How is your career going?

[Jeff V]

Not nearly as bad-ass though.

[Paingod]

Okay, so I'm going to school to be a leader in business. An actual degree for "Leadership". I'm tired of being Tier 1 or Tier 2 support and want to be the guy in the back planning and strategizing, mentoring others through their careers... but I'm increasingly identifying that I have the charisma and presence of Stephen Wright (seen below, obviously with different hair). How do I improve on this?



I see this as an increasing problem as the leaders in business who seem to be doing well are those who have some natural charisma and buoyancy about them. People who are far more outgoing than I am. Trying to emulate outgoing for me is rapidly exhausting.

[Smoove_B]

How do I improve on this?

Charismatic leadership ability is arguably the most difficult area to develop because, as you've noted, so much of it is "hard coded" into your personality. At the risk of sounding like I'm peddling some new age woo-woo, take a free online personality test. Figure out where you roughly fall on the Meyers-Briggs type scale. Use that information to find your general personality type and identify famous historical or contemporary leaders that allegedly had the same personality matrix as you do. Read up on them - ideally a biography or a memoir. Try to gain insight on how they handled leadership-related problems.

Don't try to be the mythical type of leader you're seeing in classes or being told you must become. There are absolutely different types of leadership and at its core, leadership means inspiring others. At the end of the day, if you can inspire someone else, you're a leader (regardless of whether or not you have an 18 CHA or COM score).

[Kasey Chang]

Follow up... They introduced different sizes of boxes, and now they won't stack neatly together. A side effect is the bottom boxes gets crushed, since the boxes are load bearing only on the sides, and the sides no longer line up.

[Exodor]

Started my new job with the city yesterday.

The benefits...good lord, the benefits...

I start with 4 weeks of vacation plus 6.5 days of sick time as well as bank holidays off. Health insurance premiums are fully paid by the city and the deductibles and caps are like nothing I've ever seen. After 5 years I vest in the pension plan and until then they put aside 6% of my salary into a 401K - except they're doing that on top of my salary rather than taking it out of my pay.



I'm also getting paid 10K more than at my MSP job and I'm working with a group of people who clearly love their jobs and are happy in the workplace.

I think this might work out.

[RMC]

How do I improve on this?

Charismatic leadership ability is arguably the most difficult area to develop because, as you've noted, so much of it is "hard coded" into your personality. At the risk of sounding like I'm peddling some new age woo-woo, take a free online personality test. Figure out where you roughly fall on the Meyers-Briggs type scale. Use that information to find your general personality type and identify famous historical or contemporary leaders that allegedly had the same personality matrix as you do. Read up on them - ideally a biography or a memoir. Try to gain insight on how they handled leadership-related problems.

Don't try to be the mythical type of leader you're seeing in classes or being told you must become. There are absolutely different types of leadership and at its core, leadership means inspiring others. At the end of the day, if you can inspire someone else, you're a leader (regardless of whether or not you have an 18 CHA or COM score).

Great advice. I actually found out I am an extrovert doing this. Always thought I was an Introvert. But did a personality test in one of my leadership classes, where you take the test, and they give you a large report, and a guys comes in and interprets the results.

He came into class, and was like I bet, RMC is one of the people who talks and never shuts up. I was like, nope your wrong. While the rest of the class, laughed their ass off and said, oh no, you are 100% right. So go figure, it helped me realize a strength I had. Been in management for 10+ years now. Sigh..

[RMC]

Follow up... They introduced different sizes of boxes, and now they won't stack neatly together. A side effect is the bottom boxes gets crushed, since the boxes are load bearing only on the sides, and the sides no longer line up.

So the name of the product, is IMPERFECT food? Like not perfect??? Really???

[pr0ner]

Started my new job with the city yesterday.

The benefits...good lord, the benefits...

I start with 4 weeks of vacation plus 6.5 days of sick time as well as bank holidays off. Health insurance premiums are fully paid by the city and the deductibles and caps are like nothing I've ever seen. After 5 years I vest in the pension plan and until then they put aside 6% of my salary into a 401K - except they're doing that on top of my salary rather than taking it out of my pay.



I'm also getting paid 10K more than at my MSP job and I'm working with a group of people who clearly love their jobs and are happy in the workplace.

I think this might work out.

Government benefits are pretty damn good.

[EvilHomer3k]

There's a lot of produce that has flaws so people don't buy it. We have a similar brand here. It's cheaper than the 'perfect' food. So you can get cheaper produce if you don't mind that your apples aren't perfectly red. Some of it I buy. Some of it I don't. I got some avocadoes once and they were all nasty. Not again. Got some lemons and limes and they were fine. Some spots on the outside but inside just as good as any other lemon/lime.

[Kasey Chang]

Okay, so I'm going to school to be a leader in business. An actual degree for "Leadership".

Not sure if this would help, but it sure wouldn't hurt:

https://www.blog.google/inside-google/w ... mpaign=og

[hepcat]

One of the two partners in the company I work for had me set up a mail rule a while back with a key word that was showing up in a ton of spam he was getting. Those emails were to be directed to my junk box so I could clean them up every few weeks, letting him know if something looked legit in the process (his command, not my suggestion).

Today I find one that's not spam, just happened to have the right keywords, and was a request to a management consulting team to meet him in order to discuss an "exit strategy" for him and the other partner.

So much for hanging on here until I retire in 10 years.

[msteelers]

Okay, so I'm going to school to be a leader in business. An actual degree for "Leadership". I'm tired of being Tier 1 or Tier 2 support and want to be the guy in the back planning and strategizing, mentoring others through their careers... but I'm increasingly identifying that I have the charisma and presence of Stephen Wright (seen below, obviously with different hair). How do I improve on this?

I wish I had an answer for this. I've struggled for awhile hiring charismatic people to work for me over the years, either at the radio station or the entertainment business that I'm moving more into next week. I can teach people how to use equipment, or how to compile a news report, or how to mix music... but I fail every time at getting people to be comfortable on the mic and be charismatic. I don't know how to do it, and I need to figure it out.

On the flip side of that, I feel like I'm living proof that it can be done. I'm incredibly shy. In school and at my previous jobs I hated being the center of attention. I barely spoke, even in groups of friends. But I wanted to be a radio host, so being shy wasn't going to work. The only thing I can say is that I flipped a mental switch. My favorite phrase was "fake it til you make it." I knew what I wanted to be, so I just pretended to be that.

I know that's terrible advice. It's just all I have.

[Malificent]

I just went through a week long leadership class, where the focus was on what they called the 6 dimensions of leadership:

• Personal Leadership - This is basically both knowing what your personal vision is AND making it clear to the team

• Relational Leadership - Building good relationships with people

• Contextual Leadership - Explaining what role the team/company has in a changing environment. Painting a clear situational picture.

Those 3 form the base of the pyramid. On top of those 3 sit:

• Inspirational leadership - What it sounds like... inspiring people to more enthusiasm. Relies on them believing in who you are (Personal) and connecting with you (Relational)

• Supportive leadership - Supporting the team in getting the job done and in furthering their career. Relies on them trusting you (Relational) and understanding clearly what is needed in different situations (Contextual)

Finally at the top of the pyramid:

• Responsible Leadership - Making ethical and balanced leadership decisions about the company, team, and employees

So, while being inspirational is part of being a good leader, it's not all of it. And being charismatic does not equal inspiring. Many natural leaders are charismatic but it's not required to be a good leader. Charisma is a natural talent that some are born with and some aren't but inspiring people is a skill. For example, if you encourage innovation then that can inspire others to look for new ideas as well.

My leadership course was very behavioral/research focused. If you do X, then you end up with Y result. That was comforting because it meant I didn't have to figure some weird mystical way of becoming charismatic, which I certainly am not.

Hope this helped a little.

[Kasey Chang]

There's a lot of produce that has flaws so people don't buy it. We have a similar brand here. It's cheaper than the 'perfect' food. So you can get cheaper produce if you don't mind that your apples aren't perfectly red. Some of it I buy. Some of it I don't. I got some avocadoes once and they were all nasty. Not again. Got some lemons and limes and they were fine. Some spots on the outside but inside just as good as any other lemon/lime.

The concept is hardly unique, and often, it's really to sell a social message (virtue signaling) instead of actually cheap produce. We can't compete with some stuff, and our selection often sucks (right now, there are no potatoes). Which is why Imperfect Produce was recently rebranded as Imperfect Foods, so the expanded offering now covers eggs, alternative milk, meal kits, herbs and spices, grain, and a lot more than just produce and fruits. Personal observation: most of the stuff we have to offer are really surplus, not "ugly" produce. Some may be for the wrong size, or slight imperfections, but not that many. And let's just say we dump quite a bit of produce that we can't sell too.

[Kasey Chang]

More ranting. Had to drop 102 orders yesterday (that's about 140 boxes, as there are a LOT of multi-box orders). Fortunately, I got San Francisco. Unfortunately, my shift mates abandoned me in loading leaving me and only one other guy to load my van (after I loaded theirs). I pity the guy for who got 105 orders for San Jose area. I remember doing 95 in Palo Alto area. I went almost 12 hours.

We're suffering heavy driver attrition, and they are just shifting drivers around instead of hiring new ones. Routes are getting worse again (keep circling back to the same area), and the routers are just letting the route stand with no consideration of traffic direction (instead of putting the destination to my right, it could be across a four-lane street). It gets frustrating when they could have routed it better.

yes, we do have GPS and nav, but we would MUCH prefer seeing the same addresses as we are FAMILIAR with the area. (let's just say the Google pins are not always at the right location). Shuffling us willy-nilly only slows us down, as you have TWO guys not familiar with their area (me in a strange area, then a stranger took over my area)

Add to the all the extra duties, like picking up the old boxes and ice packs and foil packs for recycling (WHY!?!?!) AND take away the hand holes and keep pushes changes onto us without asking us for our opinions is making this so-called progressive company very Dilbertian.

[RMC]

There's a lot of produce that has flaws so people don't buy it. We have a similar brand here. It's cheaper than the 'perfect' food. So you can get cheaper produce if you don't mind that your apples aren't perfectly red. Some of it I buy. Some of it I don't. I got some avocadoes once and they were all nasty. Not again. Got some lemons and limes and they were fine. Some spots on the outside but inside just as good as any other lemon/lime.

The concept is hardly unique, and often, it's really to sell a social message (virtue signaling) instead of actually cheap produce. We can't compete with some stuff, and our selection often sucks (right now, there are no potatoes). Which is why Imperfect Produce was recently rebranded as Imperfect Foods, so the expanded offering now covers eggs, alternative milk, meal kits, herbs and spices, grain, and a lot more than just produce and fruits. Personal observation: most of the stuff we have to offer are really surplus, not "ugly" produce. Some may be for the wrong size, or slight imperfections, but not that many. And let's just say we dump quite a bit of produce that we can't sell too.

I guess I live in the country, where these types of services don't exist. While I have neighbors, we all have over 5 acres(small lot), so there is distance between us. Heck, Uber does not come out to where I live, honestly.

[Kasey Chang]

I guess I live in the country, where these types of services don't exist. While I have neighbors, we all have over 5 acres(small lot), so there is distance between us. Heck, Uber does not come out to where I live, honestly.

I've delivered to Brentwood, and other "in the country' deliveries (huge lots, 5-10 minutes between neighbors). But that's before the company went to "local hub" distribution, dividing up the delivery area so not every van leaves the San Francisco warehouse, but instead, a couple refrigerated trucks leave San Francisco and go out to local hubs to give the boxes to the individual vans.

[Kasey Chang]

Another rant day. I had 73 orders to drop... Except this is in the Hayward / Union City / Fremont area, roughly 1 hour from San Francisco, on the wrong side of the bay (technically East Bay, almost to San Jose), and the stops are far apart, which means number of orders per hour plummets. And that's assuming you can go in-and-out in 1 minute, and traveling between points takes 5 minutes. That's 6 minutes per drop, so 10 orders an hour. When you're searching for a specific unit in the dark? When it takes 10-15 minutes to get to the next drop? When Google took me to the street BEHIND the building instead of the front? Forget it.

Then the dispatcher had the audacity to ask me, at 9:40PM (that's when I finally dropped my last box) if I can drive down to San Jose (I"m in Hayward, 25-30 minutes away), Get 8 boxes from a guy who decided he wants to go home, and finish it for him. I should have FINISHED everything by 7:30PM (i.e. already returned to base) as I started at 11AM, but I'm still 30 minutes away from HQ, and they want to extend my stay out for ANOTHER 2.5 hours? (30 minutes to drive down, transfer the boxes, deliver the final 8 which would take at least an hour in the dark and getting REALLY late, then 30-45 minutes to drive back to San Francisco, AND 10-15 minutes clean-up). I think even he realized how unreasonable that is, as he had to stay out that late WITH ME as he's also the closer. Three minutes later he called me to come home, apparently received permission from TPTB. Didn't get back until 10:10, and finally got out at 10:25 after cleaning up the van, and got home at almost 11PM.

[ManAboutNothing]

I was going to come on this thread and moan about my now miserable lot as an indie game dev these days, but after reading poor Kasey's grueling journeys, I won't bother. I've got it pretty good, I think!

[Kasey Chang]

I don't mind a programming job. In fact, I want one, but my programming skills are useless nowadays.

[Default]

My oldest son started working for USPS in one of the 'burbs, a place he has never worked at before. His second day by himself was last Sunday and he doesn't know the area. They gave him 60 stops and a delivery route enabled scanner. It crashes after the first delivery, and he has to find his way around on his old phone. The station phone number does not get answered and the supervisor did not exchange cell numbers with him. Took him almost 12 hours to get done and he was a wreck by the time he finally got to my house for dinner.

Postal training 101:

"These are our wolves. Now relax while I toss you to them."

[msteelers]

Friday was my last day at the radio station. My alarm clock has been set to 4am since 2013. So what did I do on my first few days being able to wake up without an alarm?

I got up at 3:30am yesterday and 5:30am today...

[Isgrimnur]

I don't mind a programming job. In fact, I want one, but my programming skills are useless nowadays.

The ability to program and think through a problem is worth more than knowing a particular language. I’ve spent my entire career to this point working with systems that aren’t known outside of their niche industries.

And there are plenty of free online courses available to learn the techs that you want to. I’m currently in a basic Python course through Coursera so I can get into using it for deeper data analytics.

[Kasey Chang]

Oh, I knew that, but finding someone who recognize that you already have to ability to problem-solve, but you need time to get up to speed with the methodology and tools is the problem. Most companies want to slot you in as a replaceable component.

I think three or four years ago, when I need to know the amount of money in my FASTRAK (bridge toll) account, I hacked together a Python / Chrome automation script that I run nightly to scrape the result off my account page, despite not knowing any Python at the time. I think I looked into half dozen tools before finally deciding that macro packages won't do and it had to be scripted. I got the script working, but I wouldn't say I "know" Python.

[Kasey Chang]

My oldest son started working for USPS in one of the 'burbs, a place he has never worked at before. His second day by himself was last Sunday and he doesn't know the area. They gave him 60 stops and a delivery route enabled scanner. It crashes after the first delivery, and he has to find his way around on his old phone. The station phone number does not get answered and the supervisor did not exchange cell numbers with him. Took him almost 12 hours to get done and he was a wreck by the time he finally got to my house for dinner.

Postal training 101:

"These are our wolves. Now relax while I toss you to them."

Ouch. Had a friend who worked USPS for a few years, just enough so he retired with a disability pension, certified bad knees and all that. Every new USPS person had to do their routes first before they get cushier jobs.

EDIT: FWIW, here are some items I got off Amazon that helped me make my life as a delivery drone easier. It's an "idea list"

http://a.co/aHg4Xds

[Isgrimnur]

Oh, I knew that, but finding someone who recognize that you already have to ability to problem-solve, but you need time to get up to speed with the methodology and tools is the problem. Most companies want to slot you in as a replaceable component.

You have to attack the right positions, even if it means starting closer to the bottom that you’d like. There are companies going to the universities twice a year to interview new graduates, knowing that the hires will need training and time to become effective. It’s what I did to get my first pro job.

I’d been working with DBMS systems for years and still ended up taking an entry level position to get my foot in the door.

[Smoove_B]

LinkedIn is telling me I should apply to be the Assistant Secretary General at the UN. I appreciate the confidence, but your programmers need help.

[dbt1949]

Maybe they'll hire you to help them.

[Kasey Chang]

Today... didn't need to rant, but I guess I will anyway.

75 orders, south of Market area. Routing is ****. I basically circling the area, visiting many locations two or three times. They didn't sort the orders by delivery windows (we have a weird delivery window system, you can choose 12-4, 4-8, or "anytime before 8"). They can't blame me if I deliver stuff AFTER the 4PM window because I can't get to it in time and they scheduled it too late. I didn't even take any of the 10-minute breaks. (legally, it's supposed to be 15 minutes, paid breaks) I finally lucked out when I spotted 10 orders going to the same building (large apt complex) except it's separated into multiple chunks. Had to consolidate them, THEN took them into the package room in like 3 trips. If I had done it all in the given order I'd be doing ANOTHER HOUR overtime. The sucky part is the package room also wanted its own checkin process. Guess they want to notify their residents separately. *sigh*

Also didn't take the boxes up to the individual apartment doors (like customer requested). I wasn't parked properly (it's hazards on and run), sometimes, even double-parked. Best I can do is leave it in the mail area. If you insist your stuff will be stolen if it's left there, it's your problem living with a bunch of lowly thieves. I honestly do NOT have time to call from the call box, wait for unlock, walk to the elevator, wait for the elevator, go to floor, find door, drop the boxes, then reverse everything. If I was doing only 40 orders, I may have time to do that. But when I am doing 70+, I can't deliver to door! It's not reasonable!

Frankly, this entire delivery business, the incentives are upside down. I am probably the ONLY GUY (well, there may be one or two more) who actually finish AHEAD of time (i.e. return BEFORE full 8 working hours). So basically I don't need to work the full eight hours, sometimes, to do my job, while others sometimes need more. Fine, except they make the faster guys HELP the slower guys... WTF... Now nobody wants to help anybody... Because the more efficient worker gets MORE work, not less. Yet both the more efficient and less efficient (need help) are paid the same, due to same hours worked. Call that an incentive to NOT work as hard.

The company "leaders" are also very tone-deaf and not wanting to fix anything. The delivery department keeps emphasizing efficiency, while keep taking away things that would help us stay efficient... Such as the hand-holes / finger holes on the boxes. The boxes, without handholes / fingerholes, are difficult to remove from a stack, because there is no place to grab and drag them. Then they started making us take back older cartons, foil bags, and "ice packs". Now I need to fit them into the vehicle and/or flatten the cartons, which SLOWS US DOWN. They tell us to go faster, while throwing obstacles in our way.

When I first got started, the job description was 40-50 orders a day. For Monday and Tuesday, I exceeded 100 orders each day. And they are still not hiring drivers, but shuffling drivers around. At this rate, I may not want to stay for my 3rd year.

[LawBeefaroni]

I was a a light yesterday next to a double parked Imperfect Produce van. The driver was getting in the cab right next to my passenger side window. He looked tired.

Two things.
1. It was the first time I saw (or noticed) Imperfect Produce other than this thread.
2. I wanted to roll down my window and say, "I feel you, brother. I cyber-know Kasey!". But I didn't.

[stessier]

Also didn't take the boxes up to the individual apartment doors (like customer requested). I wasn't parked properly (it's hazards on and run), sometimes, even double-parked. Best I can do is leave it in the mail area. If you insist your stuff will be stolen if it's left there, it's your problem living with a bunch of lowly thieves. I honestly do NOT have time to call from the call box, wait for unlock, walk to the elevator, wait for the elevator, go to floor, find door, drop the boxes, then reverse everything. If I was doing only 40 orders, I may have time to do that. But when I am doing 70+, I can't deliver to door! It's not reasonable!

Frankly, this entire delivery business, the incentives are upside down. I am probably the ONLY GUY (well, there may be one or two more) who actually finish AHEAD of time (i.e. return BEFORE full 8 working hours). So basically I don't need to work the full eight hours, sometimes, to do my job, while others sometimes need more. Fine, except they make the faster guys HELP the slower guys... WTF... Now nobody wants to help anybody... Because the more efficient worker gets MORE work, not less. Yet both the more efficient and less efficient (need help) are paid the same, due to same hours worked. Call that an incentive to NOT work as hard.

I know this is a rant, so I probably should just let it go, but this part stuck out to me. You're not doing your job. You're doing a version of the job and that version is screwing up the metrics for everyone else. They assume you are following the rules and doing as requested - they then look at your output and assume everyone can do it. It's obviously up to you, but nothing is going to change for the better if you keep with the way you are going.

[pr0ner]

Also didn't take the boxes up to the individual apartment doors (like customer requested). I wasn't parked properly (it's hazards on and run), sometimes, even double-parked. Best I can do is leave it in the mail area. If you insist your stuff will be stolen if it's left there, it's your problem living with a bunch of lowly thieves. I honestly do NOT have time to call from the call box, wait for unlock, walk to the elevator, wait for the elevator, go to floor, find door, drop the boxes, then reverse everything. If I was doing only 40 orders, I may have time to do that. But when I am doing 70+, I can't deliver to door! It's not reasonable!

Frankly, this entire delivery business, the incentives are upside down. I am probably the ONLY GUY (well, there may be one or two more) who actually finish AHEAD of time (i.e. return BEFORE full 8 working hours). So basically I don't need to work the full eight hours, sometimes, to do my job, while others sometimes need more. Fine, except they make the faster guys HELP the slower guys... WTF... Now nobody wants to help anybody... Because the more efficient worker gets MORE work, not less. Yet both the more efficient and less efficient (need help) are paid the same, due to same hours worked. Call that an incentive to NOT work as hard.

I know this is a rant, so I probably should just let it go, but this part stuck out to me. You're not doing your job. You're doing a version of the job and that version is screwing up the metrics for everyone else. They assume you are following the rules and doing as requested - they then look at your output and assume everyone can do it. It's obviously up to you, but nothing is going to change for the better if you keep with the way you are going.

This is a good point. If he's finishing his route in less time than he should because he's taking shortcuts that he shouldn't, that's a problem.

[Kasey Chang]

That is certainly a possibility, that I'm the guy who broke the average. I'm double the age of the rest of the folks (everybody else is probably in their twenties, except maybe one or two guys in thirties), and I'm the only guy who genuinely buys my own extra equipment to make things easier for myself.

But the fact they are NOT ASKING ME how I'm breaking the average, also speaks volumes. HALF of the drivers quit in the past twelve months. I was among the first batch of drivers hired for this branch when it started 2 years ago. Out of that group, I only see 3-4 faces left. I've had like 3-4 turnover supervisors, and the semi-promised desk job (as dispatcher / route-planner) never materialized, as they keep offloading to other branches.

Now the warehouse staff is getting idiotic. They failed to separate the palettes. I find my initial orders at the bottom of the other guy's palette... So I can't load anything until I help him finish loading his van. These are SIMPLE problems, and it's obvious warehouse supervisors are not training the line workers properly yet nothing seems to be happening to fix the problem. OTOH, they are building the boxes and palettes 2 days ahead, so maybe I'm just seeing the lag. But they are blaming the temps manning the lines.

No, I blame the route-planners, who only see addresses, not terrain and difficulty levels, and failure to anticipate delivery loads. I suggested dividing up the downtown route so everybody head into downtown and drop all downtown orders before the 3PM no-parking deadline hits. Apparent it's been ignored AGAIN (they keep switching up the staff, trying routing in SF, Chicago, LA, etc. so nobody actually knows our requirements. ) I know the addresses in San Francisco, and roughly the difficulty in delivering to them. I know the addresses in most of the surrounding cities too as I've been there a few times. But the routers, unless they live here, or studied the map before, don't know. They route, and they will gravitate toward the simplest solution: just let the software route automatically, with minimal tweaking. And because software has no metrics about stop difficulty, or how multiple addresses can go to the same location, we often end up with loops, and a TON of u-turns, or have to run across the street... A route-planner can compensate a lot about it, but they are not incentivized to do a better job. After all, they get paid the same no matter what quality of job they do. It's not as if they get paid better if they route us more efficiently.

Yet the push to have our own routing staff is being ignored. Right now, routing is either outsourced to other cities, or as a secondary task to our dispatchers (who already have to coordinate gajillion details, like maintainence and other bits of paperwork). I remember one was saying he spent ONLY 3 hours on routing, but apparently routing is also under a deadline because warehouse needs the routes to build and palletize the boxes.

In other words, the company is just expanding, without considering the implications and side effects of such expansions. A lot of the existing processes they have are NOT scalable, or as scalable as they expected, and the solutions they have are just band-aids.

One example: they started to offer "free shipping if you order $60+", and started offering milk alternatives, and LaCroix sodas. You know how heavy those **** are. So the average box count started going up, and average box weight also went up. Instead of everything for one van fit on one pallet, they now need TWO pallets. This makes loading time more of a juggle, as the van is only so wide. AND they had to replace all the wood pallets with plastic heavy-duty ones because the weight of the stuff are destroying the wood pallets. Now they are replacing the handtrucks from the simple folding ones to heavy-duty ones like UPS... Except there's no place to put them in the cargo bay... No stand, no rack, no nothing. The ONLY place to put them is on the passenger seat (or hidden behind it), but we need that room for the return stuff, the undeliverable boxes, and so on.

Our logistic manager also told us we can handle 140 boxes per run, because they've tried it. Not 140 LOADED boxes, you don't. You obviously tested with EMPTY boxes. Not only we wouldn't have room for all the stuff they insist we have to pick up like empty cartons, foil bags, and ice packs, it also would mean all the bottom boxes are pretty much CRUSHED by the end of the trip. And if we stack them five high, they'll be sliding off when we accelerate on a hill, and a fall from top of van to the van floor is likely to be fatal to any bottles and liquids inside.

It's as if they are ONLY looking at the bright side, and leaving us, the minions to deal with the problems.

[LawBeefaroni]

There are a ton of issues but management won't deal with a laundry list of them. Plot all your fixes on a graph with the x-axis being efficiency improvement (low to high, left to right) and y being ease of implementation (low to high, top to bottom). The fix highest on y that is right of center is the one you want to push.

Or make y cost, high to low.

Biggest bang for buck improvements get looked at.

[Kasey Chang]

Sorry, time for another rant.

Today is was a total **** show. Bay Area got hit with a rain storm, with occasional showers all over the place. Instead of doing my normal route (70+ boxes in San Mateo area), I got tasked with a strange 43 box route which the assistant dispatcher was supposed to take... Except apparently he called in sick. So who's doing my normal route? Well, not my problem. So I went out (last vehicle out, as I supposedly have the fewest orders) Didn't get out until 1215 (I usually leave the yard by 1130). I actually loaded another 15 boxes then was told "those aren't your problem, unload them".

Okay, drove into the area, dropped 11 out of 43 orders... Was told to "come back, and load your original 73 orders". I said, you gotta be kidding me, I already loaded 15 of them and had to unload them. Now you want me to spend 30 minutes drive back to yard, load them, drive back out, and keep dropping the remaining 43 orders, while with 70+ extra orders loaded? How am I going to give the boxes to the other drivers? And my orders are in Portola Valley, in the hills, where NOBODY can get to me without driving like an hour. WTF...

Okay, drove back, the boxes got moved, made room for another 70+ orders (probably 90 boxes). By this time, it's past 3PM, so I took my 30 minute lunch. Now the skies are getting dim, but kept going. But ****. This is deep in the hills, NO STREETLIGHTS anywhere, and it's starting to shower. The remaining 30+ orders took 5 hours. We're talking about simple narrow two-lane "highways" and sometimes, one-lane streets. The driveways are sometimes not even paved. had to punch codes at security gates. And so on. I told the guy who's supposed to come help to head for nearest freeway exit. 30 minutes later, he called... I told him to check my next address... ANOTHER HOUR AWAY. WTF!? I'm literally in the middle of practically nowhere. With a bit of back and forth, it was finally agreed that instead of chasing me all over these narrow roads, he will sit in San Mateo at where the first stop will be, while I drop remaining of the initial 43 orders. And the remainder are basically down narrow driveways, where I had to back up and out in the dark. FINALLY finished dropping all orders at 8:40 or so. And got out of the hills and reached the other van by 9:20. Normally we don't deliver past 10PM...

Anyway, moved 40 orders to the other van. Was NOT given any further instructions other than to contact another driver, who has another 7 stops to go. Given it's at night, this will take him MORE than half an hour. So I went to grab dinner at BK. And waited, and waited. Not a word. 45 minutes later, the guy called me. He just finished his normal route and wants to know what's going on. I told him. I was about to give him a rendezvous address when I realized dispatch had assigned me a 20+ box route WITHOUT TELLING ME (not via text, not via voice, not via Whatsapp) Apparently I was supposed to be delivering stuff. I told him to meet me at the third stop, while I start dropping orders. I was able to drop the first one, the second one, then got a call that they want us all to come back. By this time, it's 1030+

All three of us reached warehouse by 11 or so. We're expected to unload the vans into the warehouse too. By this time, most of the boxes have soaked in the moisture and are sagging or crushed (remember, I had about 110-120 boxes loaded at one time, they were stacked 5 high) we managed to unload two pallets. Should have asked the warehouse guy to use a forklift, as our attempt to pull the pallet up the ramp with a pallet jack resulted in 1/3rd of the sagging boxes spill onto the ramp. Then had to clean that up. Didn't clock out until 1130, and didn't get home until midnight.

Basically, this is dispatch unable to cope with driver no-show, and ended up wasting time of more drivers trying to react to that, with minimal results to show.

[ManAboutNothing]

In other words, the company is just expanding, without considering the implications and side effects of such expansions. A lot of the existing processes they have are NOT scalable, or as scalable as they expected, and the solutions they have are just band-aids.
It's as if they are ONLY looking at the bright side, and leaving us, the minions to deal with the problems.

I worked for a web host a few years ago like this. Company expanding, went from 2-5 calls a day to 50+/day, 3-4 tickets/day, now its 20-30+/day, plus site migrations too, and management completely didn't care and just told employees to 'man up'. I was literally doing two people's job for a year or so, and finally just got sick of it and left. Life is short, and the misery caused by the job greatly exceeded the paycheck at that stage.

[Kasey Chang]

Yeah, hate to say this, but originally my job description when I signed on was 40-50 boxes a day. I've done at least 4-5 days where I had to drop 110-120 boxes a day (105 orders was my "record")

[Kasey Chang]

New developments... Just got fired for a minor policy violation.

They keep us out for up to 12 hours at a time, but apparently an EMPTY pee bottle in the van is a "health violation" and fireable offense. Yes, they did warn me last week for not emptying out the van and yes, there's a little pee in the bottle. Emptied it already. Thought that's the end of that.

Tuesday, showed up, was told to report to supervisor, and was informed that I'm fired for keeping that empty bottle. WTF.

[RMC]

New developments... Just got fired for a minor policy violation.

They keep us out for up to 12 hours at a time, but apparently an EMPTY pee bottle in the van is a "health violation" and fireable offense. Yes, they did warn me last week for not emptying out the van and yes, there's a little pee in the bottle. Emptied it already. Thought that's the end of that.

Tuesday, showed up, was told to report to supervisor, and was informed that I'm fired for keeping that empty bottle. WTF.

Ouch, sorry to hear that.

[Smoove_B]

I'm going to voice the unpopular opinion that any job necessitating the use of a bottle to urinate in is not a job worth having. Good luck in your search for better employment.