What can Brown do for you?: Two way street

So back again for another UPS story. The last story really jogged the mind and made me remember a ton of stories. Remember I worked every weekday, minus 2 weeks vacation and Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. So that's a lot of adventures. I am hitting the big ones in order and will back fill later.

So we were coming off a tremendous peak season and moving into the beginning of the new year when things slow down a bit. Now, UPS has this program called GainShare. Basically, what happens is the buildings numbers are compared from year to year and any gains made results in a check to the supervisors. It was a nice program. I say nice because I heard that within a year or so after I left, they canceled it.

Since we kicked some serious butt in peak season, we were expecting a big check. Even the new sups who were hired during this time would get a check. So one day after work, Adrian, P.J. and myself are in the office doing time cards for our employees. As we are finishing in comes Ness and Mike. Now, a little bit more about Mike (since I already explained how inept Ness was). Mike was the type of guy that would throw his own mother under the bus to look good. He always said the right thing to make himself look good. He wouldn't agree with it, but he would say it. I am sure we all know the type I am talking about.

So they come in and start making smart ass comments about the gainshare check and how they helped get it. I kept quiet for a bit and then finally fired back. I basically said that Ness shouldn't get a check because he didn't do anything except cost us money. The jabbing went back and forth before I decided (with Adrian and P.J.) to leave. We walked out the door (the building was pretty much empty as the drivers had already left) and were about 15-20 yards away from the door when Mike and Ness stuck their heads out and started back in again. With stuff like "what Kevin? You can't take the fact that we know how to run an area better than you?" and typical stuff like that. Now, remember I was only 24/25 so I still had a really short temper...it's a pretty good excuse right?

I turned around and yelled at the top of my lungs for him to shut up. I kept walking at him and told him things like we are sick of you and Ness, you don't know what you are doing...etc. At this time I see Lou. I thought about stopping, but I figured hell I'm already busted...just keep going. And I did. I yelled some more and then Lou looked and me and Mike and yelled at us to his office...NOW!

So we go to his office where Mike is all calm and tells his story about how I was saying how Ness doesn't deserve his gainshare check because he doesn't work hard. And how I started yelling at him and Ness. Lou was listening and then looked at me. I said "look this is a two way street. I left the situation and he came after me to further instigate it." Lou stopped me there and said "I don't care how many streets there are. You are in the wrong for going off the handle like that." I interupted him and said "So when he came out the door to follow me...that's my fault?" Lou gave the classic "You are just a supervisor and if you keep acting like this you won't be for long, I don't care how good you think you are. Now get out."

That was it. I left Mike got nothing. It fueled my anger towards Mike for a long time. Mike just wanted to go full time and was going about it the right way...kissing ass. I couldn't do it, which is why I never made it full time there.

Next time I will talk about the second time I got kicked out... the opportunity to become a more well rounded supervisor by moving to Pen 6...the worst belt in the building.