Light Bulb Quest
Just as I’d been predicting, there was no strike at United Parcel Service. Within 24 hours of returning to the bargaining table on July 25, the Teamster national negotiating committee unanimously endorsed a contract proposal that includes across-the-board wage hikes and catch-up raises for longer-term employees, among other economic gains. The union and the company […]
If you’ve been following the news, you know that contract negotiations between United Parcel Service and the Teamsters unexpectedly broke down in the wee hours after the July Fourth holiday. Both sides blamed the other and left the bargaining table without any agreed-on or announced plans to return. This was an abrupt reversal for the […]
United Parcel Service has a history with organized labor that extends all the way back to 1916. That’s when UPS founder Jim Casey invited the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to unionize his workforce. You read that correctly. UPS has a union because it wanted a union, from almost the very beginning. Even now, on its […]
I’ve written about some of the skills required to be a successful UPS driver. One I didn’t mention was the skill of making small talk. If a customer is on hand for the few seconds it takes me to complete my stop, I must keep up my side of a brief chat that shouldn’t interfere […]
The other day The Washington Post ran an article titled, ‘Type in your job to see how much AI will affect it.‘ So I did. First I typed in Delivery Driver, which changed to ‘Light Truck or Delivery Services Drivers’ from a pre-populated drop-down menu. It then displayed an orange dot and a green dot, […]
Recently, in the space of about a week, the news media have reported on no fewer than four separate incidents where an honest mistake or innocent misunderstanding led to gunfire. In Kansas City, a sixteen-year-old boy rang the doorbell of a house where he was sent to pick up his younger siblings, except he was […]
It was supposed to be today. Monday, April 17th, was the date set for the beginning of national contract talks between United Parcel Service and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The current five-year contract expires July 31st. But it already appears that things will not be proceeding according to that mutually-agreed-upon timetable. First, a bit […]
When I was a little boy I was mesmerized by a toy I call the Floating Ball. You can still find it for sale online. It’s such an elementary concept: as you blow gently into the tube you keep the ball aloft, levitating as if by magic. Obviously you cannot exhale indefinitely, but if you […]
My wife Bethany and I have been together for a long time. Today is our twenty-ninth Valentine’s Day as a couple. Twenty-nine years. That’s long past the candy-and-flowers stage. Past even the Valentine cards stage. Ours was never a storybook romance. We married young and started a family early. A child with special needs. Job […]
‘No offense, Martin,’ one of my dearest friends, Dave, was telling me. I’d just started as a UPS driver, and as luck would have it, I caught him at home one day when I showed up with a delivery to his address. I decided to take a ten-minute break to catch him up on my […]