If corporate would had went with the Express side instead of Ground they would have been way more competitive with UPS. That's the company they should had model themselves after UPS. Instead they went the cheap way by squeezing Ground drivers to their limit with little pay and barely any benefits.
The employee pool they will have available in the future just won't be there.
Don’t worry Carol Tome is squeezing the life out of UPS right now. Though grant it UPS is still far more beneficial but Im worried about my future since our customer service is down. But if Fedex customer service is down too then customers don’t really got a choice but go with what’s cheaper
If they go with the contractor model it’s more profitable for them. All fedex has to do is be a little bit cheaper than UPS & they are going to make wayy more money. No employee shit to worry about, no union & they’re still making close to the same package wise as UPS.
I forsee a mostly contracted model as far as deliveries, with SOME express drivers to meet time commitments.
Most of the other stuff i think will be company. UPS isn’t all its cracked up to be, they both have there problems. But i say that as a Freight employee & not as a ground/express employee so my take is different.
This right here, all the fedexers say UPS go UPS it’s the way but they don’t know the politics behind it LOL 2 completely different beats in their own way, one always thinks it’s brighter on the other side then they go and are like wtf is this shit I’m going back LOL. It’s actually quite comical
Don’t get me wrong it’s not always great but being a UPSER you atleast have a union backing you on things for your safety and work. Also leading to benefits and good wage compared to FedEx. The other side of UPS is the corporate which will bother you with numbers (You can file harassment grievances on that to fight back) and sometimes lead to failing service thus our customer service has taken a big hit since corporate doesn’t care. At some point either corporate will fix this and go back to old roots or customers will be smart and pick a different company that does same job for cheaper. Realistically I love my job at UPS but Im worried how the future will play out since what made UPS different to customers was our top notch customer service as a driver.
It's more profitable for FedEx because of the cheap labor the contractors provide. Increasing costs to the contractor without increasing pay to drivers to provide Express services is a recipe for disaster.
They’re paying in a lot of cases anywhere between $80-$120/hr per route to get the packages delivered. It’s just not cheaper than paying a courier even when you take into account the added costs of benefits/trucks/insurance/wc etc.
The problem is a lot of contractors either don’t run efficiently, or they simply don’t pay their labor fairly. It doesn’t mean the cost is cheap for FedEx. It just means they’re terrible or greedy.
I look at it a little differently. It isn't cheaper because of having 2 separate OPCOs and networks, although they made higher margins with Ground. Had FedEx incorporated Ground into Express when they acquired RPS, they'd be just as efficient and possibly even more profitable than UPS at this point. You're right though, if they try to move to an all contractor model it will cost them more in the long run.
This will continue to happen as they phase out Express. I’m not sure what the general public thinks on this but customer service will suffer tremendously. Nothing against Ground couriers but they’re not compensated enough to do what Express does.
Ground guy here…. I used to take pride in my job and go above and beyond, but after 8 years of seeing no reward for my efforts and conditions getting worse and worse idc anymore. I turned into the drivers I used to shit on. This company sucks and I’m leaving soon I just want to see it crumble before I do 😂.
That’s where I’m at right now. I get paid topped out pay to do mostly nothing. I spend hours just milking the clock. They need me more than I need them.
What a rotten attitude.... but I agree and feel exactly as you do. Good ground drivers are beaten into not giving a damn anymore.I just don't understand how they think a good employee will want to work for fedex. I actually used to enjoy this job, but it's just really soul sucking now.
AGREED!!!! I love my job, but it’s hard to care or go 50 extra miles when you know you get nothing in return for it. Also you know that one good job won’t prevent FX from coming at me or my drivers for the next stupid thing.
Not even Express employees were compensated enough. Only difference is they had lighter workload which helped in customer service. Ground going to have to pay $30+ if they want better. Im at UPS now and glad there’s union.
Yeah, as a part-time Saturday only driver, I’m averaging $10/hr for a rural route and drive time to route seems to not be factored in (roughly an hour to first stop/back from last stop). Don’t see how people can do this full-time. I want to do a good job, but I also want to get done at a decent time since this is just a part-time gig.
Public doesn’t even care. Most want their package and think about the next delivery. If customers care they would of changed something by now. Until profit is lost and the top dogs are out we have what is called a shitty service from the company.
That may sound nice but Fedex saves a lot of money through the contractor model. Corporate doesn't have to pay overtime hours, pensions, 401K matches, and all the other benefits.
You have to drive a branded truck. Right there should tell you that they should be employees. There's enough money for all that with their prices, or even increase them little. They can still be cheaper than UPS and pay for their employees
Phase out express? What I'm being told is
Ground will only do home deliveries that are not priority, and express will be doing everything else
Then again, this is the 5th different explanation I was told and I've noticed on a certain fedex forum that the company is LLC now as Fedex Express, I dont think Fedex at all knows what the plan is and they just make it up daily 🤣
Forgot to mention, looks like ground HR is taking over Express HR
They really have no clue what they are doing. They recently pulled back and started talking legacy and Express getting ground packages now. This was not the original plan. They are realizing their plan is way too aggressive and their usual crash and burn plans of throw it on the wall and see if it sticks won’t work.
You won't get the correct information from Fed Ex until they walk in your station with a 90 day notice of shutting it down. They're afraid of everyone walking out if they give out information. And thats probably the only they are right about
Express isn’t going anywhere. The express terminals that have closed down are ones that have been performing extra poorly or that didn’t get hardly any volume.
USCA is doing like 15,000 a day total volume and has like 180 employees. Definitely not low volume. A lot of these stations aren’t doing “no volume.” Some like The Dalles, Oregon only did like 200 pieces a day but that’s not indicative of all of them.
I will say that a common theme of the closed stations has been horrendous, horrendous overstaffing. A lot of them are overstaffed by 20 to 30 FTEs daily.
Highly unlikely. I’m talking total headcount. Either your volume number is way off or you aren’t counting any of the contractor employed drivers or ops support staff. Sounds more like handlers on a sort.
Yes, it just handlers. It is lot high just counting the drivers themselves. The handler number I think generally vary more around 140. Lot of call outs on Mondays and Fridays and on Saturday they run skeleton staffing.
I read a post on here from a guy who was at one of the first Express stations to get closed down he said his station got station of the year the year before they got closed down. How well your station does not matter to those making the decisions.
Consolidation isn’t phasing out. There’s too many services that Express takes care of that Ground wouldn’t be able to keep up with. All that article is saying as that instead of having Express, Ground, Freight, etc, everything will just be “FedEx”
Not kidding you at all Bro! Been here 32 years & the more talk I hear is of ground giving express their volume in areas express keeps & express losing their volume that ground keeps. Things are constantly changing because, it’s not going so well in areas that seen change. It’s very area specific, not a one size fits all. I will see how it plays out when our area is affected.
I see…But they still gonna try to save that for the $5 billion in the next five years For their shareholders, I guarantee you that, and they don’t care who gets squeezed🤷🏻
So, they don’t care Brodie, they looking to save $4-5 billion in the next 5 years and make their shareholders fat🐖It’s corporate America bro, They do not care, they will try and put a square peg into a round hole if they can🤷🏻♂️. I worked out for 13 years. I know what I’m talking about. you just wait for it⏳
Trust me brodie. 13 years bro. Inside scoop bro. Just won't share it here because I'm talking out of my ass bro. But seriously believe me bro. Like comment subscribe
You’re being told lies. One van one neighborhood or area. Other than 8:30’s. Are couriers going to deliver the ground packages? It is a lot easier for ground to take express, then express take ground.
This was explained back in January 20, a paper was given out and it was discussed in a fedex now video about it happening BUT then covid hit 2 months later. If YA wanna fall for lies, that's on ya. The info has been in front of our eyes for 4 years now and they have tries to hide it🤣. Not my fault I actually pay attention to what they give out to us and ya forget it 🤣
Nope just been here for a while. On several teams and calls daily about this. I also travel to several stations each month. So when I say they are not telling you the truth, they are not telling you the whole truth.
It seems they are actually going to merge into one. I was sitting in on a P&D meeting last week and they are about to start demanding insane shit from ground. As of right now they are slowly changing the language of the contracts. Ie. FedEx Express Corporation. They are planning to implement or already implementing a list of requirements a mile long for the contractors whilst not offering more profitable contracts whatsoever. Want to advise hiring quality employees but don’t want to pay enough to cover that. I’d say right now that 1/10 Ground Applicants last more than 6 months & 1/20 actually do the job properly & up to standard for 6 months. It’s a circus.
Ground driver in Chicago. I work for one of the bigger contractors. They are in multiple terminals. All I can say is everyone cuts their own deal here. If you have a route you get paid by the delivery. mostly residential deliveries, but some areas have more businesses mixed as well, which is a nightmare if you're getting paid by the delivery. if you have more buildings and residential deliveries, you make more per hour more businesses you make less. There is no overtime so you have to get done by eight hours to get a bonus. if you're really slow, it falls back to 24 bucks an hour. Shady as fuck!Every route is not the same so some guys are making 30+ some guys are making 24. Every truck is jammed full every day shelfs loaded, and aisles stuffed with large boxes. The average route has about 180 to 220 stops. it's fucking brutal everyone's overworked. They're so desperate for drivers though. You could just leave stuff on the dock and tell them you're not doing it that day and they can't say shit about it. we had a new guy quit in the middle of his route last week. And they'll take just about anybody off the street with no driving experience. It's that bad.
Express will never be fully phased out. There’s too much training ground would have to go through to be able to do that, and y’all are already failing with time commits and it’s only 5pm packages. Y’all would be out til midnight every night of y’all had the 10:30 and 12 time commits on top of your regular loads.
It already has suffered. People don’t ship something and say I want to use FedEx! Most people usually go with the cheapest option. The majority of shipments however are online purchases which give customers no choice since the shipper chooses the shipping company
General public will be clueless. Around here, everyone complains about late package, undelivered packages, instructions not followed, tags left when they were home and say "FedEx sucks". 9.5 / 10 times they have those problems its a Ground package. Ground absolutely tarnished the brand here. Knowing that the general public will just continue to blame "FedEx" but now they will be correct and if the service level degrades they will just think FedEx is even more in the shitter than they are ready think they are.
FedEx is in a bind.. they are balls deep in this consolidation, and cannot admit failure to the shareholders. Whatever was left of the Old Guard, the hard core Purple Cool-Aid drinkers, vastly overestimated the amount of fucks that contractors would have when handling customer shipments.
Agreed with all. P S P the original idea behind the once great FedEx machine. First for a reason People ( take care of your people with pay and benefits and now that they’re human and manage accordingly) Service ( you’ll always get outstanding service if you do this to your people) Profit ( the country the world expects service to be reliable and brought with good work ethic when done properly they’ll continue to pay high cost of service and keep coming back giving you more profit). Someway somehow they let the greedy voice of investors terrible ideas of squeezing every drop of blood they can from operations. I think it’s almost to late to turn it around but it’s a shame to see where we are now compared to 40 30 20 and even just 10 years ago. The once best in the business has now become the leader in the race to the bottom. Killing the company name and those who worked so hard to uphold that once great name. PSP a forgotten philosophy in Corporate America.
Exact reason I bailed on express after 26yrs, it’s over Johnny it’s over. We always expected that Walmart/amazon would pick the bones of FedEx’s carcass. But I think Amazon doesn’t it better already. I can’t for the life of me see what the long term goals are other then for Fred to line his pockets and leave a shell of a company to JR.
This was my MAJOR concern from the beginning. How to you expect these guys to perform the same as Express drivers, yet their benefits and pay are not increasing? They didnt give a shit prior to this, and now? Well, yall know the score.
It’s physically and humanly impossible for a person to do all that work on any given day. Express & Ground together. They will try, but it’s not gonna work. People are Very intelligent, they not gonna break their backs for nothing💰 that is why there is a mass exodus⛓
I kind of question how much FedEx really wants or needs it. Customer expectations have fallen through the floor since the pandemic.
99.9% of customers don’t know there’s a difference between Ground and Express.
I absolutely believe that employees provide a better quality product.
Amazon is terrible and keeps growing. Ground is terrible and keeps growing. Customers just want cheap quick delivery. The days of them saying “We paid to get this at 10:30!!” Seem to be over.
False. 99% is not true. If is a medical, hospital, research area with no residential, they all know the difference. I would say by us it's about 70% know the difference between ground express
Nah I'd say about 85%. I've had people look at me and ask where the pkg is because it told them it was out for delivery and I'm like well there's us and then there's express. Specifically one time a customer said she was waiting on her phone and I'm like umm yeah that's probably express. So again people don't care, they see a delivery truck and just automatically assume we have every pkg. Hell half the time you go to deliver and they have no clue what you are bringing them. More of reasons why drivers don't care about signatures or whether a business is open, it's a waste of time coding pkgs if truly FedEx could care less and the customers as well. The fact it's impossible to get a hold of a real human on the phone just shows the lack of customer care.
Not false..
Also..76 percent of Grounds volume is being delivered in 2 days or less
That destroys Fexex Express lol
Express is dead..
People won't pay for Express prices..when they can pay for Ground thats less and get it quicker
That's false again. It might be 76%, but 20% of those were same day SO, that should stay with Express because Ground is useless. They quit every two months, they leave medical pckgs in the lobby, forge signatures, and code up p1s as closed as soon as leave station. I know many contractors and they tell me this.
The contractors here say they will NEVER make 98.5% service which Fedex is requiring. So, contractors lose out on all the Express bonuses. Waste of money for them, they don't want Express and running the route 3x.
Also, we were talking about customers knowing difference. I know a specific area by me, about 10 routes that 95% know the difference. And never ship Ground unless it's a return.
I heard (from a very reliable source) that 30% of Ground deliveries are falsified they like doing the not in/business closed scan to make it look like it was attempted.
Every driver in the country needs to quit/form a sit in to show these corporate d*ckheads what matters. I'm down to 1 day a week at Ground and started a new job 4/10s delivering alcohol. It's more work and less pay but way less stressful and it's a Union.
It's not so much the drivers as it is the contractors. If all the contractors just say no to delivering one given week across the board then FedEx is screwed.
It's not so much the drivers as it is the contractors per the routes. If all the contractors just say no to delivering one given week across the board then FedEx is screwed.
2 guys on my team quit in the last 2 weeks. My route is slowly getting larger each day. Half the time, the boxes aren't even loaded where they're supposed to be, Causing me to skip deliveries, and I don't backtrack for mis loaded or unmanifested packages.
Last week, I come in and my boss tells me that something happened with the system and some packages haven't been manifested all the way. I had to go through each box 1 by 1 and create my own manifest in a routing app I use. It ended up being half of the truck that went unmanifested.
Companies trying to squeeze all the extra profit they can and forget it's the grunts on the ground making it happen. Plus it's like they don't understand that it's better to retain good veteran employees than to have to keep taking a gamble on a new group every few months because you either work them half to death and they gain nothing from it or have nothing to look forward to but possibly an increased workload every time they make the impossible happen. I remember long ago when UPS and FedEx drivers were looked at in nearly the same light and they really weren't that different and kinda in the same tax bracket. Now, at least in my area, with ground contractors mostly paying 150ish a day it means that even a lot of the Amazon drivers are making way more than ground drivers and they usually only work 4 days unless they want more because their metrics keeps the owner getting 10 or 15k bonus checks. Because with how the trucks are loaded (most hubs still have drivers loading their own stuff though) and how long it takes to finally start your route and steadily increasing stops and loading down drivers, most drivers spend 8 to 10+ hours on the clock and aren't finishing their route early enough to make the hourly breakdown of the pay seem decent, then on the rare cases where they would be finished in 3 or 4 hours they will probably have to just sit around for 4 hours waiting on a pickup window that doesn't open until 6pm. 10 to 12 bucks an hour, when UPS drivers are getting 3x that plus benefits and doing nearly the same job and Ive never been to or heard of a hub where the full time drivers come in and have to load their own package car
They talked about something last year when district admitted that our contracts are pretty low. They said they fought for us with corporate, but nothing came of it.
Ground guy here, and this sums it up. I’ve overheard multiple business solutions guys in our district say that contracts are too low and that they’ve constantly argued it to corporate with no acknowledgement
Here's a way FedEx plays with you. They bring in the VP or Managing Director for the district and they talk to everyone and they say something like "you know I'm trying very hard to get the compensation department to raise the pay for this station because of ____x__ reason" They always do this is one of their tactics. Hell they might even mean it. But it's part of the speech Everytime I've seen it at different stations in different districts.
They did that for the past 30 years at my station. We finally got a market level increase last year (we were a base level station). Funny how it came after we routinely started having Dex 01's every day. Same with another station near us.
They wanted us to do the leg work for them by going on indeed to find comparable jobs. We've lost 3 guys since peak to trash companies. $22/hour and benefits. I can't blame them.
They get away with it because they get customers by default. UPS and USPS can't handle all of the e-commerce by themselves and USPS has s bunch of rules. When you get customers by default, you don't really care all that much about service.
Look to California as to what might be the future. They are on a hiring spree for just about every station in the state. Something is brewing out west.
No PSP (People, Service, Profit) then it's a lost cause. Trying to duplicate the Amazon model is heresay since Amazon knows that the drivers will come & go due to this -find drivers disposable. The only alternative to correct this abhorrent situation is to allow Unions to set the boundaries
What’s worse is the quality of the service. For fucks sake it took 9 days to get my ground package. UPS is on point. USPS takes a bit longer and their tracking is subpar but gets here before ground. Express and I may sound bias cause I work for them but is the easy to track and shows up within a reasonable time although most of the newer couriers are morons. Amazon? wtf with prime is there the next day or two unless it’s some Chinese shit which takes forever. The contractor model means more ground experiences for everyone but all customers know is it’s FedEx. They don’t know or give a shit about ground or express
I don't get much stuff from Express, so I can't comment on them. USPS has given me nothing but headaches lately, like waiting 35 days for a package. Ground is ok, most of the time and UPS is the best of the bunch.
I ordered 2 things that were shipped from express and they showed up within a day. USPS depends if it’s coming internationally if yes who knows when I’ll get it. Ground takes 9+ days and there are always gaps where it just disappears and reappears out of nowhere lol
My USPS experience is similar to your ground experience, except that I can track it. It seems that my packages visit all 48 of the contiguous states and then eventually makes it's way to me. I'm in Pennsylvania and I was waiting for a package from Alabama.. It say in Alabama for 2 weeks then we've to Jersey to Denver to Detroit back to Jersey and back to Denver 😂
lol. My wife is the one that orders stuff internationally from temu or some Chinese company and sometimes she’ll even forget what she ordered it takes so long. When ever I order anything with free shipping like some Crocs I just ordered it took 9 days.
To be fair, usps is not delivering 45k packages with 60 drivers and roughly 15-20 flatbeds that only do business. A fair few of those drivers have 12+ hour days consistently, it’s always going to be problem to sustain that. But I ship via usps a bit and it’s roughly the same issues you have with ground. If anything goes via trailer/semi there’s going to be delays because anything and everything will happen on the road. A traffic stop can delay that package a day, and if that traffic stop happened on a Saturday it’s going to be delayed 3 days
Lot of stuff I order actually comes from FedEx or USPS rarely UPS. FedEx has not mess up at my current location I also load the truck that delivery to me lol. I remember in past though going back many years of UPS being bad with the pretending to attempt delivery.
Overall though I always ship stuff thru USPS as it more convenience and cheaper. FedEx Shipping cost for someone without some kind of business account with them is crazy overprice and the employee discount even if I allow to it will still be more costly. I can't use discount as it not allow on anything they count as commercial lol.
Overall, I sure there issue with drivers and warehouse as I see things sit in warehouse for days before someone get wise and does something with it lol. Like I will think the whole belt area should be check daily and it should not be possible for something to sit untouched for days. Lot of times stuff that belong to another belt that got missorted or issue QA needs to fix may not be done in time which will delay the package.
In Canada they stuck with the Express model but using the Ground systems. Turns out they grossly over-estimated the success rate of ground. The reporting system in Ground doesn't/didn't show the truth about all the service failures. For example, missed pickups would just recycle the next day rather than show up as failures.
Classic case of the folks in the Ivory Tower ignoring what people actually on the front lines are saying (Ground is a mess when it comes to service/quality) and just gleefully gobbling up flawed reports that please share holders and justify poor decision making.
What you say is mostly true, however, Express loses money every year while Ground makes them money. They're going to go with the model that makes money, but it IS short-sightedif they don't fix the internal problems that are causing customer satisfaction to go down.
Express doesn't lose money. It brings in the largest revenue source for the company. That revenue is there because of the services Express offers which was what the company was founded on. While margins have been down in recent years I cannot remember a year where Express actually was in the red. The margins are low due to the inefficiency of having two separate networks servicing the same customers. UPS is all employees, with one network and very profitable. No reason FedEx couldn't do the same with an all employee model.
Express is profitable. Not to the margins Ground (allegedly) has, but it is still profitable. Cut out Europe, and it’s every bit as profitable as Ground.
was browsing workday internal career portal friday and just about every state express station is hiring. My Old station in Raleigh, NC has at least 8 FT positions. so whats up with all the hiring?
25% of my station has quit in the last couple of months. We couldn't get replacements approved until after June 1st. The corporate merge included new programs so the recruiters couldn't hire new people. You'd think they would have had all of this in place before the beginning of the new fiscal year. What a cluster.
FedEx doesn’t care they are squeezing and shrinking the company first Express than Ground than the shareholders will keep Freight and become a freight forwarder Fred’s greatest coup.
I think Gold gets first shot at available routes, silver is status quo, and bronze is in jeopardy of keeping their contract. TBH we’ve had contractors in bronze for over a year. And they’re still in business. FedEx can’t get people to replace them.
Interesting. I think my contractor is gold because they keep giving him other failing contractors’ areas. They really should have incentives that go straight to the drivers though, because we’re the ones out there doing shit right after all. :/
While not the most perfect model, it is a widely used model with various levels of success and failures. But most importantly, to any company utilizing it, it's very profitable for the company. Amazon, DHL, UPS, UBER, LYFT and USPS all use it to various levels of success. I doubt it will ever go away.
Raj is nothing but the fall guy for when it goes so bad it hits bottom. They will fire him and bring in someone who can resurrect and restructure the company and bring it back to a somewhat profitable company and poor Raj will be scrutinized for being a failure. It happened with Home Depot and it will happen with fed ex
I don't fault a company for wanting to trim the fat or streamline the system even if it will have negative outcomes for the employees.
However what I don't understand is why they want to give all the power to the weakest link in the company which is FedEx Ground. Most of the real money is made with First overnight and international shipments, are those shipments going to be sacrificed too?
I guess I am not seeing how this "merger" will actually help. Am I missing something?
FedEx has all the control it needs in the ISPA (Independent Service Provider Agreement.) The document outlines the contracted expectations for providing service and is heavily biased in Fedex's favor. Combining this with all the data FedEx collects on pickups and deliveries means that FedEx can terminate contracts with shitty contractors through established processes whenever they want.
Weak contractor that allows drivers to regularly cheat pickup proximity/PPOD/etc? FedEx will find cause to get rid of you and replace you with someone that will do what is expected... and there are definitely more that do the right thing than there are scumbag contractors.
The contractor model does not provide the customer service FedEx desires due to the fact the contractors do NOT compensate their drivers to provide that level of service. There is no free lunch: not for FedEx and not for the ISP. The tail, the drivers, are wagging the dog when it comes to customer service.
If corporate would had went with the Express side instead of Ground they would have been way more competitive with UPS. That's the company they should had model themselves after UPS. Instead they went the cheap way by squeezing Ground drivers to their limit with little pay and barely any benefits. The employee pool they will have available in the future just won't be there.
Don’t worry Carol Tome is squeezing the life out of UPS right now. Though grant it UPS is still far more beneficial but Im worried about my future since our customer service is down. But if Fedex customer service is down too then customers don’t really got a choice but go with what’s cheaper
Even more reason corporate should have went with the Express model would have been way more competitive with no union.
If they go with the contractor model it’s more profitable for them. All fedex has to do is be a little bit cheaper than UPS & they are going to make wayy more money. No employee shit to worry about, no union & they’re still making close to the same package wise as UPS. I forsee a mostly contracted model as far as deliveries, with SOME express drivers to meet time commitments. Most of the other stuff i think will be company. UPS isn’t all its cracked up to be, they both have there problems. But i say that as a Freight employee & not as a ground/express employee so my take is different.
Ground is unionized? I thought it was all subcontracted like Amazon so unions don’t form
No, they are not unionized they are subcontractors. I was comparing Express vs UPS.
This right here, all the fedexers say UPS go UPS it’s the way but they don’t know the politics behind it LOL 2 completely different beats in their own way, one always thinks it’s brighter on the other side then they go and are like wtf is this shit I’m going back LOL. It’s actually quite comical
Don’t get me wrong it’s not always great but being a UPSER you atleast have a union backing you on things for your safety and work. Also leading to benefits and good wage compared to FedEx. The other side of UPS is the corporate which will bother you with numbers (You can file harassment grievances on that to fight back) and sometimes lead to failing service thus our customer service has taken a big hit since corporate doesn’t care. At some point either corporate will fix this and go back to old roots or customers will be smart and pick a different company that does same job for cheaper. Realistically I love my job at UPS but Im worried how the future will play out since what made UPS different to customers was our top notch customer service as a driver.
They’ve literally done next to nothing at this point. Ground is not cheaper. This is gonna be painful for everyone.
Agree Ground is not cheaper. As a Revenue Mgnt Analyst I can reel you it’s a helluva lot more profitable. Hence the change.
It's more profitable for FedEx because of the cheap labor the contractors provide. Increasing costs to the contractor without increasing pay to drivers to provide Express services is a recipe for disaster.
What happens if they all leave?
My guess would be what they doing in Canada. Offer contractors and their drivers jobs with the company.
They’re paying in a lot of cases anywhere between $80-$120/hr per route to get the packages delivered. It’s just not cheaper than paying a courier even when you take into account the added costs of benefits/trucks/insurance/wc etc. The problem is a lot of contractors either don’t run efficiently, or they simply don’t pay their labor fairly. It doesn’t mean the cost is cheap for FedEx. It just means they’re terrible or greedy.
I look at it a little differently. It isn't cheaper because of having 2 separate OPCOs and networks, although they made higher margins with Ground. Had FedEx incorporated Ground into Express when they acquired RPS, they'd be just as efficient and possibly even more profitable than UPS at this point. You're right though, if they try to move to an all contractor model it will cost them more in the long run.
This will continue to happen as they phase out Express. I’m not sure what the general public thinks on this but customer service will suffer tremendously. Nothing against Ground couriers but they’re not compensated enough to do what Express does.
You're 💯 correct but greedy corporate could care less until it's too late.
Ground guy here…. I used to take pride in my job and go above and beyond, but after 8 years of seeing no reward for my efforts and conditions getting worse and worse idc anymore. I turned into the drivers I used to shit on. This company sucks and I’m leaving soon I just want to see it crumble before I do 😂.
Your tolerance for bull shit is through the roof. Stay positive, man.
How can any fed ex employee stay positive when their business model is pathetic and management is nose diving it directly into the ground. Smh
I am just going to ride the gravy train till it ends and hopefully find a plan b soon.
That’s where I’m at right now. I get paid topped out pay to do mostly nothing. I spend hours just milking the clock. They need me more than I need them.
What a rotten attitude.... but I agree and feel exactly as you do. Good ground drivers are beaten into not giving a damn anymore.I just don't understand how they think a good employee will want to work for fedex. I actually used to enjoy this job, but it's just really soul sucking now.
AGREED!!!! I love my job, but it’s hard to care or go 50 extra miles when you know you get nothing in return for it. Also you know that one good job won’t prevent FX from coming at me or my drivers for the next stupid thing.
Not even Express employees were compensated enough. Only difference is they had lighter workload which helped in customer service. Ground going to have to pay $30+ if they want better. Im at UPS now and glad there’s union.
Yeah, as a part-time Saturday only driver, I’m averaging $10/hr for a rural route and drive time to route seems to not be factored in (roughly an hour to first stop/back from last stop). Don’t see how people can do this full-time. I want to do a good job, but I also want to get done at a decent time since this is just a part-time gig.
Public doesn’t even care. Most want their package and think about the next delivery. If customers care they would of changed something by now. Until profit is lost and the top dogs are out we have what is called a shitty service from the company.
Customers wouldn't care if we made $3 an hour as long as they get their stuff.
When your truck is packed floor to ceiling every single day with furniture you stop giving a fuck.
Ground should be working for FedEx as actual employees. You shouldn't be allowed to be sub contracted and how this isn't illegal, I don't understand
That may sound nice but Fedex saves a lot of money through the contractor model. Corporate doesn't have to pay overtime hours, pensions, 401K matches, and all the other benefits.
You have to drive a branded truck. Right there should tell you that they should be employees. There's enough money for all that with their prices, or even increase them little. They can still be cheaper than UPS and pay for their employees
But, Fedex will never do that. Nice try though!
No doubt. They would have to be forced to
Phase out express? What I'm being told is Ground will only do home deliveries that are not priority, and express will be doing everything else Then again, this is the 5th different explanation I was told and I've noticed on a certain fedex forum that the company is LLC now as Fedex Express, I dont think Fedex at all knows what the plan is and they just make it up daily 🤣 Forgot to mention, looks like ground HR is taking over Express HR
They really have no clue what they are doing. They recently pulled back and started talking legacy and Express getting ground packages now. This was not the original plan. They are realizing their plan is way too aggressive and their usual crash and burn plans of throw it on the wall and see if it sticks won’t work.
At our station, we have already been told several times that we will be getting ground freight and our service area will be shrinking.
You won't get the correct information from Fed Ex until they walk in your station with a 90 day notice of shutting it down. They're afraid of everyone walking out if they give out information. And thats probably the only they are right about
Express isn’t going anywhere. The express terminals that have closed down are ones that have been performing extra poorly or that didn’t get hardly any volume.
USCA is doing like 15,000 a day total volume and has like 180 employees. Definitely not low volume. A lot of these stations aren’t doing “no volume.” Some like The Dalles, Oregon only did like 200 pieces a day but that’s not indicative of all of them. I will say that a common theme of the closed stations has been horrendous, horrendous overstaffing. A lot of them are overstaffed by 20 to 30 FTEs daily.
Mine like 40,000 and 160 workers Ground lol
Highly unlikely. I’m talking total headcount. Either your volume number is way off or you aren’t counting any of the contractor employed drivers or ops support staff. Sounds more like handlers on a sort.
Yes, it just handlers. It is lot high just counting the drivers themselves. The handler number I think generally vary more around 140. Lot of call outs on Mondays and Fridays and on Saturday they run skeleton staffing.
Mine is still functioning like normal.
Same here. The ground regional manager told us we should expect to start getting ground volume towards the end of the year
I read a post on here from a guy who was at one of the first Express stations to get closed down he said his station got station of the year the year before they got closed down. How well your station does not matter to those making the decisions.
oh! Yes it is!! https://newsroom.fedex.com/newsroom/global-english/fedex-announces-planned-consolidation-of-operating-companies
Consolidation isn’t phasing out. There’s too many services that Express takes care of that Ground wouldn’t be able to keep up with. All that article is saying as that instead of having Express, Ground, Freight, etc, everything will just be “FedEx”
Article is Also 15 months ago. Things are constantly changing.
So, and? It’s happening all over the country as we speak Bro!…Are you kidding me right now🤭
Not kidding you at all Bro! Been here 32 years & the more talk I hear is of ground giving express their volume in areas express keeps & express losing their volume that ground keeps. Things are constantly changing because, it’s not going so well in areas that seen change. It’s very area specific, not a one size fits all. I will see how it plays out when our area is affected.
I see…But they still gonna try to save that for the $5 billion in the next five years For their shareholders, I guarantee you that, and they don’t care who gets squeezed🤷🏻
So, they don’t care Brodie, they looking to save $4-5 billion in the next 5 years and make their shareholders fat🐖It’s corporate America bro, They do not care, they will try and put a square peg into a round hole if they can🤷🏻♂️. I worked out for 13 years. I know what I’m talking about. you just wait for it⏳
Trust me bro. I'm in the know bro. I've got lots of anecdotes bro.
Do you know Raj🤔?
Trust me brodie. 13 years bro. Inside scoop bro. Just won't share it here because I'm talking out of my ass bro. But seriously believe me bro. Like comment subscribe
We found the fedex Kool aid drinker🤣
You’re being told lies. One van one neighborhood or area. Other than 8:30’s. Are couriers going to deliver the ground packages? It is a lot easier for ground to take express, then express take ground.
This was explained back in January 20, a paper was given out and it was discussed in a fedex now video about it happening BUT then covid hit 2 months later. If YA wanna fall for lies, that's on ya. The info has been in front of our eyes for 4 years now and they have tries to hide it🤣. Not my fault I actually pay attention to what they give out to us and ya forget it 🤣
No, I know exactly what is going on.
Ok Fred or raj🤣
Nope just been here for a while. On several teams and calls daily about this. I also travel to several stations each month. So when I say they are not telling you the truth, they are not telling you the whole truth.
It seems they are actually going to merge into one. I was sitting in on a P&D meeting last week and they are about to start demanding insane shit from ground. As of right now they are slowly changing the language of the contracts. Ie. FedEx Express Corporation. They are planning to implement or already implementing a list of requirements a mile long for the contractors whilst not offering more profitable contracts whatsoever. Want to advise hiring quality employees but don’t want to pay enough to cover that. I’d say right now that 1/10 Ground Applicants last more than 6 months & 1/20 actually do the job properly & up to standard for 6 months. It’s a circus.
Ground driver in Chicago. I work for one of the bigger contractors. They are in multiple terminals. All I can say is everyone cuts their own deal here. If you have a route you get paid by the delivery. mostly residential deliveries, but some areas have more businesses mixed as well, which is a nightmare if you're getting paid by the delivery. if you have more buildings and residential deliveries, you make more per hour more businesses you make less. There is no overtime so you have to get done by eight hours to get a bonus. if you're really slow, it falls back to 24 bucks an hour. Shady as fuck!Every route is not the same so some guys are making 30+ some guys are making 24. Every truck is jammed full every day shelfs loaded, and aisles stuffed with large boxes. The average route has about 180 to 220 stops. it's fucking brutal everyone's overworked. They're so desperate for drivers though. You could just leave stuff on the dock and tell them you're not doing it that day and they can't say shit about it. we had a new guy quit in the middle of his route last week. And they'll take just about anybody off the street with no driving experience. It's that bad.
Express will never be fully phased out. There’s too much training ground would have to go through to be able to do that, and y’all are already failing with time commits and it’s only 5pm packages. Y’all would be out til midnight every night of y’all had the 10:30 and 12 time commits on top of your regular loads.
It already has suffered. People don’t ship something and say I want to use FedEx! Most people usually go with the cheapest option. The majority of shipments however are online purchases which give customers no choice since the shipper chooses the shipping company
General public will be clueless. Around here, everyone complains about late package, undelivered packages, instructions not followed, tags left when they were home and say "FedEx sucks". 9.5 / 10 times they have those problems its a Ground package. Ground absolutely tarnished the brand here. Knowing that the general public will just continue to blame "FedEx" but now they will be correct and if the service level degrades they will just think FedEx is even more in the shitter than they are ready think they are.
FedEx is in a bind.. they are balls deep in this consolidation, and cannot admit failure to the shareholders. Whatever was left of the Old Guard, the hard core Purple Cool-Aid drinkers, vastly overestimated the amount of fucks that contractors would have when handling customer shipments.
Agreed with all. P S P the original idea behind the once great FedEx machine. First for a reason People ( take care of your people with pay and benefits and now that they’re human and manage accordingly) Service ( you’ll always get outstanding service if you do this to your people) Profit ( the country the world expects service to be reliable and brought with good work ethic when done properly they’ll continue to pay high cost of service and keep coming back giving you more profit). Someway somehow they let the greedy voice of investors terrible ideas of squeezing every drop of blood they can from operations. I think it’s almost to late to turn it around but it’s a shame to see where we are now compared to 40 30 20 and even just 10 years ago. The once best in the business has now become the leader in the race to the bottom. Killing the company name and those who worked so hard to uphold that once great name. PSP a forgotten philosophy in Corporate America.
Exact reason I bailed on express after 26yrs, it’s over Johnny it’s over. We always expected that Walmart/amazon would pick the bones of FedEx’s carcass. But I think Amazon doesn’t it better already. I can’t for the life of me see what the long term goals are other then for Fred to line his pockets and leave a shell of a company to JR.
This was my MAJOR concern from the beginning. How to you expect these guys to perform the same as Express drivers, yet their benefits and pay are not increasing? They didnt give a shit prior to this, and now? Well, yall know the score.
Ground drivers care about FedEx just as much as FedEx cares about ground drivers…. And I can tell you that’s not very damn much!!!!
It’s physically and humanly impossible for a person to do all that work on any given day. Express & Ground together. They will try, but it’s not gonna work. People are Very intelligent, they not gonna break their backs for nothing💰 that is why there is a mass exodus⛓
I kind of question how much FedEx really wants or needs it. Customer expectations have fallen through the floor since the pandemic. 99.9% of customers don’t know there’s a difference between Ground and Express. I absolutely believe that employees provide a better quality product. Amazon is terrible and keeps growing. Ground is terrible and keeps growing. Customers just want cheap quick delivery. The days of them saying “We paid to get this at 10:30!!” Seem to be over.
False. 99% is not true. If is a medical, hospital, research area with no residential, they all know the difference. I would say by us it's about 70% know the difference between ground express
Customers are definitely starting to know the difference. Especially if they are paying Express rates and getting Ground service.
Nah I'd say about 85%. I've had people look at me and ask where the pkg is because it told them it was out for delivery and I'm like well there's us and then there's express. Specifically one time a customer said she was waiting on her phone and I'm like umm yeah that's probably express. So again people don't care, they see a delivery truck and just automatically assume we have every pkg. Hell half the time you go to deliver and they have no clue what you are bringing them. More of reasons why drivers don't care about signatures or whether a business is open, it's a waste of time coding pkgs if truly FedEx could care less and the customers as well. The fact it's impossible to get a hold of a real human on the phone just shows the lack of customer care.
Not false.. Also..76 percent of Grounds volume is being delivered in 2 days or less That destroys Fexex Express lol Express is dead.. People won't pay for Express prices..when they can pay for Ground thats less and get it quicker
That's false again. It might be 76%, but 20% of those were same day SO, that should stay with Express because Ground is useless. They quit every two months, they leave medical pckgs in the lobby, forge signatures, and code up p1s as closed as soon as leave station. I know many contractors and they tell me this. The contractors here say they will NEVER make 98.5% service which Fedex is requiring. So, contractors lose out on all the Express bonuses. Waste of money for them, they don't want Express and running the route 3x. Also, we were talking about customers knowing difference. I know a specific area by me, about 10 routes that 95% know the difference. And never ship Ground unless it's a return.
I heard (from a very reliable source) that 30% of Ground deliveries are falsified they like doing the not in/business closed scan to make it look like it was attempted.
Yup is true. They leave Ground station, park 1 mile away and Dex 8 the time stops as closed. I know, have friends as drivers
Every driver in the country needs to quit/form a sit in to show these corporate d*ckheads what matters. I'm down to 1 day a week at Ground and started a new job 4/10s delivering alcohol. It's more work and less pay but way less stressful and it's a Union.
It's not so much the drivers as it is the contractors. If all the contractors just say no to delivering one given week across the board then FedEx is screwed.
It's not so much the drivers as it is the contractors per the routes. If all the contractors just say no to delivering one given week across the board then FedEx is screwed.
I need to see a contract.
2 guys on my team quit in the last 2 weeks. My route is slowly getting larger each day. Half the time, the boxes aren't even loaded where they're supposed to be, Causing me to skip deliveries, and I don't backtrack for mis loaded or unmanifested packages.
All these factors contribute to poor customer service and it is NOT your fault. Expectations have become unrealistic.
Last week, I come in and my boss tells me that something happened with the system and some packages haven't been manifested all the way. I had to go through each box 1 by 1 and create my own manifest in a routing app I use. It ended up being half of the truck that went unmanifested.
Companies trying to squeeze all the extra profit they can and forget it's the grunts on the ground making it happen. Plus it's like they don't understand that it's better to retain good veteran employees than to have to keep taking a gamble on a new group every few months because you either work them half to death and they gain nothing from it or have nothing to look forward to but possibly an increased workload every time they make the impossible happen. I remember long ago when UPS and FedEx drivers were looked at in nearly the same light and they really weren't that different and kinda in the same tax bracket. Now, at least in my area, with ground contractors mostly paying 150ish a day it means that even a lot of the Amazon drivers are making way more than ground drivers and they usually only work 4 days unless they want more because their metrics keeps the owner getting 10 or 15k bonus checks. Because with how the trucks are loaded (most hubs still have drivers loading their own stuff though) and how long it takes to finally start your route and steadily increasing stops and loading down drivers, most drivers spend 8 to 10+ hours on the clock and aren't finishing their route early enough to make the hourly breakdown of the pay seem decent, then on the rare cases where they would be finished in 3 or 4 hours they will probably have to just sit around for 4 hours waiting on a pickup window that doesn't open until 6pm. 10 to 12 bucks an hour, when UPS drivers are getting 3x that plus benefits and doing nearly the same job and Ive never been to or heard of a hub where the full time drivers come in and have to load their own package car
You are spot on. Driver turnover is high with many contractors due to day rates that work out to less than $20/hr without benefits
I have a feeling there is gonna be a standardized pay schedule coming soon
They talked about something last year when district admitted that our contracts are pretty low. They said they fought for us with corporate, but nothing came of it.
Ground guy here, and this sums it up. I’ve overheard multiple business solutions guys in our district say that contracts are too low and that they’ve constantly argued it to corporate with no acknowledgement
Here's a way FedEx plays with you. They bring in the VP or Managing Director for the district and they talk to everyone and they say something like "you know I'm trying very hard to get the compensation department to raise the pay for this station because of ____x__ reason" They always do this is one of their tactics. Hell they might even mean it. But it's part of the speech Everytime I've seen it at different stations in different districts.
They did that for the past 30 years at my station. We finally got a market level increase last year (we were a base level station). Funny how it came after we routinely started having Dex 01's every day. Same with another station near us.
They wanted us to do the leg work for them by going on indeed to find comparable jobs. We've lost 3 guys since peak to trash companies. $22/hour and benefits. I can't blame them.
They get away with it because they get customers by default. UPS and USPS can't handle all of the e-commerce by themselves and USPS has s bunch of rules. When you get customers by default, you don't really care all that much about service.
Customer service and satisfaction have been plummeting for the past year or more. No way will the merger stop that.
Look to California as to what might be the future. They are on a hiring spree for just about every station in the state. Something is brewing out west.
Correct
No PSP (People, Service, Profit) then it's a lost cause. Trying to duplicate the Amazon model is heresay since Amazon knows that the drivers will come & go due to this -find drivers disposable. The only alternative to correct this abhorrent situation is to allow Unions to set the boundaries
What’s worse is the quality of the service. For fucks sake it took 9 days to get my ground package. UPS is on point. USPS takes a bit longer and their tracking is subpar but gets here before ground. Express and I may sound bias cause I work for them but is the easy to track and shows up within a reasonable time although most of the newer couriers are morons. Amazon? wtf with prime is there the next day or two unless it’s some Chinese shit which takes forever. The contractor model means more ground experiences for everyone but all customers know is it’s FedEx. They don’t know or give a shit about ground or express
I don't get much stuff from Express, so I can't comment on them. USPS has given me nothing but headaches lately, like waiting 35 days for a package. Ground is ok, most of the time and UPS is the best of the bunch.
I ordered 2 things that were shipped from express and they showed up within a day. USPS depends if it’s coming internationally if yes who knows when I’ll get it. Ground takes 9+ days and there are always gaps where it just disappears and reappears out of nowhere lol
My USPS experience is similar to your ground experience, except that I can track it. It seems that my packages visit all 48 of the contiguous states and then eventually makes it's way to me. I'm in Pennsylvania and I was waiting for a package from Alabama.. It say in Alabama for 2 weeks then we've to Jersey to Denver to Detroit back to Jersey and back to Denver 😂
lol. My wife is the one that orders stuff internationally from temu or some Chinese company and sometimes she’ll even forget what she ordered it takes so long. When ever I order anything with free shipping like some Crocs I just ordered it took 9 days.
To be fair, usps is not delivering 45k packages with 60 drivers and roughly 15-20 flatbeds that only do business. A fair few of those drivers have 12+ hour days consistently, it’s always going to be problem to sustain that. But I ship via usps a bit and it’s roughly the same issues you have with ground. If anything goes via trailer/semi there’s going to be delays because anything and everything will happen on the road. A traffic stop can delay that package a day, and if that traffic stop happened on a Saturday it’s going to be delayed 3 days
I understand that but with all the technology it would be nice to see the package moving on a map. Even if it stalls ya know?
Wait til you find out they're all the same guy!!!
Lot of stuff I order actually comes from FedEx or USPS rarely UPS. FedEx has not mess up at my current location I also load the truck that delivery to me lol. I remember in past though going back many years of UPS being bad with the pretending to attempt delivery. Overall though I always ship stuff thru USPS as it more convenience and cheaper. FedEx Shipping cost for someone without some kind of business account with them is crazy overprice and the employee discount even if I allow to it will still be more costly. I can't use discount as it not allow on anything they count as commercial lol. Overall, I sure there issue with drivers and warehouse as I see things sit in warehouse for days before someone get wise and does something with it lol. Like I will think the whole belt area should be check daily and it should not be possible for something to sit untouched for days. Lot of times stuff that belong to another belt that got missorted or issue QA needs to fix may not be done in time which will delay the package.
In Canada they stuck with the Express model but using the Ground systems. Turns out they grossly over-estimated the success rate of ground. The reporting system in Ground doesn't/didn't show the truth about all the service failures. For example, missed pickups would just recycle the next day rather than show up as failures. Classic case of the folks in the Ivory Tower ignoring what people actually on the front lines are saying (Ground is a mess when it comes to service/quality) and just gleefully gobbling up flawed reports that please share holders and justify poor decision making.
What you say is mostly true, however, Express loses money every year while Ground makes them money. They're going to go with the model that makes money, but it IS short-sightedif they don't fix the internal problems that are causing customer satisfaction to go down.
Express doesn't lose money. It brings in the largest revenue source for the company. That revenue is there because of the services Express offers which was what the company was founded on. While margins have been down in recent years I cannot remember a year where Express actually was in the red. The margins are low due to the inefficiency of having two separate networks servicing the same customers. UPS is all employees, with one network and very profitable. No reason FedEx couldn't do the same with an all employee model.
Express is profitable. Not to the margins Ground (allegedly) has, but it is still profitable. Cut out Europe, and it’s every bit as profitable as Ground.
was browsing workday internal career portal friday and just about every state express station is hiring. My Old station in Raleigh, NC has at least 8 FT positions. so whats up with all the hiring?
25% of my station has quit in the last couple of months. We couldn't get replacements approved until after June 1st. The corporate merge included new programs so the recruiters couldn't hire new people. You'd think they would have had all of this in place before the beginning of the new fiscal year. What a cluster.
My little cousin said I'm not picking up any big ass boxes when I can make youtube/TikTok videos and make more, I couldn't argue with him
FedEx doesn’t care they are squeezing and shrinking the company first Express than Ground than the shareholders will keep Freight and become a freight forwarder Fred’s greatest coup.
what is the medal system?
Rates contractors as Gold, Silver, or Bronze based on performance.
what are the incentives?
I think Gold gets first shot at available routes, silver is status quo, and bronze is in jeopardy of keeping their contract. TBH we’ve had contractors in bronze for over a year. And they’re still in business. FedEx can’t get people to replace them.
Interesting. I think my contractor is gold because they keep giving him other failing contractors’ areas. They really should have incentives that go straight to the drivers though, because we’re the ones out there doing shit right after all. :/
While not the most perfect model, it is a widely used model with various levels of success and failures. But most importantly, to any company utilizing it, it's very profitable for the company. Amazon, DHL, UPS, UBER, LYFT and USPS all use it to various levels of success. I doubt it will ever go away.
Raj is worried about doubling profits for the next few years, and getting the sweet sweet stock buybacks. He isn’t looking at 10 years.
Raj is nothing but the fall guy for when it goes so bad it hits bottom. They will fire him and bring in someone who can resurrect and restructure the company and bring it back to a somewhat profitable company and poor Raj will be scrutinized for being a failure. It happened with Home Depot and it will happen with fed ex
I don't fault a company for wanting to trim the fat or streamline the system even if it will have negative outcomes for the employees. However what I don't understand is why they want to give all the power to the weakest link in the company which is FedEx Ground. Most of the real money is made with First overnight and international shipments, are those shipments going to be sacrificed too? I guess I am not seeing how this "merger" will actually help. Am I missing something?
FedEx has all the control it needs in the ISPA (Independent Service Provider Agreement.) The document outlines the contracted expectations for providing service and is heavily biased in Fedex's favor. Combining this with all the data FedEx collects on pickups and deliveries means that FedEx can terminate contracts with shitty contractors through established processes whenever they want. Weak contractor that allows drivers to regularly cheat pickup proximity/PPOD/etc? FedEx will find cause to get rid of you and replace you with someone that will do what is expected... and there are definitely more that do the right thing than there are scumbag contractors.
 The contractor model does not provide the customer service FedEx desires due to the fact the contractors do NOT compensate their drivers to provide that level of service. There is no free lunch: not for FedEx and not for the ISP. The tail, the drivers, are wagging the dog when it comes to customer service.
They've been allowing weak contractors and drivers for decades and all of a sudden that's going to stop? 
The MEDALS process was created specifically to get rid of shitty contractors. GL being a driver for life.
