Brad Brown

There comes a time in every UPS supervisor’s career when he’s given the opportunity to ride along with a package delivery driver. My chance came during New Management Orientation (NMO). NMO is UPS’s equivalent to Jonestown, except that it’s held in a discrete office park and only lasts for two weeks [and typically, no one dies]. NMO is a two-week class, during which you’re taught everything you need to know about management at UPS - the technique, the history, and the trivia. In addition to theory, they pair you with a delivery driver and send you out for a day of delivering packages in order to give you a taste of the delivery process. Delivering packages had always seemed easy to me from a theoretical point of view. As an accomplished computer programmer, I like to think I know it all when it comes to manual labor. Dear Jebus, how wrong I was!
 
To prepare for the ride-along, our NMO class ordered driver clothing (known as “browns“) in advance. The thing you don’t realize about the brown clothes worn by the UPS driver is that they’re scientifically engineered for performance:

• The pants pockets are shallow so you don’t waste time fishing around for change.
• The shirts have extra width in the belly area, giving your stomach an incredible range of motion.
• The crotch has inflatable air chambers to enhance your manly appearance. Two thumbs up for that feature!

If the person who designed the UPS shirt would put one of those large-bellied shirts on the open market, I suspect they’d make a killing. I have never worn a more comfortable shirt in my life.
 
The clothing isn’t the only thing engineered to perfection. The entire delivery process is continually monitored to improve performance. The packages in the truck are arranged in order by destination, so there’s no time wasted searching for packages. The little computer the driver carries, the DIAD, tells them where the next stop is. The times and locations of the driver stops are fed into a database at the end of each day and the data analyzed. Occasionally, UPS will even send an industrial engineer out with the driver, so that the driver’s movements can be observed for possible improvement. I think one day, they’ll replace the drivers altogether, preferably with those neat FedEx robots from the movie “I, Robot”.
 
The day of my outing, I arrived early at the package center. All of the NMO participants stood against a wall like a police lineup, as each of the drivers walked by and picked the partner of their choice. The cute girls were picked first, followed by the pasty-white, male programmers. I was approached by a short, blonde, female driver named Stacey. Stacey said “You mind a 12-hour shift? This isn’t like corporate.” I thought to myself, “If this petite woman can do it, I sure can. I’ll be surprised if she makes it through the day.” I assured her I could handle it, and we hopped on her truck and we were off.
 
Within the first five minutes of driving, I knew Stacey and I would get along perfectly. She cursed like a sailor, so I felt right at home. She explained the itinerary for the day; it essentially involved driving one big loop from business to business, dropping off the early A.M. packages first, saving the non-time critical packages for later. The cool thing about being a UPS driver is that everyone knows your name and anticipates your arrival with glee. At every stop we made, the customers would ask Stacey “How are the kids?” or “How’s the husband?” One place even gave us homemade cookies. A benefit of riding along with a female driver is service; female drivers typically make quicker deliveries because the male customers are more helpful, often meeting the driver at the truck to pick up packages [this is documented fact, not just my creative imagination running wild]. If I were forming a delivery company, I think I would hire female strippers as drivers for this very reason.
 
The delivery and pickup process is quite time constrained. Stacey knew at what times we had to be at certain landmarks in order to keep on schedule. Inside the truck, there was a constant ticking sound coming from a small box mounted on the ceiling. I was never told what it was, but I assumed it was some audible cue to indicate that time was of the essence. The morning was a constant drive, stop, pickup and deliver routine, with little time to take the relaxing breaks I was used to at corporate.
 
By 11:30, the continuous delivering and pickup of packages was beginning to take its toll on my frail body. Luckily, it was time for lunch, so we met another driver at a Mexican restaurant. The other driver was female too - a really cute brunette with a ponytail. She looked like a young Kate Beckinsale, but as soon as she opened her mouth, I realized she was more of a man than me. It was like having lunch with a man trapped in a supermodel’s body - she talked with her mouth full, fidgeted constantly, and dropped the occasional “You’re {expletive}ing kidding me!” Most of the conversation was spent complaining about the center manager or other drivers - very similar to what we did at corporate. Initially, both drivers were wary of talking in front me, but I told them that what is said at La Fuente stays at La Fuente, and they loosened up.
 
The afternoon was similar to the morning, although without the time-critical packages to deliver, there didn’t seem to be the urgency. BradBrown.com asked Stacey what the worst thing about being a UPS driver was. She said “The masturbating men.” It turns out there’s a small segment of the male population that enjoys riding around in their cars and masturbating for female UPS drivers. Stacey said this had happened four or five times since she became a UPS driver. She’d be stopped at a red light, only to look down at the car next to her to see a naked man masturbating [I’m assuming they all drove automatic transmissions]. The last time it happened to her, she said she smiled back at the guy while simultaneously dialing 911. The police later caught the guy; he was only wearing tube socks.
 
At about 5:00 pm, I began praying to all the major deities for relief. Every muscle in my body ached, I was drenched with sweat, and we still had two hours to go. It was the longest couple of hours of my life. At 6:30, we headed back to the center. Stacey and I exchanged compliments - she definitely impressed me and even though I couldn’t keep up with her, I apparently was better than the last corporate stooge she got stuck with. We exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch. We never did.
 
Conclusion

• Driving for UPS is tough. I could never do it for more than four hours; I’m too much of a girl.
• It’s a great way to meet unattractive people of the opposite sex.
• Drivers are suspicious of corporate types, and vice versa. It’s not something limited to UPS, just the typical white/blue collar divide.

If you ever have a chance to ride with a package car driver (for any company), I’d highly recommend the experience. You’ll never realize the detail and planning that goes into the process, or how physically demanding it is. I’ll stick to typing.

My manager Tim called me over to his desk one day. He was designing the layout of his swimming pool in Visio, and he wanted my opinion on the design. Tim had sold all his UPS stock to have the pool built, which at UPS, puts you in a promotion purgatory. UPS expects their managers to maintain a sizable portion of company stock, and if you don’t, your chances of being promoted in a timely fashion are nil. I suggested to Tim that he go with the dark blue pool walls - I’ve always preferred dark blue walls for that tropical look. We discussed the position of decorative rocks, the BBQ grill, and the diving board. I never realized what such a great landscaping tool Visio was until that moment.
 
Eventually, I got bored and went back to my desk. I performed my hourly check of the online conference room reservation system, hoping to find a meeting that was ending. I was a food shark, swimming in after the meetings were over to pick up stale donuts, before the food service people removed them. I tended to stay away from the larger conference rooms - they had the larger coffee pots heated by Bunsen burners that tended to burn the coffee. The smaller conference rooms featured non-heated carafes which didn’t burn the coffee. Unfortunately, there were no meetings going on. It was looking as if I might actually have to work.
 
Luckily, Larry Jaworski the networking guy stopped by. Larry’s job consisted of creating network accounts for new users - good job if you can get it. Most of the time, he walked from cube to cube talking to people. He carried a piece of paper as a prop to make the management think he was doing something important like hand-delivering an important fax. He also maintained a map in Excel of the UPS hotties; it was like Google Maps, except you used it to locate the cubicles of attractive women. Larry and I sat around for 20 minutes, discussing what was new since his last visit earlier in the morning.
 
At 11:00, the lunch group started the daily email thread to decide where we were going to eat. I had intended to automate the “pick a lunch venue” process by creating an internal website, but never got around to it. Getting the group to agree on a lunch destination was like getting Halliburton out of Iraq - a very slow process. After about a 20-minute email exchange, we settled on a place. To avoid unwanted managers from tagging along [it’s amazing how an irritating manager can dampen a good lunch], we had a silent departure procedure, practiced to the point of perfection. At exactly 11:30, we all stood up in our cubes, looked around like prairie dogs, and then took off in separate directions. I took the back stairs down to the fifth floor, crossed the Oz Nelson memorial garden to building three, then met the others at our secret rendezvous location at the Wachovia ATM.
 
During lunch, we complained about management, complained about our jobs, and complained about the low pay. You’d think that all the complaining would be cathartic, but since we complained each day, I guess it wasn’t. After lunch, we stopped by Starbucks on the way back to the orifice. Fred the Lebanese chemist was there as always, sitting out front, blowing cigar smoke in the customers’ faces. His son worked for FedEx, and he reminded of this daily. When I get old and crotchety, I think I’ll relocate to a Starbucks.
 
After lunch, it was back to the grindstone. My co-workers and I spent thirty minutes recapping lunch conversation at my desk - a debriefing if you will. It gave us time to enjoy the coffee. Eventually, Larry stopped by again, and we discussed what was new in the world of technology since his mid-morning visit. Soon, I ran out of triple venti vanilla 2-percent extra-foam latte, so I looked at the conference room reservation system again for potential coffee targets.
 
There was the three o’clock break to look forward to. We were entitled to two fifteen-minute breaks. The actual rule was lost in translation at corporate, because everyone typically took a 45-minute breakfast and a 45-minute afternoon break; I always arrived late to work, so I missed breakfast. Break consisted of more complaining, leering at attractive women, and discussing the relevance of various random employees. It would work something like this: an unfamiliar employee would walk by, and someone at the table would ask “Who’s that?” Someone else would reply “That’s Dick Zimmerman. He’s a manager with a cleft palate from the Georgia district. He was then transferred to China on special assignment. He’s here today to attend the bell ringing ceremony. I used to report to him. He’s a good guy.” Employee trivia was an important part of UPS culture.
 
Alternatively, an attractive secretary would walk by and one of us would motion to the others with our eyes to look in her particular direction; “She’s hot,” BradBrown.com would say. “Yeah,” replied Beavis. Larry Flynt would be proud. I suppose I should have reported myself to HR, but I figured the line would be too long.
 
4:45 came early that day. I sent a couple of “I’ll get to it tomorrow” emails out to my important customers, threw on my sports coat [from 100 yards, you’d swear it was a suit], hit the elevator, walked past the United Way progress penis, and sneaked out to the parking desk. Supervising…it ain’t easy! That’s why they paid me the big bucks.

[Author’s note: I worked for UPS Corporate for about 2.5 years from about 2005 to 2007. I made a lot of observations while working there. I thought I’d share them here in a series of never-ending articles. If I end up being assassinated for writing this article, I’ll leave the evidence in that place I left that thing that time before].
 
First, let me share a little background on the relative hierarchy at corporate. There are five general job titles at UPS Corporate, listed from least to most powerful: admin, supervisor, manager, staff manager, and Jesus (CEO). The odd thing is that the titles don’t really fit the responsibilities. In the real world, the term “supervisor” means you’re supervising the work of others, similarly for “manager.” At UPS, those terms typically designate a normal employee with no underlings. In my case, I was a programmer. When interviewing for the position, the HR person said “You’ll be a supervisor. You won’t actually be supervising people. We like to think of it as supervising code.” Immediately, I thought “Chowderhead, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard.” Of course, I needed the job, so I said “That’s very interesting…tell me more.” Always keep the honesty for the confessional, that’s my motto.
 
Your lamp shade says a lot about your position in the general hierarchy. This sounds ludicrous, but I am serious. There are three types of lamp shades: purple Devo, brown elongated, and big white [I sense an upcoming Jesse Jackson protest]. I thought the purple Devo lampshades were the cutest, but those are given to the admins. They looked like the helmets the members of the band Devo wore, but were much smaller, just enough to cover a light bulb. As a supervisor, I had the brown elongated one (!). Anyone at a higher-level had a large white lampshade. It initially didn’t seem obvious why this lamp shade distinction was needed, but I have my suspicions. Let’s say you were a higher level manager meeting a new person at their desk. By looking at their lamp shade, you’d immediately know where they stood in the hierarchy, and you could be more or less demeaning accordingly. I’m sure there are other less cynical reasons, but those reasons don’t make for good blog postings.
 
In addition to your lamp shade, your desk size and color indicated your rank. A white laminate desktop meant you were supervisor or lower, and a wood desk meant you were manager or higher. Once, after a move to free up space for some Indian contractors, I was given a district manager’s cubical. It had the big white lampshade, a real wood desk, and about twelve additional square feet compared to the normal cube. When I first moved in there, a staff manager who lived nearby walked in and said “You know you have a district manager’s cube?” then looked at me disdainfully and left. I suspect he was saddened by how easily I had achieved what had probably taken him years to accomplish.
 
I know what you’re thinking - “Brad, how would one determine rank when away the cubical area?” I’m glad you asked. Typically, the size of the Franklin-Covey day planner carried by the individual was proportional to their rank. In general, a person not carrying a day planner is either an admin or the CEO [if that person is an old white guy, then you know he’s the CEO]. Smaller day planners are carried by supervisors, and the larger models are carried by the managers. If the person carries an electronic organizer, they clearly are a geek and will wallow in obscurity rather than progressing upward. If a manager carrying a day planner also cradles it in his arms and bites it seductively when standing in your cubicle door, he’s probably a latent homosexual.
 
Another way to determine rank is via pairing. If you see an older guy leaving the premises with a younger attractive woman, you’re dealing with a manager mentoring his supervisor or admin [what we civilians know as “taking the niece to the ballgame”]. If you see two older white guys sitting together in the cafeteria, you’re dealing with two managers complaining that their stock dropped by $500,000 overnight and that they’ll no longer be able to afford that vacation home in the Hamptons. If you see three guys huddled over a computer, you’re dealing with one supervisor being told how to format a document by the more experienced manager - the staff manager, standing in the cubical doorway, is there just to add gravity to the situation, and buy pizza if the job goes into the evening.
 
I’ve gabbed enough and now would like to hear your thoughts. Have you ever worked for a company where rank was as well established as the US military, but via accoutrement instead of stripes? Do you have any interesting stories to tell with regards to working at UPS, particularly at the corporate level? Do you ever wonder how BradBrown.com comes up with such leading questions? BradBrown.com has questions, you have answers.