Happy Holidays - er, um yeah.
Its that time again. The Holiday season, the time for ........
The frenzied rush of shopping and people saying, "Forget the malls, I'm going online and having it delivered" aka the onset of the dreaded "Peak Season".
So far the load is topping at about 178 stops, a little over his individual threshold. They still aren't too happy about the supplemental thing but, he found out "contractor of the year" man isn't hiring as well, so he feels better that their "star pupil" agrees with him.
So, the late long days that make our Holiday's so joy filled are in full swing. Last year it was really tough to get into any sort of holiday spirit, knowing that he was out there nightly busting his ass even on Christmas Eve so that someone could get that last minute present and not have to worry about missing a beat with their family gatherings by bothering to go out an buy it. To him the holidays have become a nightmare that he no longer wants to celebrate.
It aggravates me that FedEx thinks opening Christmas Eve and the Day after Thanksgiving is such a peachy idea to begin with. Customers NEED to have gifts delievered those days? What about PLANNING AHEAD and taking ownership for your gift giving dilemas and procrastination. No, we should make sure that we mess with service people's lives so some idiot can decide 3 days or so before Christmas that he/she needs to buy things and enable this. Its sick.
SO I'm trying very hard to come up with little thing to keep his spirits up, like trying to pack warm/good things for him to take for lunch, stocking up on new thick cushy wool socks and extra warm underware, spare "big" flashlights in case the big spot breaks, and things that last year became critical on cold dark nights. I'm wondering what kinds of survival kits other contractors keep to deal with peak season.
To all you contractors that read these posts, I'm giving you all imaginary hugs because you need one right now. AND, I promise you. I haven't ordered a single Christmas present online.
posted by S @ 1:52 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Hey, I'm a customer service rep for Fedex and i'm really addicted to reading your Blog. It's giving me so much insight into how the Ground and Home Delivery contractors work and think. I can't ever imaging being put in that situation your boyfriend is in!!And i thought dealing with the fall-out from customers was worse!!!!Tell your boyfriend that myself and all the customer service agents I know are reading this blog and trying to do all we can to make the day go a little bit better for them.Keep on writing, it's awsome stuff! Thanks Rene
Thanks Rene!
I have sympathy for your group. I worked in customer service for a few years and its a thankless job at times.
I'm giving him total deniability by not telling him my blog exists. However I do tell him about interesting snippets that I read here by saying I read it "on some forum" so I'll figure out a way to pass on your support.
I'm glad you guys find some value in this to help the system work a bit better. I'll keep you guys in if something comes up that may be of interest to you.
I am a contractor. have been since the very first day. At our terminal things have finally hit rock bottom. If we don't have our packages scanned by 8:50 am. we must go out without a turn-by-turn and must hand sheet all of our accounts. The first day they did this two people quit, one contractor and one supplemental. I can't believe the ignorance of our management. Just as peak is really gearing up we lose valuable people. A lawyer has already been contacted. I expect this manager will lose his job and that the contractor will recieve compensation for this violation of the contract. My only saving grace is that I have only 10 more payments on my truck and I can get out of here.
My husband is also a contractor for FedEx and I totally agree with you. They tell him they HAVE to deliver before christmas but if the person really cared so much about having it delivered at a certain date and time thats what FedEx express is here for not home delivery. If someone denies to take the package and just denies to open the door because they don't know who could be sending them the package, guess what, they don't get paid because the package wasn't delivered even though they went all the way out there. But fedex gets paid for the shipping that didn't happen why not the drivers. And out of nowhere 30 minutes later if the customer decides oh he wants the package now, it's also considered the driver's obligation to go out there the same day and deliver it again. And now after all these years of them telling their contractors to take up drivers as contractors, they have made it mandatory for us contractors who have additional drivers to treat them as employees and file W-2s. They control what we do, when we do it, how we do it, even our trucks that our in our name and our property have to have FedEx logos (free publicity) and can't be used after hours.
Post a Comment
<< Home