Light Bulb Quest
How long would you stand in line for pie? What if it’s really good pie, from a local bakery selling it for $3.14 apiece? Well, on Pi Day, Friday, March 14th, I stood in a long line to pay $3.14 for really good, locally baked pie. I probably wouldn’t have done it just for myself, […]
The National Retail Federation estimates that holiday spending this year will reach a new record of somewhere between $980-989 billion. That’s almost a trillion dollars – in the U.S. alone! (A trillion is a one followed by twelve zeroes.) Meanwhile online shopping, estimated at between $295-298 billion, represents nearly one-third of that total. These figures […]
Only 26 days separate Thanksgiving and Christmas this year – the fewest number of days possible. That’s not a lot of time to get into or enjoy the holiday spirit! I don’t know about you, but for me nothing kills that spirit more than package theft. According to the latest numbers, as many as 58 […]
Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5th, is Election Day here in the United States. With the presidential race a toss-up, no one can say with any certainty what the outcome will be – or even when. Tomorrow is uncertain for me at work too. The handful of drivers still on layoff in my UPS facility have all […]
Not every day can be a special day. Most days are ‘just another day.’ But when we think about our lives, what we remember most are those significant moments that stand out to us for one reason or another, whether good or bad. I’ve been blessed to have lived long enough to enjoy many special […]
Twenty-six years ago I pursued a career in higher education in large part because of the security it appeared to offer. I knew I’d never get rich, but it was far more important to me to have steady, meaningful work. Little did I realize then that academia was just as volatile as the rest of […]
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 […]