What can Brown do for you?: Wanna know something...

So it's been awhile since I had a UPS post, but you can catch up HERE.

Pen 6 was running fairly smooth, but like all belts changes started to happen. Tito was pulling 4 cars on a belt to car line which is pretty impressive. He was a good employee and so I did what we were supposed to do and try to make him a supervisor. So became a sup, so his route was divided up. One of my two splitters was quitting so I would have to train a new employee there too. Things weren't looking too good for us. Oh yeah and one of my other employees wanted to go to the sort aisle because he had school. The writing was on the wall for us, but being my personality I didn't want to accept it.

Also new was our building manager Chuck. He had a different philosophy than Lou. Lou felt like if the sort aisle was clean with no missorts then load side would go down as soon as that last package came out. Chuck was a complete 180. He felt that we needed to just get the packages out of the feeders (semi trucks) and into the building as fast as possible then worry about getting them in the right package cars.

So naturally one of Chuck's pet-peeves was turning off the pen belt. If there was a spill or the loader needed a second to catch up he would turn off the belt and reset it. There was a delay of about 3 seconds. That was usually good enough. If there was a lot of missorts or an irreg on the belt we would turn it off longer. Now by turning it off out there, it would stop in the sort aisle. This caused some problems for the sorters. Chuck told us never to turn the belt off for any reason. This was just one of the many things Chuck and I disagreed on.

So one day my other splitter called in sick. So I was down one employee. Tito was training the new guy. And the loader that replaced Adam (went to the sort aisle) was still learning his stops. I was splitting, but we were getting specials and tons of missorts. So we kept turning the belt off and on to catch up. The sort aisle complained so enter Chuck.

He came up and wanted to know what was going on. So I told him that I needed at least one more employee to cover the sick splitter. He response "He's going to be gone in a few weeks anyways and you are getting a replacement for him. Get used to it." Classic management response I know.

So he leaves and we keep drowning in packages. The belt starts giggling and sounding like it is going to explode. So I turn the belt off and we start putting stuff away. Chuck returns with another supervisor who knows the belt, so I am assuming he is going to help load. Nope...makes too much sense. He tells me "you can't do your job as a supervisor so I am bringing in someone to do your job. You worry about the splitting and loading, you aren't in charge of the belt."

Now I don't like to be told I'm not good at my job especially when the odds are clearly stacked against me. So I go back to the "ok then, you got your wish" mode. John comes up and starts asking me questions and I'm like "don't ask me I'm not in charge." He asks who is and I say Chris, but Chris walked off after Chuck left...never really knew why.

The belt is grinding and the belt is covered with packages and they are stacked up about 3 feet. I can't split the belt anymore, neither can Steve. We keep trying, but since the belt can't move (too much weight) the packages keep backing up. I give up...yeah just gave up. Call it quitting, call it making a point, but I wasn't going to bust my balls for this. I was in charge of the belt, I saw a problem and addressed. My management team didn't respect me enough to listen and now look at what had happened.

I look at Steve and say "want to know something? I'm not splitting the belt anymore." He looks back laughs and says "that's ok, I haven't been splitting for about a half hour now." And with that we both started laughing.

Chuck ended up bringing Adam up to help...about 3 hours too late. It was a big CF. And all Chuck could say was "if you wouldn't have turned off the belt this wouldn't have happen." Ohh this was just the start of my year with Chuck.