directive requires you to inspect a crankshaft for cracks, and requires total engine disassembly. Well I find a way to do it with a borescope, I submit my findings, they are investigated usually approved and the AD is updated to include this new method of doing the same job quicker.

The problem is that the company doesn't really care about safety persay as it does money. UPS, FedEX, USPS make money by not spending it. The profit margin on a single package is really small. It's only by the shear volume of packages that are put through the system that a profit is turned. Yet they focus on serious non-issues instead of performing adequate maintenance on integtral parts of the operation. Such as our to tractors. I've never seen a two tow tractor at an airport ever. It's an industry problem, they run them until they catastrophically fail and hope no one gets hurt or in the way because people are rarely hurt by them.

A health organization should also understand what added physical stress they are imposing when they regulate on jobs they've never done. I also think that some people become overwhelmed with what they have to remember and will **** things up just out of trying to do it by the book. Accidents are not always totally unavoidable. Any activity that involves a person is liable to be ****ed up because no one is perfect. The attitude that by adding rule, after regulation, after policy, after procedure, after method on top of each other will actually make people pay attention is kind of ridiculous.

Like I said, I'm not familiar with the specific regulations or the facility so I'll take your word for it...but OSHA does have ways you can protest regulations or suggest better methods.

I had related problems working as a machinist. An engineer typically programs the machine, and decides how much time the cycle of insert part, make part, remove part should take. These engineers (despite being in the same building) didn't have much of a clue about the actual work. They've never done it.

So every once in a while we'd be doing a new process, spinning a piece of aluminum at about 3000 rpm, a tool would break. This wouldn't be a problem if it wouldn't throw the ****ing part out of the chuck. The worst one were these long tubes for a hydraulic actuator. The part flew out of the jaws and came through the side of the machine. It didn't make it all the way out, and no one was watching it when it happened (we had made 4 of them already and were pretty satisfied not watching a 15 minute long automated process) The tool carrier had snapped off because the rough cuts were too deep. (there is a generic formula you can use to figure a rough cut) This wasn't the only time it happened, ideally you want to adjust the program around the machine but they never want to hear it. THEY HAVE THE MATHS.

They'd also design processes that were insanely hard to keep up with because they'd never come out and actually watch everything you had to do just to make ONE part.

Post office makes money off catalogs. Packages are delivered at a loss.

Which is probably why the post office is laying people off...

The only craft without a no reduction in workforce clause in it's contract is management.

There have been fewer 'lay offs' than you probably think.

But now they're trying to stop delivery on Saturdays. That's bull****. I hate having to wait until Monday to get stuff from Netflix. It's only going to be worse!

It's always far better in reality than it is the way it's described on the news.

UPS is laying people off like it's going out of style.

I've basically given up on being a mechanic there. Not only has it become a very unstable job their continuous maintenance program turns mechanics into IDIOTS. They don't know how to do anything that isn't on the job cards.

I suppose that depends on how you define good. I think that back then & maybe even to a certain degree now, I define good as in fun. Haha.

And every single union in involved is against it, including the managers; almost every congressman is against it; every poll shows that the customers hate it; and all the studies show that, while it will put the postal service in the black for the short term, it will destroy the post office in the long term.

So don't worry too much about it.

And JM knows, because he's a mailman.

Haha, it finally works!

There's a name for that logical fallacy where you imply that my opinion or knowledge is less valuable because of my occupation. A subverted appeal to authority?

If you're referring to yourself as an authority figure because you're a mailman.... well... I don't even know where to start with that.

And pretty much no one can get away with posting logical fallacies on here except for Jon`C, and even he admits that he isn't the best at it.

There isn't a big enough

?

Forgive me... it's been one hell of a week. My brain is extremely fried.