Responsibility Issues
When I was at UPS tonight I was thinking about how responsibility works. One thing that I’ve (re)learned about responsibility recently is that the person responsible for one thing may not be solely or entirely at fault for the thing in question. Furthermore, the person responsible may or may not bear any consequences for the responsibility.
At UPS loaders are responsible for misloads. This means that we need to check every package and make sure that it belongs in the feeder, package car, smalls bag, etc that we are loading. However, if we do misload a package it is almost never solely our fault. For a package to be misloaded it must first be handled by a sorter and then a pick-off. If one or both of those people mess up their job then you can end up with a misload. UPS simply puts the responsibility on laoders, because we are the last line of defense.
At first I was thinking that this was unfair, but after some thought I realized that it makes the most sense. This same sort of thing happens in all areas of life, but I’ve seen it before in sports like soccer and basketball. In either of these sports a player can quickly save the ball from going out of bounds while the player goes out of bounds. However, there may not be an open teammate to give the ball to, so you might knock the ball into an opposing player causing the ball to go directly out of bounds right after hitting that player. Then you get possession, and you get to inbound the ball. Here again you have a responsible party (that everyone accepts) who is not the sole cause of the out-of-bounds.
I think that all of this is really interesting, because there are actually many times in life where there is more than one person involved in an event. In this event there can be causers, consequence bearers, and responsible parties. In many situations they are all the same person.
(At UPS there are many parties involved. There are package sorters, pick-offs, loaders, supervisors at all different levels, the company as a whole, and the customer. Loaders and supervisors bear the responsibility — even when they have little control of the issue. Sorters and pick-offs cause the misloads. The loader can do something about them. The customer, the loader, the supervisor, and the company bear the consequences — late packages, disciplinary action, and incurring more shipping costs respectively.)
Determining who bears responsibility for things is pretty important, because it effects how people act. In my UPS example, the sorters don’t have any responsibility or incentive for sorting things correctly. There is no way to tell who (of roughly a few dozen people) missorted a package. So, I imagine that they are more easy-going about their jobs. Loaders, on the other hand, are responsible so they check every package and make sure that it belongs where it is before they laod it.
Posted by David under Lessons Learned |
i think i is unfair for the company to put all the blame of misloads on the loader, a job to which i do at UPS in columbus. yes, we are the last line of defence, but will all the other things we are responcable for, it seems un fair. it also seems unfair that pickoffs dont even get a slap on the wrist for these problems. yes, i do my damn best to try and not get misloads, expecally since i have already been to a hearing for them, and well, if i want to keep my job, as you know, i cant get them. but when my pph is between 300-400, and i do a total of 1200 to anywhere up to 2000 packages a day in a 4 hour sort span, how do they expect me to catch every last package. i think this problem will continue to be a problem, untill sort spans get longer, workers get paid a living wage, more help is inculded in shifts, and pickoffs/sorters are confronted with atleast a little blame for it.
Comment by Adam West — July 26, 2005 @ 8:30 pm
It is unfair in terms of pay. Now that I am a sorter I make $1/hour more than I did as a loader. They call this a “skilled position” because you need to know “the sort” which is essentially a few thousand different ZIP codes corresponding to 13 colors.
So, sorters need to know more than an loader does to get the job, but once they have the job there is really no accountability. For this reason and because a loader is held accountable you would think that a loader would be a “skilled position.”
UPS should consider paying loaders more relative to other positions because they are the last line of defense, they do bear more responsibility, and becuase they ultimately have a huge affect on the company’s image and its bottom line.
At the Orlando HUB, the pickoffs don’t get so much as a slap on the wrist, but if they continually mispick packages they do get moved back down to loading. This is degrading and all, but they get to keep the $1/hour raise that they received for being certified as a pick-off.
Comment by David — July 27, 2005 @ 12:27 am