Strict Rules UPS Drivers Really Have To Follow

you'd think that being a ups driver might be a pretty chill gig right yes again there are tons of strict rules all ups truck drivers have to follow most of these rules are based on safety and the company's bottom line earn more money ubs drivers are not supposed to take left turns if they can help it and the routes are actually strictly planned to minimize the necessity of such turns as much as possible the reasoning behind this seemingly bizarre rule is explained by the independent is efficiency when you take a left turn you have to move through oncoming traffic which means that even though a left turn might be a shorter distance it will lead to a longer drive ups boasts that avoiding such turns reduces delays from waiting for traffic to clear leads to 10 million fewer gallons of fuel being used a year lowers carbon dioxide emissions delivers 350 000 more packages and perhaps most importantly reduces the number of traffic accidents frankly the figures here are surprisingly convincing and were tested by mythbusters if you're curious to the point where one can make a decent argument that maybe everybody should avoid these turns just like ups drivers do now to be clear sometimes the ups driver has to take a left turn and there's no getting around it this doesn't happen too often though as ups claims only about 10 percent of the turns on their maps are left-handed ones driving for ups isn't a simple job if anything even the most passionate ups driver would tell you it's a complex career that requires you to learn the so-called 340 methods that also means naturally that ups driving isn't a job where you just fill out an application smile at the manager watch powerpoint presentations and receive the keys you have to go through ups bootcamp once you've finished some online coursework you're sent to one of ups's training facilities and depending on what position you're gunning for these hardcore classes last from five to nine days what do they teach hazard avoidance and management of course new workers are trained to be the safest drivers on the road efficiency rules are etched into every driver's brain trainees learn how to load trucks the fastest way possible and most amusingly have to run through a slip and fall course where they learn how to move quickly across ice without falling and so the name of the game is efficiency from the warehouse to the roads every ups driver has been through serious training at integrat so they definitely know their stuff ups drivers operate on a ridiculously tight schedule with an insane number of deliveries ahead of them and it's been drilled into their heads how much every single second counts to enforce this doctrine of efficiency ups drivers have to be tracked yes tracked throughout every moment to their shift on the world's most anal retentive timer or corporate big brother will have a problem with it ups trucks are quote rolling computers as npr points out and every stop of a driver's day is intensely analyzed by the company so the ups can figure out how to cut down on extra time and fit in more deliveries that's not creepy or anything right you know that feeling you get when you open your phone see 35 plus unread emails and one of them is your manager saying you're taking too long to reply that's a ups driver's workday but on wheels if someone were to first tell you that ups drivers have to follow strict rules as far as how they climb in and out of their vehicles you'd probably think it was insane unlike some of ups other methods though their requirement for drivers to follow the so called three points of contact routine is actually a good safety measure what this means in practice is that when a driver gets in or out of their truck they should have one hand on the handrail one foot on the step and another foot on the ground every time without fail doing this consistently reduces stress on the ankles keep in mind the ups drivers have to do this hundreds of times a day using improper posture could do a surprising amount of damage in general three points of contact is the safest way to enter or exit trucks and the multiple anchor points inherent to this method lowers the impact of injuries caused by slips and falls consider if you have one foot on icy ground and it slips your hand on the handrail will catch you as will your foot on the non-slippery step ups drivers operate on strict time limits and that means it can be really difficult to find the time to do essential human tasks like you know taking a pee it's generally recommended for ups drivers to plan their bathroom breaks for example if you've got to load up on gas that's a great time to visit the bathroom if the tracking software shows drivers taking too long they will be accused of stealing time as well as messing up their stops per on-road hour counts and explanations will be demanded ladder justifications probably don't make for fun conversations i have to pay i'm not doing it here no he is not doing it there at least one driver told the tampa bay times that he and others frequently urinate in the truck using cups bottles and so on when asked about this claim of course ups denied it when you think of ups the first image that pops to mind is probably a big brown truck however if you work for ups you better not call it a truck for those on the inside these boxy vehicles are strictly referred to as package cars to be fair it's unlikely that if a driver calls the vehicle a truck they'll be reprimanded however ups takes their package cars seriously and they're also serious about calling them package cars as seen in their promotional materials highlighting the evolution of the vehicle over the past century if you've ever imagined that one day you might have a ups package car of your own forget it ups takes intensive care to make sure nobody gets a retired vehicle most of them are turned into scrap metal once a company has finished using them not too long ago ups required all drivers to carry the car keys on their ring finger you can probably guess the reason unlike you who spend 20 minutes searching for your keys every time you leave the house ups didn't want their drivers to waste any time with such nonsense i hope you like walking though because i took your car keys and i flushed them down the toilet luanne have you seen my car keys and so if the keys are always on the ring fingers the keys never get lost this rule also enable drivers to position the key with their index finger put the car in ignition and pull it out in one swift motion these days though the ring finger rule is gone it's not the ups got more lacks about it but rather that technology evolved and they realized it sped up the process even further if the regular keys were replaced with fancy schmancy key pops the switch to fob saves ups two seconds per delivery for a grand total of six minutes a day ups chief operating officer david abney isn't kidding when he said we're obsessive about efficiency another plus the fobs ups drivers now snap them to their belts so they should never get lost when ups boasts about their 340 methods it applies to a lot of details that you might think are mundane every one of these methods has been studied and tested for decades and proven to shave seconds off of every delivery to ensure that the company could squeeze out as many deliveries as humanly possible one of these methods indeed is all about where the driver keeps their pen this tiny detail is simple enough if you're a driver you must keep your pen in your pocket which one depends on hand dominance of course left-handed drivers must keep their pen in their right pocket and right-handed ones need to use the left pocket as breast pockets only by the way while taken on its own this rule would seem ridiculously fussy the fact that it functions alongside hundreds of similar such policies points toward the ethic of ups as a whole which is a company that prizes efficiency above all else has your local ups driver ever been frustrated about how narrow your driveway is or the fact that there are so many cars parked in it that they have to switch into reverse in order to get out ups policy discourages drivers from backing up as much as possible a little backing out is bad enough and long back outs are especially frowned upon according to drivers posting their own experiences on the brown cafe message board the reason for this anti-backup agenda is of course safety related as you probably noticed whether from the time your parent backed up into the mailbox or the time you backed up into your favorite tree reversing a vehicle often causes accidents we have more people on the roads we have more road construction that is a legitimate safety concern out there and the drivers will tell you this unless you think that you can convince your ups driver to back up on your driveway by using your unbeatable charm think again since a driver's vehicle tracks their every move their superiors will come down hard on them anytime the computer records them as going into reverse one truck driver told npr they know exactly how many times you back up and where you're backing up and they also know the distance they know how far you're back in and the speed that you're backing at most of the stricter ups rules come straight from ups at least one rule however comes from higher up the chain and it's a good rule which ups has previously tried to flout who could be more powerful than ups you ask the united states department of transportation who strictly forbids commercial drivers from working more than 60-hour weeks for safety reasons that should be blatantly obvious the cruelty of ups center managers here in jacksonville has been on full display whenever drivers have filed grievances over excessive overtime now this 60 hour max does result in some hiccups such as package delays since a driver has to come back to the hub if he hits the big 60. however in late 2017 katu news reported that ups was responding to the search and holiday package deliveries by pushing drivers to work 70 hour weeks thankfully the ups delivery driver unions took legal action against the company according to labor notes unions in new england rallied in the parking lot as hundreds of drivers refused to start their trucks demanding that if the company didn't value their lives they weren't going to value their requirements when managers protested the workers stood their ground the solidarity of the new england drivers won against ups and these drivers got to keep the 60-hour weeks they wanted instead of cow towing to the forced overtime that had previously been demanded from them oh oh and i almost forgot um i'm also going to need you to go ahead and come in on sunday too okay if you haven't noticed facial hair is in as the 2010s have turned into the 2020s it's clear that men with beards are here to stay as they now appear everywhere from the corporate world to your favorite hipster coffee shop as a clean-shaven norms of the past have been done away with most companies have relaxed their draconian rules regarding beards including yep ups it's worth mentioning here because it was a hard and fast rule at ups for a long time the package delivery company used to enforce a strict moratorium on male drivers possessing beards and or long hair now on a small scale this resulted in situations wherein super qualified applicants were rejected for not shaving on a bigger scale ups beard ban amounted to religious discrimination since employees who wear beards for religious reasons were pressured to conform to the ward cleaver standard check out one of our newest videos right here plus even more grunge videos about your favorite stuff are coming soon subscribe to our youtube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one

Channel: Grunge

Views: 673,517

Keywords: grunge, ups, mail, drivers, rules

Id: QULvx6IiwPY

Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021