I am sure that the Squeeze-Down Management Method is not being used solely here at Big Brown, but it has been in full effect recently. It is always in use, but really seems to be working to its fullest potential right now.

It has been a while since I have posted any new stories here at The Brown Chronicles, but recent events have inspired me to begin again, spinning the bizarre, but true, tales of working for Big Brown.

Beginning the week of Thanksgiving, we move into our “Peak Season” here at Big Brown. The wonderful time of year where the volume increases because of all the holiday gifts, wreaths, hams, and fruit baskets being sent to loved-ones around the world. As the volume increases, so does the pressure imbued on managers and supervisors from higher up the management food chain. We are not sure how far up the chain of command it really starts to show, but it surely starts at the top with Chairman and CEO Mike Eskew and flows down until it reaches my part-time supervisor.

The reason I believe that it starts way up the management hierarchy, is because for every new part-time supervisor, building manager, district manager, etc., there is no real change is how things run in my building or work area. Pretty much the same things continue to happen, no matter who is in charge near the bottom. So, the pressures coming from higher up seems to be a major component of this methods effectiveness.

Let me explain by going just a few rungs up the management ladder, since over the last couple of days we have had four levels of management roaming my work area. I have a part-time supervisor, over him is a fulltime supervisor, above him is a fulltime Hub Sort Manager and then there is his boss.

The whole place is built on numbers. The better your numbers, the bigger your bonus and when I say “your,” I mean management. Due to things like the Spiral Down Conic Training Method, we have some of the worst numbers and they are always trying to get better ones. But how, you ask? Well, by putting the squeeze on the manager below you to fix things or, pretty much, be out of a job. So, then, in this scenario, the Hub Sort Manager squeezes the fulltime supervisor, who in turn, squeezes the part-time supervisor, who in turn, has no one to squeeze. Well, they try to squeeze the new hires, which is one reasons we have such high turnover, but that is a story for another time. So, basically, they run around looking like their head is about to explode and doing things they shouldn’t be doing, in an effort to relieve the pressure foist upon them, which, unfortunately, only serves to make the problem worse most of the time.

What upper-management doesn’t do, is spend time training their supervisors to be better equipped to run their area, manage their people, or anything else that would be helpful.

Instead, they “yell” at them, tell them they need to do this and that and get this number down and that number up, but no help in how to best do that. Now, the season of higher package volumes is upon us and it only exacerbates the problems.

The Squeeze-Down Management Method has each level of management putting the squeeze on the manager or supervisor below them, like Homer Simpson with his hands around Bart’s neck after a smart-ass remark, until all the pressure is on the lowly part-time supervisor.

I started writing this yesterday before I left for work last night and then at work, I think my supervisor’s head may have finally exploded. Towards the end of the night, at some point, he walked out. I guess he told his bosses that he wasn’t feeling well and then left, but he seemed fine every time I dealt with him during the night. I think he was just covering himself by saying he was sick. I have a feeling he will not be around much longer. While this is not the desired effect of the Squeeze-Down Management Method, it is the inevitable result.

How does your company use the Squeeze-Down Management Method?

Do you work at a place where management is always running around trying to put out the latest fire? Does your workplace need to work on fire prevention? Do you have managers that spend all their time being reactive and not enough being proactive? You know, doing the little things that make things run a bit smoother. Supervisors that come up with strategies and procedures that solve problems before they arise or at least before they happen again and again. At Big Brown most supervisors tend to be like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter, except while she started fires with her mind, our supervisors tend to start them by not using theirs at all.

At Big Brown, roughly the same thing happens every night. We unload packages from trailers. We sort them and send them via a conveyor belt system to be loaded into other trailers. I work on a load line, one of five areas in my building where we load trailers with packages to make the next leg of their journey. We pull the packages off the belt and send them into the trailers to be loaded. This happens five days a week, every week, every year, year after year.

The volume of packages down the conveyor comes roughly the same everyday. The same trailers get their volume at about the same time everyday. Yet the supervisors can’t seem to have enough loaders in the right places, at the right times, to load these packages. This gets the trailer backed up. This makes it hard to get all the boxes and such into the trailer they are supposed to go into. Which means these packages have to be handled and re-handled multiple times before they can get loaded and sent on their way.

When the same trailers get hit with volume at roughly the same time each night and there isn’t anyone there to load them, something is wrong. Yet this happens nightly. Once the trailer is backed up and problems are starting to arise, then the supervisors send people in to try and clean up the mess. Like a bunch of firefighters sent in to put out a wildfire. Yet we all know there are prevention strategies to be followed that limit the risk of forest fires along with limiting the damage if one should get sparked.

For example: We have a trailer on our line for packages heading to Canada. This trailer tends to get a lot of volume right off the bat. Yet many times there isn’t even a trailer, let alone someone to load it. So we end up pulling these boxes out of other trailers and getting off to a bad start almost nightly because there is no place to put them or no one to load them or both. This creates the greater possibility of packages ending up in the wrong trailer, being sent to the wrong destination and delaying delivery. Also, the more a package gets handled, the greater the chance of its being damaged. What would you do in this situation? It seems quite obvious to me.

As with many workplaces, what is needed is a proactive mentality to be instilled in the workforce, especially those who are in charge of the operation. What we need is more Smokey Bears and a lot fewer mindless Drew Barrymores.