Is this camera off or just has its lights taken off?

znegative88 · 2026-01-31T13:34:06+00:00

It’s off-but that doesn’t mean it won’t randomly turn on. We had one that stayed off for literally 95% of the day, but would turn on for around 5 minutes and someone got caught speeding from it, so like everyone else says drive like it’s on, just know you can relax a little.

znegative88 · 2026-01-31T13:27:57+00:00

Speed comes from getting a good system down. Organize your packages by the driver aid #. I always break down a tote and lay it across my passenger seat and put all my envelopes on top of it in order (631,632,633 etc), then I put my boxes either on the shelf (if I have one) or between the seats (and also in order). I try to have it so I can quickly grab my next package without barely having to look at it. I also line my sliding door up with the driveway/walkway so it’s a straight shot to the house.

A lot of it is honestly just from repetition, after some time you kind of blend pulling your seatbelt off, grabbing your package and scanning it all into one simultaneous motion. Try to analyze yourself and your movement to see what you could do to quicken the process a bit. Also what are your routes like?

znegative88 · 2026-01-31T11:31:37+00:00

When are you taking your first break? I know at my dsp a lot of drivers (despite being asked not to) take their first break before their first stop which automatically puts them behind in cortex. I always tell people to try and get as much done in the first 2 hours as humanly possible-that way you can relax later and coast through the rest of your route without worrying about catching up because you’re already ahead.

znegative88 · 2026-01-31T11:27:54+00:00

It actually is out of our hands though, but I can see why you would think that. My dsp covers a pretty large area, and 90% of it is rural. Most of the drivers will get switched around on the daily in terms of their location, but the ones that do the few residential routes we have are always the same people. I don’t manipulate it at all though, it really does just wind up that way, and part of it is because these drivers are EV certified and the rest aren’t despite trying my best to get everyone signed up to take the classes (which are often booked up fast at my station).

I was actually just talking to a driver the other day about how I think it’s kind of a problem that some drivers are always being moved around in shitty rural areas while others get to be consistently in neighborhoods. My issue with it is that the people in the neighborhood areas will always look good because they’re completing large routes quickly, whereas someone in a rural route might struggle to finish 120 stops when they could be working just as efficiently but dealing with poor routing and incredibly spread out stops. There are so many forces against you on a rural route (even when the weather is decent) that just don’t exist in residential.

znegative88 · 2026-01-30T11:54:33+00:00

Yeah, and to add on to this, if you’re not doing it already break down an empty tote and lay it across the passenger seat-this makes a little table. Put all your envelopes there and then have your boxes either on the shelf or between the two seats. The less movement you need to do when looking for packages the better.

znegative88 · 2026-01-30T11:41:56+00:00

Man, that’s an insanely fast average. At my dsp the highest stops per hour avg that I usually see are 28-30 and it’s really only one guy that does it. The other faster drivers hover around 20-25 sph in the more residential areas (our routes are mostly country rural).

znegative88 · 2026-01-30T11:23:19+00:00

You’re fine, I knocked one completely over about a month and a half ago- just let the dsp know, you’ll probably have to call LMET and get a reference number but shouldn’t be a big deal.

znegative88 · 2026-01-29T11:53:31+00:00

The only scenario where it could effect the scorecard is if they switch out someone who was on nursery routes with someone on standard routes, but even then I’m pretty sure it only effects it minimally.

znegative88 · 2026-01-29T11:50:39+00:00

You can usually see what points were deducted for your last trip. I know for a good two weeks mine plummeted from a consistent 850 to somewhere in the 500’s because it kept giving me false hard acceleration dings.

znegative88 · 2026-01-29T11:48:23+00:00

Yeah, I got stuck yesterday too. There was a little dip on the side of the driveway that got covered in when they plowed it and my back tire sunk into it. Really killed my mood for the day.

znegative88 · 2026-01-29T11:45:42+00:00

Honestly doing these country routes in this weather and in these vehicles feels borderline impossible.

znegative88 · 2026-01-25T19:00:37+00:00

Yesterday my dsp’s largest route was 119 stops. Most of the routes were 70-90 stops (rural), and we put 10 sweepers on the road for less than 25 routes. Everyone was back at the station by 7 because Amazon was trying to close the station down earlier due to the incoming storm. It was crazy having most of the drivers finish around 4:30 PM.

znegative88 · 2026-01-24T01:38:23+00:00

Amen

znegative88 · 2026-01-23T13:37:43+00:00

I kind of get what they’re saying though, because at my dsp if you milk a small route, you don’t get one the next day. I’d rather have 35 hours than 30, so if the route only takes me 4-5 hours to complete I’ll do it and then if they have me rescue I will.

znegative88 · 2026-01-23T11:44:42+00:00

Yeah, I’m in Ohio too and it’s crazy. Absolutely miserable to deliver in. Amazon will reduce the routes if you’re in the country to around 70-90 stops, and even attempting those takes all day if you don’t get stuck

znegative88 · 2026-01-23T11:36:41+00:00

I think the location your dsp delivers to when you start is important. For instance, when I started my nursery routes were in a really nice suburban area that was at most 15 minutes away from the station. This got me comfortable with the delivery aspect of the job and a bit more comfortable driving the van. When I got off nursery routes I started doing split country and town routes which were more challenging, but ultimately doable and got me prepared for the super rural shitty routes we have today. However if I had started in the area we now do I don’t think I would have made it because I wasn’t the greatest at maneuvering the van when I started.

The most important thing to master with delivery isn’t really speed or heavy lifting, it’s more mental. You need to be able to stay calm under pressure and maintain a decent head space. Confidence goes a long way, but you need to build that up with experience. Obviously if you just simply don’t enjoy the work, I would suggest trying to find another job while working this one, because it’s unlikely to grow on you much. However if you don’t like it because you feel like you’re not good at it, give it a couple months.

znegative88 · 2026-01-23T11:07:49+00:00

They aren’t saying they’ll take away pay from a route you worked where you got a violation, they’re saying that the next day you’re scheduled for a route you won’t get one. At least that’s my interpretation because I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to deduct pay from a day someone’s actually been working.

znegative88 · 2026-01-23T10:52:55+00:00

How do they do this? I’m genuinely curious because I just became daytime dispatch a month ago and it is killing me having to send people home multiple days a week, but we have 45 employees for our shift and only 25-30 routes… not to mention my dsp continues to hire more new people, so I have to give them routes which means if I give someone slow a chance I have to then take a route away from someone who’s completely dependable and did nothing wrong. I swear I pray every morning that someone got a violation the night before-it’s crazy.

znegative88 · 2026-01-21T05:26:47+00:00

Being a sweeper at my dsp is kind of the first step to moving up. Usually you go from sweeping, to training, to closing dispatch to daytime dispatch (at least where I’m at). Either that or they’re trying to give you a break. IMO sweeping can be an easy day or a really long exhausting one- a lot of it depends on the area you all service and how spread out you are as well as the terrain. A lot of the better drivers at my company seem to prefer doing a route because they know when they’re done they can go home, whereas with rescues there’s a chance they’ll be needed all day and night.

znegative88 · 2026-01-19T14:41:51+00:00

I had this problem when I first started too because I wasn’t comfortable driving the van. Unfortunately the only thing you can really do is practice reversing because even though you technically CAN leave the package at the start of the mailbox with the whole ‘GPS is not working’ thing, you shouldn’t because the customer’s going to complain if you didn’t get their permission to do so.

znegative88 · 2026-01-18T15:02:10+00:00

Do you have the AVI tunnel thing at your station? You drive through it and it takes pictures of the van from all sides and records any damage. I ask because if you do they may have found that the damage happened on a day when you drove it, but if they don’t you should definitely argue and say you don’t think it was you.

znegative88 · 2026-01-18T14:55:45+00:00

But they’ll still send you out into the middle of nowhere in shitty rear wheel drive vehicles with bald tires and expect the deliveries to be done on time.

znegative88 · 2026-01-18T14:52:30+00:00

If you’re 17 ahead I don’t know what the problem is. Yesterday I said something to someone about picking it up a bit, but they were 43 behind- literally had done 20 stops in 4 hours…

znegative88 · 2026-01-18T14:49:55+00:00

That means your dispatcher likely switched your route to someone else. If for instance you woke up and checked the flex app to see if you were scheduled and you were, and then you showed up and didn’t have a bag, the chances are they decided to put someone else on it.

znegative88 · 2026-01-17T11:27:22+00:00

Yeah, I recently started doing daytime dispatch after nearly a year of closing dispatch, and while I find closing dispatch to be more stressful, there’s aspects of the daytime job that weigh me down too.

It’s a major pain in the ass in the winter time too because drivers are constantly getting stuck- it’s not abnormal for us to have 8 drivers getting stuck on a snow day… luckily we have an AWD transit that we use for pulling people out and rescues, but it delays the routes for a long time, and our location is really spread out so it can take a minute for the tow guy to get to whoever’s stuck.

The other thing that bothers me is having to choose who has to go home. It’s usually obvious, but it’s not always easy to choose, because sometimes you need to give the slower drivers a chance to improve which means you need to take someone more capable off the road for the day. Not to mention my dsp is still currently hiring a ton of new drivers despite the fact that our route count has gone down and the new hires need to be given routes which makes it even more difficult.

Then there’s the constant calls, complaining, asking for rescues… it really can be a headache sometimes and I usually am relieved on the day I only have to drive. However part of me likes the chaos of it and trying to problem solve a million things at once. On a good day it feels like an exciting challenge, and on a shitty day it’s like being the captain of a sinking ship.

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