While Casey expected much of his employees, he also made the company famous for its benevolence. He often wrote personal notes to UPS drivers, thanking them for their hard work, and he made a point of offering encouragement to employees who were experiencing difficult times at home. He fostered a corporate culture in which executives were recruited from the ranks of the delivery force, and employees were encouraged to think of the company as family. For years UPS prided itself on treating employees well, offering good pay and benefits; workers were known for their loyalty to "big brown."
The company was so successful that the strong, friendly UPS man eventually became an icon in American life, helping to find lost dogs and, according to a People magazine survey at least, appearing in the fantasies of many women.
David Rehor
The boys' club: As a single mother, Angelica Harris took a job at UPS for the good benefits.
Details
Previous Westword articles
"Special Handling"
May 29, 1997
It’s a guy thing: Two UPS men claim sexual harassment by
another man.
"The Males Get Delivered"
October 16, 1997
The never-ending Postal Service "wackadoo" case takes a U-turn in favor of the fired workers.
Related Content
More About
"There isn't a month that goes by where a driver isn't recognized by their community for their actions, from rescuing a child from a fire to getting somebody out of a car in an accident," says Gardner. "They're tremendous goodwill ambassadors for the company."
But after Casey died, things began to change at UPS. New competition emerged from an array of overnight-delivery services, and the company became increasingly focused on the bottom line. While Casey had actually invited the Teamsters to organize his employees in 1916 and fostered amicable relations between labor and management, that relationship deteriorated in recent years as UPS shifted more of its workload to part-time employees who made far less money than the full-time drivers. Two years ago, the anger of UPS rank-and-file employees led to a fifteen-day strike that cost the company $1 billion.
UPS's longtime devotion to efficiency, coupled with the pressure to increase profits, has created a demanding work environment for the firm's 300,000 employees. "Industrial engineering managers" at UPS have factored the amount of time it should take a driver to deliver a package down to the millisecond. Drivers are expected to walk at a pace of three feet per second when delivering packages, and until a few years ago, the company even told drivers to carry packages under their left arm, step into the van with the right foot, and hold the key ring on the middle finger of their right hand so they could restart their vans without wasting time looking for the key. The appearance of the drivers is also carefully monitored: Shirts are supposed to be starched, beards and long hair are prohibited, and a brisk amiability is encouraged with customers.
"We feel the image our drivers present is very important," says Gardner. "Our customers love our drivers and remark on how clean-cut and professional they are."
But while UPS has strict guidelines for how its employees should look, it doesn't seem to have as clear an idea about how they should act.
One day Harris says she overheard a discussion between two supervisors about the advantages and drawbacks of employing single mothers. One said he hated having single moms work for him because they were always asking for time off. "The other supervisor said it was great having single moms because you could run them into the ground and make them do whatever you want and know they're not going to complain, because they need the job," recalls Harris. "He was right -- a lot of the women who worked there were single moms in the process of getting divorced, and they couldn't quit. The hours were good if you actually wanted to see your kids."
Harris often wondered how the men who were mistreating her would feel if their mothers could overhear them. She was astonished when some would even share photographs of their children.
"They had the nerve to call you a whore or a bitch and then pull out pictures of their kids," she says. "In their eyes, either you were a lesbian or a bitch who couldn't take a compliment. Those were the only two categories you could fit into."
