Mediocrity

A couple of months ago, I got a “promotion” in my BCJ. “Promotion” in this case is a relative term, because the pay is the same (all part time employees are paid on the same paid scale, based on seniority. The same holds true for the full timers and the drivers…). I guess the term “reassignment” is a better term.

So I was reassigned to this new department, a much coveted department where the average seniority of the workers are 10 or so years (I have been working there for a year and a half). It is arguably some of the easiest position in the night shift, in that hub.

I was transferred to the department because I get along pretty well with most of the managers. Most of the managers like me because I have a low missort frequency.

Missort is when a package get loaded into a trailer that is not going to the right destination, causing delayed service (an example would be loading a package destined for Sacramento into a trailer headed to San Jose). BCJ has a standing policy that if a package misses its service date; you get the shipment fee refunded, if you request it. It is not difficult to see what a high number of missorts can do to the bottom line.

The “allowable” frequency for missort is 1 in 2500 packages, that about 1 in every 2 – 4 days of work per person (depending how hard and how far you work… more of this later). Our shift get around 25 missorts a night. We handle somewhere in the vicinity of 60 – 80 thousand packages a night. Although we are within out tolerable specs, management still tries to keep a close eye on it.

My missort rate before I was transfer was 1 in 30000 packages. I was the top loader for two months in a row before transfer to being a package sorter for the belt.

But enough with the statistic and patting myself on the back… why am I blogging about all of this?

Because I wondering why I try so hard, why I even brother.... One of the guy I used work with, Kong, gets a misload or two every night.

Instead of carefully sorting packages down the belt, the guy the replaced me as a sorter throw packages down wrong slides by the hundreds, at the end of each shift is 30 minutes of gathering boxes and distributing it back to the right trailers.

My current department is even worst; one of the guys got 30 missorts in 2 weeks, that roughly getting 1 in every 35 packages…

They are still working there… they all get more paid than I do… so why do I even brother?

They get missorts, they get a little pep talk, look at the zip codes before you load the packages. They end up doing the same thing a few days later…

I hate seeing my name on the list of missorts, and a wave of relief comes over me every night when it isn’t… But why do I brother?

It’s not for the money, and it’s not for the fame… Instead of being exceptional and going above and beyond, why not just be mediocre?

Could it be true that Unions promotes mediocrity? Am I the living proof? Only time will tell…