D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
December
2008
Red and Green — and Brown
What can Brown do for you? We follow along as UPS delivers medicine to the homebound, books and gadgets to Internet shoppers, and gifts to make holidays bright.
Story and photos by Donna Clayton Lawder
Forget the red suit with white fur trim — these days, Santa wears brown.
 |
UPS driver Jeff Vasquez, still smiling
at the end of a nine-plus-hour day. |
It's 8 a.m. at the UPS package center in Silver City and things are already in full swing, the place buzzing like, well, Santa's workshop. A small army of brown-uniformed men and women moves packages along a rolling-bar conveyor, plucking some from the line-up and putting them into their vans, shuffling others farther down the line to other drivers.
This is the busy season for shipping businesses. The UPS package center in Silver City has already swelled its delivery staff from eight drivers to 10. It may soon have up to a dozen on board to handle the crush of packages during the holidays.
"We process an average of 1,100 packages a day, some 5,500 a week, and it goes way up for the holidays," says Mike Dalton, a part-time supervisor at the Silver City UPS facility.
As you might imagine at this time of year, a number of the boxes passing by on the conveyor are red and green: shrink-wrapped bundles on their way to make someone's holiday bright. Other notable items this morning include a set of oversized tires, a Dyson brand vacuum cleaner and an enormous box of latex examination gloves, no doubt destined for one of the area's many medical offices. More than a few of the boxes are emblazoned with the ubiquitous Amazon.com arrow, that little swoopy trademark that seems to smile back at its recipient.
The Internet shopping boom has boosted the role of UPS, FedEx and other shippers, which once delivered mostly to commercial addresses. In small towns like Silver City and even smaller villages hours away from shopping malls and big-box retailers, especially during the holidays, gifts from loved ones near and far arrive in one of UPS' 99,474 delivery vehicles. The company serves 7.9 million customers daily and delivers an average of 15.8 million packages and documents each day. Its fleet of 266 jet aircraft would make it the world's ninth largest airline.
At the Silver City facility — one of 1,801 UPS centers — all trucks are loaded, and an employee with a logbook calls out each driver's name. Each replies with the number of packages he or she has to deliver, how many scheduled pick-ups.
Supervisor Dalton calls out congratulations to the team for its exemplary safety record, then launches into today's safety tip on pushing and pulling. A driver hands Dalton a dolly, and he demonstrates proper form to avoid injury. After a couple of questions and answers on other topics, the drivers get in their vehicles to head out.
Jeff Vasquez is a fulltime driver with 24 years on the road for UPS. "I need her to move her truck before I can get out," he says with a seemingly ever-ready smile, "so while we're waiting, let me tell you a little bit of what we'll be doing today."
He holds up his DIAD clipboard, one of those electronic books that beep. "This tracks all the packages I just loaded onto my truck and it registers every delivery I make. People sign right here," he says, demonstrating the signature panel and special stylus pen.
His start with the company came at holiday time, just like this, he says.
"I was working at Kennicott but I got laid off. I came on (with UPS) during a holiday peak when they needed more drivers," Vasquez recalls. Of course, once the Christmas rush was over, he then got laid off by UPS. "Fortunately, the mines picked up again so I got a job back with Kennicott, well, for a while."
But Vasquez had an eye out for a permanent position with UPS. Turns out supervisors at the delivery company had liked the job he'd done over the holidays, and it wasn't long before he was offered a permanent position driving. Twenty-four years down the road, he's still smiling, appreciative of the employment stability.
"And it's not just that," he says. "You get to know people and you start to feel like a part of their lives. My residential customers, especially, they know me by name. Some of them have my cell phone number in case something comes up, like weather. Some of them are diabetics and they get stuff, medical stuff, second-day air, so you know they're waiting for their supplies."
Vasquez says his average daily load is 300 packages. He'll handle around that many today, making 120 stops and traveling 85 miles. "I have 19 scheduled pick-ups, too," he says.
The way now clear, he hops into his van and heads out.
First stop: Gila Regional Medical Center. Vasquez pulls his van up to the loading dock and starts unloading packages onto a dolly he's found waiting for him, scanning them with his DIAD.
"This isn't a lot for them," he says of the growing pile of boxes, maybe a couple dozen, which he is loading onto the dock. "They usually get 30 or 40 packages a day."
He says hello to a driver for Sysco who is delivering food on the next dock, then chats with a medical-center staffer who notes that some important items he's ordered have just come in.
"They're the only ones on my route where we guarantee delivery before 11 a.m. because it's medical stuff and they have to have it," Vasquez says, again with a smile.
The materials manager from GRMC signs for the packages and Vasquez is on his way to stop number two: Wal-Mart.
"I've got more stuff to drop out here (on 32nd Street), but I want to get some of these big packages out of the center of my truck," he says, gesturing to the packed aisle. "Then I'll come back and do some walk-around, you know, with the dolly instead of delivering right to loading docks."
Vasquez pulls up to one of the retail giant's back loading doors and is met by several Wal-Mart employees. He systematically scans packages and sets them on the rollers of a portable conveyance system.
"This is a light day for them, too," Vasquez says. "They usually get 70 to 80 pieces." He looks at his DIAD. "They're getting 54 today."
But they are 54 significant-sized pieces, he says, noting how rapidly the aisle down the center of his truck is clearing. Among the freight are two oversized tires, along with numerous large boxes. As Vasquez moves one large package to the conveyor, he calls out, "Over 50 pounds!"
A Wal-Mart employee responds by seizing hold of the box's edge and shuffling it down the rollers, calling out, "Be aware! Be aware!" to her co-workers down the line.
Two more tires — "A full set for someone!" Vasquez jokes — and then another army of smaller boxes are unloaded to the conveyor.
Vasquez secures a signature acknowledging the goods' delivery and is off again, winding his way up Hwy. 180 back to 32nd Street to resume his deliveries to medical row.
"This is a lot of stops and starts now," he says. "I'm going to all these little places now, down the whole street, and I get out and go in with my dolly at each office."
He pulls into Copper Medical Center. Dr. Fowler's office gets a half-dozen packages, a mix of office supplies and medical equipment.
"The medical offices get deliveries pretty much every day," Vasquez says. "The medicines mostly come air freight."
In and out of the truck again, he delivers a single package to the optical office next door. Another small hop up the street and he pulls into La Mantana Medical Plaza. Eschewing the dolly when he has just a package or two to carry, Vasquez picks up speed now. He's in and out of offices in rapid succession, still punching numbers into his DIAD as he returns to the truck. A quick, single-package drop-off at the Silver City Dental office next door and it's on to Silver Health Care.
"They get quite a bit here," he says, loading his dolly with a half-dozen packages, among them that big box of latex exam gloves and something from Amazon.com Then it's off to the Silver School District warehouse on Silver Street.
"They get a lot of freight," Vasquez says. "All the freight for all the schools comes here and then they each send their trucks to pick up the stuff that's theirs."
He backs up to a loading dock and offloads around a dozen boxes from his truck onto a large dolly, then pushes it into a large garage bay. He returns to the truck with a dolly loaded with seven packages for pick-up. A couple of them have sticky notes addressed to him. He notes the special instructions, scans the packages and stashes them on a shelf in the truck. At the end of the day, he'll return to the package center for unloading.
"Like clockwork," he says of his comings and goings and how all the drivers dovetail with the delivery deadlines.
"They time us, you know," he says. "The trucks have GPS and they can zoom in and see where you are. They take your 'planned day' and compare it with how you did. They really have it down. It's a good system."
Checking his watch and his electronic clipboard, Vasquez estimates that he'll work over nine hours today, his norm.
"Yeah, you pretty much get some overtime every week, not just now at holidays when it's really busy, but all year," he says, smiling again.
He takes a swig of Gatorade from one of the two bottles he's stashed on his dashboard, calculating that his route will have him in the vicinity of a Wendy's around lunchtime.
"We can take a half-hour or an hour for lunch," he explains. "This is a long day, let's face it. And if you take a half-hour for lunch, you're home a half-hour sooner, that's how I think."
From the Silver Schools warehouse, Vasquez heads up the street to Hometown Oxygen. He walks through the door with his dolly loaded with three large packages and is met by a handful of employees who greet him by name. As he unloads the boxes and someone signs for their receipt, all trade small talk and laughs.
Up the street at the Grant County Office Complex, Vasquez makes the rounds, delivering a handful of packages to numerous offices and departments. As one woman signs for her delivery, she asks, "Can you pick up?" Vasquez says yes, to which she replies, "Oh, you're a life-saver!"
He rolls his dolly down the hall to another office where a gentleman asks him if he can take a few pick-ups.
"It's got a pre-paid label so, yes, I can take it," Vasquez says. He turns his dolly around, flips it open to create a longer carrying area, then loads the three sizeable boxes onto it. Laughing that the dolly is like a "Transformer" robot — shifting shape and size to accommodate nearly any task or piece of freight — he says, "Yeah, it's darn handy. It's a great design."
He heads outside and loads this new load of pick-up packages on the shelf of his truck.
"Boy, I'm getting a lot of pick-ups today! I'm going back with my truck fuller than when I left!" he jokes.
He heads back up Silver Street to Armstrong Flooring, then to the small apartment complex across the street.
"We have so many residential customers now," Vasquez remarks. "They're getting household products, stuff they buy over the Internet. It does real good for us," he says of the increased delivery business for UPS. "A lot of people are running businesses out of their homes these days. Some of them seem to make a pretty good living that way, just buying and selling stuff that way, and we've seen a lot more delivery business out of it, too. It keeps me busy. No complaints — it keeps me employed!"
From here, Vasquez heads up the By-Pass Road to the Forest Service offices, then loops back to make a series of deliveries to businesses along Hwy. 180, then over to a residential area near the Real West Cinema. After a series of business and residential deliveries — and even more pick-ups — he finds himself in happy proximity to Wendy's in time for a well-deserved lunch break.
Fortified, he rolls back into action — or, rather, into molasses. Traffic on Hwy. 180, under construction for months now, is crawling. Vasquez says that he anticipated traffic difficulties and proactively called a number of the businesses at which he picks up packages every day.
"Quite a few of them said they don't have anything for me to pick up today, so I cut them off the list. We won't have to go there. That'll save a lot of time," he says brightly.
At one business, he makes a different sort of pick-up — homemade chocolate chip cookies and peppermint patties, gifts from the office staff.
"You see? I run like an animal all day on this job but I can't lose any weight because my customers are just too nice," he says with a big smile. "People give me great stuff to eat all the time!"
At Eagle Mail Services on Hwy. 180, he stops to pick up a handful of ground packages and one going airmail.
Business owner Lynne Schultz cautions Vasquez, "Watch that big one. It's heavy and it's in a wooden box. Do you have gloves? You'd better watch for splinters."
Vasquez maneuvers the crate — an automobile engine, Schultz explains — and is ready to head out when Schultz sees a young woman hurrying toward the store.
"If you can wait just one minute. I think she's got a one-day air," Schultz says.
"Sure thing," Vasquez says with a smile. "I'm running good today."
From here, he does a handful more business package pick-ups, a residential pick-up, and then heads to the UPS Store on Hwy. 180 to drop off packages shipping airmail for the next leg of their expedited journey.
And for the close of his business day, he heads up to the semi-remote mountain town of Pinos Altos.
"It's a really cool way to end my day," he says of this final loop. "They're all regular customers and they're really cool people. And after all my running around and fighting this traffic, it's nice to go up there and restore my peace and quiet.
"There's just a couple of businesses I go to up there and they're open until six," he says. "The rest of it, most of it, is residential. It's people getting stuff they ordered."
One of those residential customers runs a unique business out of his home, Vasquez says.
"He does some sort of a recording business, working with some pretty famous people," he says. "He sends out their CDs all the time, so I'm always going there. It's really neat that he can do that. He can stay home and run this interesting business out of his home because of delivery now, because of what I do." Vasquez smiles. "I think that's pretty neat."
Donna Clayton Lawder is senior editor of Desert Exposure. She has been known to rely on UPS to deliver holiday goodies to her family back east and to receive a package or two, herself, from Amazon.com