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Leave Replacements the ins and outs · United We Scan

• 0:34
  Hey, welcome to the United We Scan podcast.
• 0:36
  Just a quick disclaimer here that any of the views and
• 0:39
  opinions expressed by the individuals are not that of the
• 0:44
  USPS or the NRLCA. This podcast is for
• 0:49
  entertainment purposes only and if you are in need of any
• 0:53
  assistance, please contact your designated union representative.
• 0:58
  Thank you. Welcome back everybody.
• 1:01
  Episode 135, we're kind of going to touch on the life of an RCA,
• 1:07
  kind of put the call out a little last minute to see if we
• 1:10
  had any leave replacements that wanted to hop on and join us.
• 1:13
  And I shouldn't just say life of an RCA, it should be leave
• 1:16
  replacement in general because there is a lot more PTFS out
• 1:19
  there than there was when I first started.
• 1:21
  So, so and that matters. How was your week, Josh?
• 1:27
  It was just it was another week today, very short week.
• 1:33
  So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I took off my I had the rotating
• 1:38
  Friday, Saturday K day. So I had this weekend.
• 1:42
  I told them I needed to take this weekend for one to try and
• 1:46
  get a car and two, it's my anniversary this weekend so and
• 1:50
  I'm still without a car. So it is what it is.
• 1:53
  But I have an appointment to look at something tomorrow
• 1:55
  evening after work now. How was your week?
• 1:57
  The week was OK. I'm trying to think of what
• 2:00
  really went on this week. Oh my.
• 2:03
  I jinxed myself with my mattress and my yeah my mattress had the
• 2:12
  check engine light come on and some airbag sensor thing issue
• 2:17
  with it so I had to write it back up the day after we
• 2:20
  recorded that episode. It was so mad but they gave me
• 2:25
  another Metra so it was fine. I don't I would have driven an
• 2:29
  LOV too. I don't it's it is what it is as
• 2:31
  long as mine gets fixed. Kind of spent nights working on
• 2:37
  my dispute still and wanting to pull my hair out a little bit.
• 2:43
  Wasn't able to find enough time to put me back to 46 but got
• 2:49
  myself a little bit closer so when I activate addresses and
• 2:53
  the grow as you go, hopefully my disputes get settled how I want
• 2:59
  and I'm able to kick it back to the 46 hour mark.
• 3:04
  But I was able to enter all of my return to DU time in and it
• 3:11
  was absolutely kind of crazy and insane.
• 3:15
  But I found that I was shorted due to scans being messed up.
• 3:20
  So the zeros brought me down a little bit.
• 3:22
  But yeah, so that was kind of my big, big focus this week and had
• 3:30
  Advos and yeah, that was kind of it.
• 3:33
  But how was your week, Kristen? Long this first time I've worked
• 3:40
  six days in a while and being my first week back after being off
• 3:45
  for two weeks. Yeah, it it hurt.
• 3:48
  It hurt. I got my mapping done Thursday.
• 3:51
  I didn't have any changes for October, which is rare for me,
• 3:54
  but it's all good. And other than that, yeah, it
• 3:59
  was it was a week. I have what are we in October?
• 4:03
  So we get M Sparks Advos once a month.
• 4:07
  And normally they're they're dated usually for the last
• 4:10
  Tuesday of the month. They normally come in on
• 4:12
  Saturdays. We've had a few months where
• 4:15
  they didn't come. They came in on Monday or
• 4:17
  whatnot. I have delivered them every
• 4:20
  month this year, which is rather kind of like isn't that's what
• 4:25
  the sub supposed to do on Saturdays when they work?
• 4:29
  No, no, I got them yesterday. So that what would have been a
• 4:32
  really quick day yesterday, but it's only a half a tray of pull
• 4:36
  down and just under 2 trays of DPS and only 144 scans turned
• 4:43
  into a 10 hour day. Yeah, it was great.
• 4:46
  Not really, but actually not a 10 hour day.
• 4:49
  It was closer to about 9 1/2. So I was just over evaluation by
• 4:53
  a little bit, but I'm not going to complain.
• 4:55
  But yeah, I know what you're talking about with that 46 man.
• 4:58
  I worked my tail off. The last.
• 4:59
  Six months to make sure my route went back up to that, that sweet
• 5:03
  spot on that 46 because we don't want it any bigger.
• 5:07
  And well, so we all hate losing money.
• 5:09
  So and I'm at that time of year where it's like, all right, who,
• 5:12
  what boxes am I going to deactivate?
• 5:14
  And I'm going to start doing it as I have one to activate.
• 5:16
  We'll deactivate that one because I only hit that 46 mark
• 5:20
  by three minutes. So yeah, that's pretty much been
• 5:25
  pretty uneven for a week other than I'm just tired as all get
• 5:28
  out because I said it's been a while since I worked 6 days and
• 5:32
  think I'm probably much going to be working six days a week
• 5:35
  through Christmas, but Oh well, it's funny.
• 5:37
  So on that note, yes, go ahead, Josh.
• 5:41
  You guys get your red plums or marriage male on Saturday and
• 5:45
  have to take it out on Saturday? That sucks.
• 5:48
  Yeah, we get in sparks, not red plums.
• 5:49
  But yes, everything that comes in for that day comes in that
• 5:54
  day, goes out that day in my office.
• 5:56
  Doesn't matter what the deliver by day or the deliver date is on
• 5:59
  it, if it comes in that day, it goes out that day.
• 6:02
  As ours are always Tuesday, Wednesday delivery.
• 6:05
  Yeah, ours say deliver Tuesday, Wednesday, but they come in on
• 6:08
  Saturday, they go out on Saturday.
• 6:10
  I'm sorry. Yeah, mine, mine are.
• 6:13
  We have M Sparks also and the date on them does say deliver
• 6:17
  Tuesday or Wednesday, but it and it will specifically have the
• 6:21
  date of that month. But it's up to my my manager.
• 6:25
  Sometimes they're like we have to get it out Saturday.
• 6:28
  Other times they make us hold it till Tuesday.
• 6:31
  So it's just and I just go buy what they say, you know, or they
• 6:37
  say like you guys, you can over a couple different days and
• 6:42
  that's that's what I did. Yeah, you know, I thought about
• 6:46
  it. I was just kind of like, but I
• 6:47
  don't want to deal with it on Monday, so we're just going to
• 6:50
  deliver these and get her done. Do you guys have a barcode that
• 6:54
  you have to scan for them? A delivery scan.
• 6:56
  Yeah, we have it taped at every case.
• 6:58
  Yeah. OK.
• 7:00
  We do too. And management usually goes and
• 7:03
  reminds everybody. And as she was reminding
• 7:06
  everybody on Saturday, I'm like aunt now.
• 7:08
  I already done that. I did it when I entered it into
• 7:11
  the scanner under the flats walking sequence, because ours
• 7:14
  are addressed because we don't get the cards with RM sparks.
• 7:17
  So ours have addresses on them. So as I entered it into the
• 7:21
  scanner and then I scanned the code and was done.
• 7:24
  Most of the time ours are addressed.
• 7:26
  Sometimes we get the cards separate.
• 7:28
  Yeah, no, we rarely ever. If anybody gets the cards in my
• 7:31
  office, it's usually dirt. The City side.
• 7:34
  We did have one route that didn't get any of their M sparks
• 7:38
  yesterday and which actually was OK because it was my sub running
• 7:45
  that route and it was his first time running the route in the
• 7:47
  full. And that just means the office
• 7:50
  Princess has to deliver them when she comes back Monday.
• 7:53
  Oh darn. If they show up tomorrow.
• 7:59
  But, yeah, that's pretty much not a whole lot going on this
• 8:03
  week, obviously. And I know we're all not so
• 8:07
  eagerly waiting for the Christmas volume to show up.
• 8:10
  So it's coming, people. Trust me.
• 8:13
  All right. So I don't want it.
• 8:15
  Yeah. So.
• 8:18
  Oh, none of us really want it. It's just part of the job.
• 8:22
  Sue, we're going to get on the topic of leave replacements.
• 8:27
  So in our leave replacements we have Rcas and PTFS and an
• 8:34
  occasional arc if they have gone through the RCA Academy and.
• 8:39
  I see occasional. On Saturdays, yes, contractually
• 8:43
  it says Saturdays. So I know I see a lot with
• 8:47
  these. You know, I was in RCA for just
• 8:50
  shy nine years. I to some people that seems a
• 8:54
  long time. We have two Rcas in my office
• 8:56
  that both went career in under 2 years, year and a half roughly
• 9:01
  for both of them. And you know, I've known people
• 9:05
  that were Rcas for two decades. I kind.
• 9:09
  Of say we have a mutual friend that was just like 20 years.
• 9:14
  Yeah, Yep. And I see a lot of social media
• 9:18
  posts with RCA's. You know, I I love the ones.
• 9:20
  Yay, finally going regular after two years, three years, a year
• 9:25
  and a half. My I don't have an issue with
• 9:28
  that. I mean, I think that's awesome
• 9:30
  that you get to move up so fast. I mean some of us that put the
• 9:33
  time in. I.
• 9:35
  Really think that after only being a leave replacement for
• 9:39
  such a short married time, you still don't have a full 100%
• 9:44
  understanding of the job in its entirety.
• 9:47
  Do you guys agree with me on that?
• 9:48
  Yeah, yeah, 'cause. It yeah, you don't really get
• 9:51
  the full experience of of RCA life.
• 9:54
  I mean, there's, there's even the ability for you if, if
• 9:59
  you're somebody who's held down a route, you know, on top of,
• 10:04
  you know, you're in RCA and holding down a route and still
• 10:08
  having to help. That's really the the true, true
• 10:12
  well, bouncing from route to route and.
• 10:17
  Well, my my last. Yeah, you, if you've only really
• 10:20
  done the one. I mean, my last Christmas season
• 10:23
  as an RCA, that last Christmas season before I went regular, I
• 10:27
  was the only RCA in my office. And so for some of you that may
• 10:31
  have been listening longer through a can remember when I
• 10:34
  went regular, it'll only be two years in next month.
• 10:37
  So I mean, I was the only RCAI had the OX route.
• 10:43
  I had a six in one. I very rarely, I could probably
• 10:47
  count on one hand how many times I actually ran that primary care
• 10:52
  route because I was running my little 2 1/2 hour OX route with
• 10:56
  every other route in the office six days a week because I was
• 11:00
  it, that was it. And, but I've also been that RCA
• 11:05
  who worked one day a week for months at a time.
• 11:10
  And when I transferred into the office that I'm now in, gosh,
• 11:14
  that was a little over 7 years ago.
• 11:16
  Wow. I've been there a while.
• 11:17
  I transferred in on an H route who at the time the carrier was
• 11:22
  out on OWOWCP had been out for a while.
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  And when I transferred in it was about three weeks after I
• 11:28
  transferred in and carrier came back and I had two paychecks
• 11:33
  that had absolutely no hours on it.
• 11:35
  In fact one time I wasn't on the schedule for a couple week for
• 11:39
  for pay period and my old office needed help for a week so I went
• 11:43
  and worked at my old office for a week.
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  Of course they never asked me to come back after they had to pay
• 11:47
  my per diem and hotel and plus the mileage at a. 120.
• 11:52
  Miles one way, but you know, it's I, I, I think being an RCA
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  for as long as I was starting out in a, a, a little bit bigger
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  office. And I did help a couple of the
• 12:07
  other smaller offices that were nearby closer to that office.
• 12:10
  And then when I transferred in to the office I'm in now, which
• 12:14
  is a little smaller. I mean, went from a office that
• 12:17
  had two RMPOS with 14 routes and only three of those were
• 12:23
  government vehicle routes to an office that had 7 routes and
• 12:29
  only one POV route. So I mean, big difference
• 12:32
  between those two, volume of mail definitely different
• 12:36
  between those two. Because I remember when I
• 12:37
  transferred him, everybody's going, man, it's so heavy.
• 12:41
  And I'm just looking at how much mail there is there.
• 12:43
  And I'm like, wow, this is a light to an average light day at
• 12:47
  my old office. Oh, what are you guys are
• 12:48
  talking about? You know, so I've kind of
• 12:52
  experienced a little bit of it all.
• 12:54
  I mean, it wasn't over to designation 74 by any means, but
• 12:57
  I was a 79 there at the end. And you know, I, I, I did, I, I
• 13:03
  know it was like to route hop and get done with routes and go
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  help others. I know it was like to run a Knox
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  route with a full route 6 days a week, work one day a week, work
• 13:15
  no days a week, work seven days a week 'cause we did have, I was
• 13:19
  my old office at Amazon Sunday come in a year before I
• 13:22
  transferred out. So I was there during the the
• 13:25
  implementation of Amazon Sunday delivery.
• 13:29
  So yeah, I'm think I'm one of those fuses, kind of experienced
• 13:34
  a little bit of everything when it came to being a leave
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  replacement. Yeah, like I was #74 or 79.
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  But you know, where they're like everyone keeps saying
• 13:46
  congratulations on the pay cut when you go regular because of
• 13:49
  the additional, you know, cost of benefits and, and just not
• 13:53
  having the overtime anymore. I kind of lucked out because the
• 13:56
  supervisor we had at the time was trying to maintain all the
• 14:01
  Rcas to 3-4 days a week. So it wasn't like it was much
• 14:06
  drop for me. You know, it was kind of just
• 14:09
  the lateral for me. Luckily, you know, even though I
• 14:11
  was running the same ramp for the most part five days a week,
• 14:16
  it was not my primary. So I was not technically holding
• 14:19
  it down to get the weave earning at that point in time.
• 14:25
  Well, and that's The thing is, is when I first started as, as
• 14:28
  an RCA back the tail end of 2014, it was literally just a
• 14:35
  week and a half before Christmas when I got hired in.
• 14:37
  I've actually, I did my shadow day the day after Christmas and
• 14:41
  then did Academy with a day off in between.
• 14:44
  I did 2 days. New Year's Day was in the middle
• 14:47
  and then the last two days. So, you know, it was, it was
• 14:51
  different then because Rcas didn't have health insurance
• 14:54
  benefits. Rcas didn't earn leave unless
• 14:58
  you were a designated 7479 status.
• 15:01
  I mean, literally it was completely different than what
• 15:05
  Rcas have now. I mean, what during my time as
• 15:09
  an RCA, I saw the change with the, the Obamacare.
• 15:14
  I hate using that term, but that's what it was with then
• 15:17
  having to get health insurance and that being implemented.
• 15:22
  I never did have the RCA insurance, so I can't comment on
• 15:26
  what it was when it was united before and I think it's what
• 15:28
  Blue Cross Blue Shield care first or something like that
• 15:31
  now. But you know, I I was there.
• 15:33
  Yeah, I think, I think the new, the newer ones better than the
• 15:37
  older one from what I've been told.
• 15:39
  You know, I was around prior to health insurance.
• 15:42
  I was around prior to annual leave.
• 15:44
  I literally you know, so I experienced what it was like
• 15:49
  before and then I have experienced it since RCA's got
• 15:53
  health insurance since RCA started earning annual leave,
• 15:57
  which was only not the current contract, but the previous
• 16:00
  contract when that came into effect.
• 16:02
  So that was a little bit and it is a little different because
• 16:05
  for when you the only way you could when you were earning
• 16:11
  leave as a designated 79 or 74 you and then when you, if you
• 16:15
  converted while you were in that leave earning status, you had to
• 16:19
  be a 78 or not a 78, excuse me, a 79 or a 74.
• 16:24
  And if you converted from those designations into a regular
• 16:27
  position, your leave would carry over.
• 16:29
  Now as 70 eights all earned leave.
• 16:33
  And even as a 79 I earned leave running other routes outside of
• 16:38
  my OX route. I noticed only the leave that I
• 16:42
  accrued for running my aux route.
• 16:45
  O in that 79 code is what carried over the sick leave
• 16:49
  carried over and justice the annual days that I had earned as
• 16:53
  a 79, the rest of my annual time that I earned running all the
• 16:57
  other routes in the office, that was paid out.
• 17:00
  So, yeah, I mean, I've seen a lot of change in in those nine
• 17:04
  years as an RCA. You know, I remember when I
• 17:06
  transferred into my office and they were trying to tell me, Oh
• 17:10
  no, Rcas can't take any time off.
• 17:12
  And I just kind of looked at him and raised my eyebrow.
• 17:15
  Of course, the postmaster at the time when I first transferred in
• 17:18
  didn't know that I was a local steward at the time I
• 17:21
  transferred in. And so I knew what was going on
• 17:25
  and I kind of ruffled feathers because I wasn't a steward in
• 17:29
  that office when I first transferred, obviously, because
• 17:31
  I was certified for the different office.
• 17:34
  And then I gave it about six months or so and we held an
• 17:36
  election and I got cert of then they just moved my certification
• 17:39
  over to that office. And so I ruffled a lot of
• 17:43
  feathers when I came in because I was more educated than anybody
• 17:46
  else in that office. I came from an RX test study
• 17:49
  office, transferred into an office that had never heard of
• 17:53
  Rex, had no clue what I was talking about.
• 17:55
  They looked at me like I was an alien with three heads going.
• 17:57
  What the hell you talking about? So basically when, when and
• 18:01
  that's go ahead. I was just going to say like
• 18:04
  it's so if you're an RCA that's first starting out, I, I would
• 18:09
  just recommend at least like, you know, I know when you first
• 18:14
  start out, it's overwhelming. You're just trying to figure out
• 18:18
  how to deliver mail, you know, in that first six months.
• 18:21
  But once you've kind of gotten over that initial shock, I would
• 18:25
  just strongly advise you to figure out your seniority.
• 18:30
  If you're in a larger office, making sure that the managers at
• 18:34
  least have that listed for you. You know that you're, you're
• 18:38
  hiring date, you keep all that paperwork from your, from your
• 18:44
  initial hiring together so that you have that.
• 18:50
  And then you know, as an RCA, you're it's feast or famine.
• 18:54
  So you're entitled to the days on your primary, even if it's an
• 18:58
  H route and you are covering for a regular who's on leave or AJ
• 19:05
  you that's your home base. And so just make sure that
• 19:08
  you're established on your home base.
• 19:12
  And granted, yeah, like, like, like Kristen was saying, it's
• 19:15
  it's feast or famine. There's going to be, I mean, the
• 19:18
  last Christmas I worked, I worked 80 hours in one week.
• 19:22
  And it was like, yeah, 80 hours, dude.
• 19:25
  And it was too many. And, and you know, there's, it
• 19:32
  was so loud. Yeah.
• 19:33
  There's there's some people who think that the RC, as I saw a
• 19:37
  comment on Facebook the other day that days in a row the Rcas,
• 19:43
  there is no set time frame. And I know there's there's
• 19:46
  districts that try and limit it, but there's some Rcas out there
• 19:51
  that want to work and they have the ability to do that.
• 19:57
  But if you're a new RCA, at least building that rhythm of
• 20:03
  knowing your home base is rule route one or whatever it is.
• 20:09
  Building that relationship with your regular for that route and
• 20:14
  communicating with one another and then communicating with your
• 20:19
  managers. I know that some people have
• 20:21
  really crappy managers and it's hard, but establishing a
• 20:26
  relationship with them and and then also establishing a
• 20:32
  relationship with your union steward so that if there's
• 20:34
  issues that arise or if management, you know, you were
• 20:39
  off and your regular called in and they didn't call you in,
• 20:44
  that's an issue that you're that's your money, that's your
• 20:49
  home base. So just try and keep that in
• 20:53
  mind. I know that it gets really
• 20:55
  overwhelming when you're in RCA and you or even PTFSI mean
• 20:58
  you're jumping from route to route a lot of the time.
• 21:02
  And there's some offices, I know that they're, you know, they
• 21:07
  really are only working that one day, but I know the majority of
• 21:10
  them are working probably over 40 hours each week.
• 21:15
  If you're in your first 90 days, you also or was it no first five
• 21:20
  pay periods, Josh? Yep, 1st 10 weeks that your.
• 21:24
  Hourly. Yep, Yep, it's actual time work
• 21:29
  or evaluation, whichever cut is higher.
• 21:32
  And then I know that a lot of newer Rcas get that shock when
• 21:36
  they first get that new Form 50. And and yes, Mr. they get that,
• 21:43
  that Form 50 that they, they were like, why is it say that
• 21:47
  I'm out of the probationary period and then they have to
• 21:51
  figure out the evaluations of the routes.
• 21:55
  So hold on just one second. Sorry, hold on.
• 21:59
  Now, basically, yeah, once you come out of your training pay
• 22:02
  period and that includes your orientation, your RCA, Academy,
• 22:09
  shadow day, all that stuff is included in those first ten
• 22:13
  weeks, those first five pay periods.
• 22:15
  So if you get hired in and you go to orientation and then in
• 22:21
  you're waiting another week for a shadow day and then you got to
• 22:25
  wait another week or so for RCA Academy, Those, those, those
• 22:30
  count. So by the time you actually
• 22:32
  sometimes you've already lost 10/10/10 weeks.
• 22:37
  So sometimes you've always lost 2-3 weeks of the hourly pay.
• 22:42
  So once you start training, that's where, you know, you
• 22:46
  really have to pay attention. I mean, in management, I, I wish
• 22:52
  these managers would stop writing newer Rcas when it comes
• 22:56
  to how long it takes them out on the routes the first few times
• 23:00
  by themselves. I mean, you got somebody you
• 23:03
  know, especially if they're on a a big heavy route.
• 23:06
  I mean. You can't expect Rcas and I'm
• 23:10
  just saying that is a general leave replacements in general.
• 23:14
  You can't expect them to do the job with an evaluation right off
• 23:20
  the bat. I mean there's a few that can do
• 23:23
  that just because they are one of those odd types of persons.
• 23:27
  I mean, I didn't, I, I think I was in at least a good six
• 23:33
  months or so before I hit evaluation and I was on a 47
• 23:36
  KPOV route. And that's the other thing,
• 23:39
  guys. And.
• 23:41
  Go ahead, Josh. And I I want to say I've always
• 23:43
  said it takes at least a good 30 working days for it to even
• 23:49
  start to click. Yeah, yeah, you'll have that.
• 23:52
  You'll you'll be going and then all of a sudden one day you just
• 23:55
  you get out there and it's like you've been doing it your whole
• 23:57
  life and it just clicks and you go through the motions.
• 23:59
  The next thing you know, you're back by evaluation and you're
• 24:02
  like, whoa, I can do this. You know, as a regular, I don't
• 24:06
  make evaluation every day. I didn't make evaluation
• 24:09
  yesterday. I didn't make evaluation Monday.
• 24:12
  You know it it, it happens. And then there's other days
• 24:16
  where I'm 234 hours under evaluation, so it kind of evens
• 24:20
  out. But it evens out over the whole
• 24:22
  year. Yeah, I had a a trainer or
• 24:27
  instructor at one point. He says that, you know, he's,
• 24:31
  this is when I first started. So it might have been during the
• 24:34
  Academy. He's like there's going to
• 24:35
  become a point where you're in the case while you're casing and
• 24:39
  you're going to be able to envision where that is on this.
• 24:42
  You know where that address is on the street and vice versa.
• 24:46
  When you're on the street with a box, you'll be able to see
• 24:51
  envision where in the case it is.
• 24:54
  Yeah. I mean, everybody learns at
• 24:57
  different paces, learns in different ways.
• 25:00
  So some people may catch on a lot quicker.
• 25:03
  For others, it may take a little bit longer for that light bulb
• 25:05
  to go off. And I, you know, I personally
• 25:08
  feel that's completely acceptable.
• 25:10
  I'd rather see somebody who it takes them a little bit longer
• 25:14
  to do a route in general because they're making sure that they're
• 25:17
  delivering accurately rather than just tossing and going and
• 25:22
  oh, Willy nilly. Cause trust me, there's nothing
• 25:25
  like going and cleaning up ever. I agree with you on that one.
• 25:29
  Mm Hmm. You know, and as you get it down
• 25:32
  and you, you, you get the line of travel down, you Start
• 25:35
  learning what boxes are. I was always a landmark person.
• 25:38
  So if somebody had a specific, a mailbox that stuck out or was
• 25:44
  by, you know, a house or a lake or, or, or something that, you
• 25:48
  know, something that kind of stuck out, you know, I could
• 25:51
  usually time that by and associate it where it was on the
• 25:54
  case. And so then I kind of get an
• 25:56
  idea of where I need to be time wise, why I'm on the route.
• 25:59
  I also when I was AI remember when I was doing my shadow day
• 26:04
  and even throughout my training, we drove through like this large
• 26:08
  area and I was like, what is who delivers all this?
• 26:13
  And he and my regular was like, Oh, that's, that's other routes.
• 26:18
  I don't know which routes. And I, I was told that the
• 26:23
  Academy, there's the EDDM or the, what is it?
• 26:28
  usps.gov E every door direct mailing.
• 26:32
  And you can actually look up the zip code and you can scroll over
• 26:36
  the routes and where they go. And so I started familiarizing
• 26:41
  myself with other routes and just at least knowing like
• 26:46
  that's where they go. Another big thing that we, when
• 26:49
  I first started, we didn't do Sunday Amazon either.
• 26:52
  And, and then about six months into it, we did and I, I
• 26:56
  realized that the Sunday stuff was kind of like, I, I don't
• 27:01
  want to call it Adventure Time, but.
• 27:04
  It was, it was like Willy nilly. That's.
• 27:05
  Exploring some of these Yeah, and and.
• 27:09
  You're definitely give you a chance to learn other territory.
• 27:14
  Yeah. I know, OK.
• 27:16
  Yeah. Yeah, and at least you're not
• 27:18
  like having to learn it, you know, with within the confines,
• 27:23
  with the mail, you're, you're at least getting familiarized on
• 27:28
  actual time. But it it helps.
• 27:33
  Yes, baby, I see that. Yes.
• 27:36
  And so I just, I just encourage people.
• 27:40
  I know a lot of the newer Subs go well.
• 27:42
  I don't know if I really want to do Sunday Amazon because they,
• 27:45
  you know, they spend time with their families, but I actually
• 27:47
  really love delivering on Sundays.
• 27:50
  It seemed a lot more relaxed because you weren't on the
• 27:53
  evaluated time. Well, not only that, I mean, go
• 27:57
  ahead, Josh. I say luckily at the time when
• 27:59
  we got Amazon, I was #1 in my station #4 in the, you know, in
• 28:06
  the whole office, you know, across the city.
• 28:09
  And we had one of the guys at my station who volunteered 90 at a
• 28:16
  time. So in the 2 1/2 years from the
• 28:21
  time we got Amazon, so I went regular, I only had to do
• 28:25
  Sundays maybe a half dozen, dozen times.
• 28:29
  And it's easy, You know, I thought it was easy money
• 28:32
  because you just, you'll be fucked up and go.
• 28:35
  Oh yeah, I always found delivering, whether it was
• 28:38
  holiday package assistance or, you know, Amazon Sundays or
• 28:44
  whatever, I mean, to me, just renting packages, easy money.
• 28:48
  Don't get me started on Amazon directions though, because
• 28:51
  that's just a whole totally another topic.
• 28:53
  And that's where it really helps if you kind of know the area
• 28:56
  you're working in because I saw, you know, people get stuck when
• 29:01
  they're trying to send you down seasonal roads and it's the
• 29:03
  middle of the winter and they're not kept up.
• 29:05
  Well, it told me to go that way. No, no, try.
• 29:09
  I've seen them take gated pass through a, through somebody's
• 29:13
  private field. I'm just like what the heck?
• 29:17
  I mean I literally at the. Time I've seen, yeah, I, I, I've
• 29:21
  experienced in a section in it on.
• 29:24
  It was a section. It was a route that I'm not
• 29:26
  familiar with. It had me go up the street and
• 29:28
  stop and to deliver a package on the side.
• 29:32
  Yeah. Then you keep going up the
• 29:34
  street and hit a couple of side streets and then when you're
• 29:36
  coming back down, it had me stop at the house that I just
• 29:40
  delivered from on the left side to deliver a package on the left
• 29:45
  side where I'd stop to walk across the street.
• 29:48
  Yep, because I didn't know that route and the number scheme.
• 29:52
  It didn't help. And I'm like son of A either the
• 29:56
  two you want to address the two questions?
• 29:59
  Yes, in the chat. All right, so as an RCA, I will
• 30:04
  touch on the matrix and that stuff so real quick because I
• 30:10
  I've always been a stickler for it.
• 30:12
  As an RCA, every office not only should have a seniority list
• 30:16
  posted, but they should also have a matrix, a matrix.
• 30:21
  Your first basically is your list of all your Rcas, your
• 30:25
  first routes, everybody's primaries.
• 30:27
  And then if it's done correctly, they're supposed to go by
• 30:31
  seniority and have you pick out a second and a third or you
• 30:37
  could do 2 seconds or 2/3. That's your personal choice
• 30:42
  depending on what's open. I know when I had my when I was
• 30:47
  just on the K route prior to going to the Ox route and I had
• 30:52
  the 2 J routes in my office were flipped for every other
• 30:57
  Saturday. My K route was a Monday relief
• 30:59
  day so I had those two J routes both as my second.
• 31:02
  So I worked every Monday and every Saturday it just depending
• 31:05
  on who had the 1st or the 2nd Saturday of the pay week as the
• 31:08
  J route. And then basically what what
• 31:11
  that matrix is for is, again, that's for your order of
• 31:14
  consideration and covering the route when needed.
• 31:20
  So is your home. Your assigned route is always
• 31:22
  your first route. That is your number one
• 31:24
  responsibility. Those hours are yours number
• 31:27
  one. There are other circumstances
• 31:31
  that we'll get into in a minute, but your assigned route is your
• 31:34
  route. Then you have the second route
• 31:37
  in the third route or two seconds 2/3, however it works
• 31:40
  out. So if the leave replacement is
• 31:43
  not available for their assigned route because they've been
• 31:47
  previously scheduled on another route or on approved leave or
• 31:51
  whatever the circumstances are, then it's and this is going with
• 31:56
  no PTFS in the office. We're just going our CAS at the
• 31:58
  moment. And so that person that is
• 32:00
  second would be the next person to be called for that route,
• 32:04
  which is a second on the Matrix. And then if they're not
• 32:07
  available because they're scheduled or whatnot, then it
• 32:10
  would go to the third. Now with PTFS, it's a little
• 32:13
  different. They can utilize APTF prior to
• 32:17
  utilizing the second or thirds. But in general, for Rcas, matrix
• 32:24
  should always be done. Technically, it should be
• 32:27
  updated. Management should be updating it
• 32:31
  anytime there's a change in Rcas, whether they go regular,
• 32:36
  they go PTF, or they decide to move on and seek other
• 32:42
  employment whether willingly or unwillingly, but that's or you
• 32:46
  have new Rcas coming in, that is when it should be updated.
• 32:50
  However, it's not always done and a lot of times it's left up
• 32:52
  to management's discretion. So make sure you have a matrix
• 32:56
  in your office. Have that discussion with
• 32:58
  management. If it's not up to date, they
• 33:00
  don't want to update it. You have Rcas that aren't not.
• 33:03
  You have Rcas in the office that are not on the matrix.
• 33:07
  You have Rcas on the matrix that are no longer Rcas and
• 33:11
  management doesn't want to touch it.
• 33:12
  Well that's when you get in touch with your steward and let
• 33:15
  them know. But you should have matrix and
• 33:18
  seniority list should always be on those.
• 33:20
  Both should be posted somewhere visible that you can see you
• 33:24
  want to add to any of that mail. Yeah.
• 33:26
  The other part I was going to add is that management cannot
• 33:29
  change. OK, we'll watch the credits.
• 33:33
  Management cannot change your primary just Willy nilly.
• 33:39
  The only time that you can change your primary is if you
• 33:43
  know that route lost their leave replacement, you know, they
• 33:47
  either got fired, quit or went regular.
• 33:51
  And then that vacancy is supposed to be, it's supposed to
• 33:54
  be offered at the time of initial vacancy.
• 33:57
  So Jimmy went regular in this pay period, right?
• 34:03
  And so the management can offer that as their, as a primary up
• 34:08
  for everybody by seniority. If management's just Willy nilly
• 34:12
  taking your primary away, that's concerning.
• 34:15
  So just, I've seen that happen more recently, which is bizarre.
• 34:20
  And I just, if, if that's an issue, make sure you call your
• 34:25
  steward 'cause that's, that's your home base.
• 34:27
  Like I was saying earlier. The other part is that the
• 34:33
  secondaries and the tertiaries aren't supposed to also be
• 34:37
  changed unless your secondary or your tertiary ended up becoming
• 34:42
  your primary. Even if that, if your secondary
• 34:46
  or your tertiary got a new sub assigned to it, that's, you
• 34:51
  know, that the regular might be on leave and then that sub would
• 34:54
  need a day off. So then you'd be working it for
• 34:56
  the sub's day off. You know, there's different
• 34:59
  scheduling rules and a lot of this information that we're kind
• 35:03
  of talking about for that part is in Article 30.2, Article 30.2
• 35:09
  for the RC as is is your best friend for working rules.
• 35:14
  So I, I would familiarize yourself with that.
• 35:17
  The other thing that the management has is called well in
• 35:24
  the union has it too is called the order of consideration for
• 35:28
  scheduling Subs on routes. And so you would have your
• 35:33
  primary, the primary sub and then you could go to APTF and
• 35:38
  then you could go to the a secondary or tertiary and then
• 35:42
  any other qualified sub in the office.
• 35:46
  And then they can go to what is it after a a sub within 50 miles
• 35:53
  and then they could. Go at their option, they can
• 35:56
  bring in a sub room from another office up to 50 miles or they
• 36:02
  can go by that's yeah well it says May they may in so makes it
• 36:10
  at their option and then they would get work day relief list
• 36:14
  then volunteers. Volunteer by seniority, Force by
• 36:19
  juniority. Right.
• 36:21
  And for the second part of your question in regards to with the
• 36:26
  the matrix and sub covering, if it is your primary route, your
• 36:31
  sub of record, they cannot pull you off the route just because
• 36:38
  you're going to overtime. You're entitled to to the
• 36:42
  evaluation for the five days. It's at management's discretion
• 36:47
  if they give you a relief day. It does not have to be the same
• 36:52
  release date as the regular. If it's your secondary or
• 36:56
  tertiary they can cap you at 40 hours for the week.
• 37:01
  But if management's allowing for others to go over 40 on their
• 37:08
  secondary and tertiary, that's a whole other issue, so.
• 37:10
  That that's a whole another issue.
• 37:12
  That's that conversation, yeah. If they're pulling a leave
• 37:19
  replacement in for another office because they think you
• 37:23
  might go into overtime, yeah, no, you're entitled to your
• 37:27
  hours at your office first. Yep.
• 37:30
  Trust me, we've we've, we've had issues with that in the past.
• 37:34
  Yeah. The other thing that I would
• 37:37
  encourage that I was going to add earlier, sorry, I'm going
• 37:41
  back and forth and stuff too, but you it you should always
• 37:45
  familiarize yourself with the evaluation of your route, the
• 37:49
  weekly and the daily, more so the daily as an RCA.
• 37:53
  OK, baby. There there should be and then.
• 37:56
  When you Yes dude, I was. Going to say there should be a
• 38:00
  4241A in the route book at the case that does not have the
• 38:08
  salary and stuff. It's it's blank when it comes to
• 38:10
  the salaries of the regulars. So that will give you kind of
• 38:13
  the the weekly breakdown of your route and for time wise.
• 38:19
  Well, you can even simply just all you can, all you need to do
• 38:22
  is look at the at the 4240 and it's up there on the top.
• 38:25
  And it'll say like, hey, that such and such RCA is assigned to
• 38:29
  this route. That's silly.
• 38:31
  And then it'll say the weekly hours, the time standard and the
• 38:35
  daily hours. And I actually kept, I kept a
• 38:41
  little mini notebook for myself, but I also kept notes at my
• 38:44
  phone. One of the very first things I
• 38:47
  was told me is make sure you keep copies of everything that
• 38:50
  you give to management, like your green cards.
• 38:54
  And what I would do is I would write down, you know, it's but
• 39:01
  more so when I started doing a bunch of other routes, I would
• 39:05
  write down the date that I did that route.
• 39:07
  And then I would write like this is how long it took me or.
• 39:11
  And then this is the evaluation of that route so that you knew
• 39:15
  you were familiarized with. Oh, OK, this is a a nine hour a
• 39:20
  day route instead of the HJK parts of it.
• 39:24
  But if you familiarize yourself with the difference between the
• 39:29
  HJS and KS, that'll also help you because typically the H and
• 39:33
  the J routes are evaluated lower for the 5.5 and 6 day delivery
• 39:39
  and your K routes are gonna be your your larger routes.
• 39:43
  So right. Well, just remember to kind of
• 39:46
  look. At basically the, the HJK is
• 39:49
  just tells you how many days off you get in a week.
• 39:52
  H you work 12 of 12 days in the pay period.
• 39:55
  J you work 11 of 12/10 or 11:50. So when you're going in the
• 40:01
  evaluation, the evaluation 45-J45H45K is still 45 hours a
• 40:10
  week, whether it's 5-6 or five and a half.
• 40:13
  And the reason we say it's with this half is because you work.
• 40:17
  51 week 6 the next. And that's the one thing you
• 40:20
  should, you know, especially first thing you should
• 40:23
  familiarize yourself with is because when you get hired in
• 40:25
  for a route and they may tell you it's a 45-J or A45H or A45K,
• 40:34
  it's that number or excuse me, that letter.
• 40:37
  After that route's evaluation for the week, that's going to
• 40:40
  decide how many days a week are you going to work?
• 40:44
  Are you being assigned to an H route?
• 40:46
  Well, now you're only guaranteed.
• 40:48
  You're not guaranteed any hours for a pay period technically,
• 40:51
  unless that regular takes days off.
• 40:54
  AJ route, you're only going to be guaranteed one day in a pay
• 40:59
  period, unless the regular carrier takes additional days
• 41:04
  off. And for AK route, you're only
• 41:07
  going to be guaranteed that one day a week.
• 41:10
  And that's what you kind of really have to base off.
• 41:12
  That's why we wait. You know, you, you hear those of
• 41:16
  us that were around for quite a while, it's feast or famine.
• 41:20
  Because you know, I, I can remember making only $13,000 for
• 41:26
  the year as an RCA or my last year as an RCA making nearly 50
• 41:31
  because I was working all the time.
• 41:34
  So yeah, that's when we mean why it's feast or famine.
• 41:36
  You're either working T, you can't see straight and you can
• 41:40
  hardly move because you're so exhausted, or you're working the
• 41:44
  bare minimum. And that's really how the job
• 41:46
  is. You're being hired to be just
• 41:49
  that Aleve replacement. You are working when the regular
• 41:54
  is unable to work, whether it's their relief day, it's vacation,
• 41:59
  sick, OWCP, maybe they're a full time union employee or a part
• 42:05
  time union employee. So they're off, you know a
• 42:07
  little bit more because of that, you know that that is really the
• 42:11
  job is it's the foot in the door to fill in when the regular is
• 42:16
  not on the route. Yep.
• 42:17
  And I think a lot of people have a bit of a misconception on
• 42:20
  that. And the other big one, which I
• 42:22
  know we have an issue with our office and I really wish, I'm
• 42:26
  not going to get into that one, but is the, and it kind of
• 42:30
  covers what we talked about last time with delivery vehicles in
• 42:36
  the job description for an RCA. And I think APTFI haven't seen
• 42:42
  an outside posting for APTF personally.
• 42:44
  So, but it does say that you are required to have a personal
• 42:49
  vehicle that you can deliver mail out of.
• 42:52
  That doesn't necessarily mean that your office has POV routes.
• 42:57
  You may get sent to an office that only has POV routes and you
• 43:02
  should. You're not going to have a
• 43:03
  government vehicle to deliver out of like you would do your
• 43:05
  office. You may have to use your
• 43:07
  personal vehicle for partial assistance and be delivering
• 43:10
  packages out of your personal vehicle.
• 43:13
  That is a job requirement that I know has not changed even though
• 43:17
  there's Gray areas in it. Go ahead, Josh.
• 43:20
  Story assistance to deliver the mail.
• 43:23
  Yes, I have delivered mail out of a POV on government vehicle
• 43:27
  routes. It happens.
• 43:29
  And it's actually in the it's in the PO6O3.
• 43:32
  I don't recall the exact wording, but it's to the effect
• 43:36
  of unless you are a regular carrier assigned to a route that
• 43:42
  has a government vehicle, you are required to have APOB that
• 43:47
  you can deliver the daily volume.
• 43:50
  And that doesn't mean you have to go by.
• 43:53
  Yeah, go ahead. What's that?
• 43:56
  There was a Christmas that I worked that they decided they
• 44:00
  were going to try and manage the regulars overtime when I was in
• 44:03
  RCA and it was, we got, it was like we had gotten Amazon.
• 44:09
  So they had all the Subs scheduled.
• 44:12
  And if you're scheduled as an RCA and you're just scheduled as
• 44:16
  auxiliary assistance, you're entitled to two hours.
• 44:19
  So keep that in mind. Don't let management, even if
• 44:23
  management sends you home, they still got to pay you for two
• 44:26
  hours. But management had us use our
• 44:29
  POV's to deliver parcels for the regulars during Christmas
• 44:34
  overtime. Now it only kind of worked.
• 44:37
  But well, not only parcels, I mean, I, I remember coming in
• 44:42
  and having to take an hour or two off of a route and it'd be a
• 44:45
  route that I've never seen before, you know, just to keep
• 44:49
  the regulars hours. Down when I first started the
• 44:52
  starting on Wednesday they have have RCA scheduled to come in
• 44:57
  and case 1 route and then take a different route.
• 45:00
  And the Rep that you were casing they told the regular not to
• 45:03
  come in till 11:00 AM and they're at your carrying.
• 45:06
  They told the regular he had to be off the clock by 11 or 12 for
• 45:10
  what you know his time projected time to go over was.
• 45:13
  And yes we're about to go into the Christmas overtime starting.
• 45:18
  Would we say it was December 6th was the first Saturday?
• 45:21
  Yep. And there.
• 45:22
  Was a. You are not.
• 45:24
  You are not. If you go over your evaluation,
• 45:28
  you get overtime. You are not entitled to it.
• 45:31
  It can take you off the clock at your evaluation.
• 45:36
  They have to pay you for your full evaluation for the week if
• 45:39
  they throw you earlier. But.
• 45:41
  Yeah, that's. Your regular stuff for.
• 45:43
  Yes. Yeah, we're not talking about.
• 45:45
  Regular. We're in RCA vein.
• 45:47
  Yeah, right. And so the biggest difference
• 45:51
  between an RCA and APTF, so let's talk about this real quick
• 45:55
  is the fact that APTF is basically an RCA with career
• 46:01
  benefits. You are considered a career
• 46:03
  employee as APTF, but you are still a leave replacement.
• 46:08
  And again, the difference is APTF does not have an assigned
• 46:11
  primary. They have a string of routes
• 46:14
  that they are assigned between 2:00 and 5:00 depending on the
• 46:18
  size of the office and how many PTFS you have and they're and
• 46:23
  it's for K routes and it falls into formula offices.
• 46:26
  The formula is for K routes. JS and HS aren't included in the
• 46:33
  formulas, but you may have APTF that has to cover AJ or an H.
• 46:37
  If it's a day that they're not scheduled on one of their
• 46:40
  assigned string routes and coverage is needed, they can
• 46:44
  cover them if there's not an RCA available for those routes.
• 46:48
  But that is really the biggest difference between an RCA and
• 46:50
  APTF is the PTF is a career position.
• 46:55
  So you get the career insurance you get, you earn annual and
• 47:00
  sick leave, and you are depending on how many PTFS you
• 47:05
  have and the seniority of the PTFS.
• 47:07
  Since PTFS are already career though that that senior PTF will
• 47:11
  automatically convert to a regular when an opening becomes
• 47:15
  available. Rcas do have to bid on PTF
• 47:18
  positions and under the the current contract.
• 47:23
  That's where things have changed because in the past Rcas had to
• 47:27
  wait one year to be eligible to bid the first time around,
• 47:32
  regardless whether it was a full time position, a full, full
• 47:37
  route going regular or for APTF. Now under the current contract
• 47:42
  that we have now, which I'm hearing there's still some
• 47:45
  issues with the bidding system with this.
• 47:48
  But again, I, I haven't worked in an office with PTF, so that
• 47:53
  one is kind of out of my Forte. But it is now 90 work days or
• 48:01
  180 days. Six months is what your
• 48:04
  probation is now. It's no longer the 90 work days
• 48:08
  and one or one calendar year. It's the 90 work days or 180
• 48:12
  days AKA six months. Once that has, once you have
• 48:16
  completed your probation, you are now eligible to bid on APTF
• 48:22
  position. You still have to wait the full
• 48:25
  calendar year to bid on a regular position, however, with
• 48:32
  that go. Ahead.
• 48:35
  No, you're, I'll let you finish your.
• 48:36
  OK. However, with that, but that
• 48:39
  does lead you into if you were in RCA 'cause I saw somebody
• 48:42
  comment on here and I don't have the timeline right half.
• 48:45
  But let's say you get hired on January 1st, your 90 work days,
• 48:51
  six months, whichever comes first.
• 48:54
  So here you are June 1st PTF position comes up and you bet on
• 49:00
  it because well all the other Rcas in your office are are
• 49:04
  newer than you are and they can't and you win that PTF
• 49:07
  position. So now your career after six
• 49:10
  months, well then Sally over on Route 7 decides that she's going
• 49:15
  to retire two months later. Well, now you here you are 8
• 49:20
  months in and now you're going full time because you're the
• 49:23
  only PTF in that office and you automatically convert to
• 49:28
  regular. So it is a faster track to
• 49:31
  career for Rcas, which is great for in those offices that have
• 49:36
  PTFS, it does allow you to move into career quicker.
• 49:39
  Yeah, and. The the thing because my office
• 49:43
  we have PTFS now, but when I I went regular, I went regular
• 49:46
  from RCA to A to a regular. We didn't have them then.
• 49:50
  OK, dudes, so I would always. And I this was told to me by
• 49:56
  numerous different stewards. Yes, I do.
• 49:59
  Yeah. Thank you, Sir.
• 50:01
  Thank you. Sorry, guys.
• 50:04
  He's giving me brown. A brown piece of a brown.
• 50:08
  You're silly. So when when I was in RCA, I had
• 50:14
  multiple union stewards tell me to make sure that you
• 50:18
  familiarize yourself with where the job postings for role
• 50:22
  carriers are. Especially if you're you know,
• 50:27
  if, if your office has a lot of high turnover, then you need to
• 50:31
  be watching and seeing because the timeline now for the
• 50:35
  postings is less time than it was before.
• 50:39
  So you might miss it so and management doesn't have an
• 50:43
  obligation to print it and hand it over to everybody unless
• 50:48
  there's a grievance settlement about it.
• 50:50
  There should be a designated location in your office that has
• 50:53
  the job postings posted there. Now I've had it where there was
• 50:59
  Rcas in my office and they bid to a district wide posting to go
• 51:04
  regular in another office and they never withdrew the bid and
• 51:10
  they have to go. It's either you go or you quit.
• 51:13
  So just whenever you get familiar, familiarize yourself
• 51:19
  with the bidding system. Go on to light blue.
• 51:21
  It's under E job bidding and at least set yourself up on there
• 51:26
  so that when the time comes for you to have to bid, you're
• 51:29
  comfortable with it and you and you have an understanding of it.
• 51:33
  On the NRLCA website under job bidding there is a whole
• 51:39
  document that explains the bidding system a little bit more
• 51:43
  in depth than I could. I'm more visual with it, but I
• 51:48
  started bidding on positions a year after I became an RCA just
• 51:53
  so that there might be the the senior RCA might not bid and I
• 52:00
  did. Not might or not bid correctly.
• 52:02
  You jumped. Well, you may have, you may have
• 52:05
  those RCA's that are an RCA later in life because we had one
• 52:11
  in my old office who was an RCA later in life.
• 52:15
  Because he had been a private business owner for so long, he
• 52:18
  didn't have the Social Security benefits built up.
• 52:21
  And so that's what he was doing to help build up his Social
• 52:24
  Security. He had no intention of going
• 52:27
  regular. So he didn't need to bid on
• 52:28
  anything. He didn't want to bid on
• 52:30
  anything. So that's the difference with as
• 52:33
  an RCA, if you, you know, if you have one of those nice little ox
• 52:37
  routes that are 3536 hours, it works perfect for you.
• 52:42
  You don't want, you know, to go regular you whatever reasons you
• 52:48
  know, it's just and you have one of those nice little offices
• 52:53
  that you don't have to worry about running Bobby Jo, Sally's
• 52:58
  and Kevin's routes when you're done or helping.
• 53:02
  You know, you may that's may be just fine for you because that
• 53:05
  may be just work out with your at home schedule or it might be
• 53:09
  a post retirement job and you don't want to go regular as an
• 53:13
  RCA. You also have that capability of
• 53:16
  not wanting to go regular and you don't have to bid.
• 53:18
  You don't lose your seniority as an RCA as an RCA now, but APTF,
• 53:28
  well, you, you go, you don't have a choice.
• 53:31
  If a regular route opens up and you're to the next in line as a
• 53:34
  PTF, you have to take it because you're already career.
• 53:38
  Now going back on to the bidding real quick, because I want to
• 53:41
  touch on this. There is a, there is times where
• 53:45
  an RCA can bid on a regular route under the one year as long
• 53:49
  as they're out of probation. Now this is a scenario.
• 53:52
  So it gets posted in the office. There is nobody in that office
• 53:56
  with one year in that could be eligible to bid on that regular
• 54:01
  route. It goes to district nobody,
• 54:05
  nobody within the district wants to bid on this route.
• 54:08
  It come and then it'll come back to the office for those of you
• 54:12
  that are out of probation. So that is the only other way
• 54:16
  that you could get onto a regular be a regular carrier
• 54:20
  under the one year out of probation is if it I was the
• 54:25
  district and then comes back into office Rcas and their
• 54:29
  rights on ox routes. All right, that one we can touch
• 54:34
  on real quick. I, I was a designation 79, which
• 54:38
  is an RCA assigned to an ox route.
• 54:40
  So you're as an ox route. If an ox route becomes
• 54:44
  available, it will then get offered by seniority to the
• 54:48
  Rcas. PTFS cannot hold down an OX
• 54:50
  route. So two RCAS, if an OX route in
• 54:55
  your office becomes available, they're supposed to offer it by
• 54:58
  seniority, just like they were any other vacant leave
• 55:02
  replacement position gets offered by seniority.
• 55:06
  And you decide you're gonna, yeah, I'll take that OX route
• 55:09
  because then that'll be my route.
• 55:11
  All right. After 90 calendar days is when
• 55:14
  your designation code is supposed to change.
• 55:16
  It does not change automatically.
• 55:18
  So if you're on this route, you get that form 50 that says that
• 55:21
  you know you've been changed to this route and go ahead and mark
• 55:24
  the day that you start on that route.
• 55:26
  Keep track of it and as that 90 days comes up remind management
• 55:31
  because on that 91st day management has to go in and
• 55:34
  change your designation code on that 91st day.
• 55:37
  Then if your designation code then goes to effect as a 79, you
• 55:41
  then earn sick leave and it is backdated from the day you took
• 55:44
  the OX route over. Now the responsibilities with
• 55:48
  the OX route, that is your route.
• 55:49
  First, if you are in a formula office, OX routes are six days a
• 55:54
  week. If you are in a non formula
• 55:56
  office, you have the choice of doing either six days or a five
• 56:01
  and one. What that means is that OX route
• 56:04
  is five days a week for you and then you can still retain a
• 56:10
  primary route, whether it's AJ or AK.
• 56:13
  We have one right now who went five and one with his J route.
• 56:16
  Just putting that out there. So then that you would still be
• 56:20
  responsible for that primary route when that regular carrier
• 56:28
  is either on their relief day on vacation or what not.
• 56:30
  And then they can usually have another RCA if they're available
• 56:34
  around the aux route evaluations pending.
• 56:37
  Depending on the size of the two routes, you could run both if
• 56:41
  needed. I mean I did it all the time,
• 56:44
  but that's a different story. Still falls under the 12 hours.
• 56:48
  Right and I believe, and I could be wrong, I believe you are
• 56:52
  allowed to sign 74240 in a week as an RCA on an OX route.
• 56:58
  I've never heard that. I've never heard that.
• 57:00
  Either because. I've had some that were signing
• 57:02
  2A day. I signed 2A day.
• 57:05
  I'm just saying I, I don't know, I haven't seen anything document
• 57:08
  wise, but I know you can sign, you know, as long as it's less
• 57:12
  than a 12 hour scheduled, you know, and we're, and it was go
• 57:15
  back then we actually had coverage.
• 57:17
  So you were only doing the OX route and your primary.
• 57:20
  Yeah, so, so but also responsibilities of having an OX
• 57:25
  route or even being a designated 74 designation 74.
• 57:30
  So let's say I'm meow sub meow decide something happens whether
• 57:38
  she gets hurt at work or say she gets a full time union position
• 57:42
  and she is no longer carrying her out every day.
• 57:46
  That is now the responsibility of me as her primary sub.
• 57:51
  I am now carrying that route every day after 90 calendar
• 57:55
  days. Again, you've got to remind
• 57:57
  management it's not automatic. Then you would become a
• 58:00
  designated 74 that 91st day. Same thing with the 70 nines.
• 58:05
  You would then earn sick leave and it will retro back to the
• 58:09
  day you took that route over. Now the responsibility is with
• 58:12
  these two designation codes. Also include your route
• 58:16
  maintenance, your edit books as well as case labels.
• 58:21
  Of course. Forwards holds everything that a
• 58:24
  regular would do on their route. You are now the informal regular
• 58:29
  on that route, so to say. Yeah, mapping too.
• 58:32
  I mean, yeah, it's, you know, you are the one in charge of
• 58:38
  that route. And that's why I've always said
• 58:41
  from the very beginning, and the way I train our CAS is, you
• 58:44
  know, I try to train them with everything.
• 58:46
  You're not only the mapping, you're now responsible for that
• 58:50
  route's evaluation. Your, your, your Rex scans, your
• 58:54
  daily Rex scans when you're out on the route, you know, your
• 58:57
  trip to your doors, your authorized dismounts, your
• 58:59
  unscanable parcels, your, your end of shift duties, you know
• 59:04
  that all that stuff, plus keeping up the edit book,
• 59:07
  keeping up the cases, your holds, your forwards.
• 59:10
  You know, that's really, you are the person in charge of all
• 59:15
  that, as if that's your own route.
• 59:17
  And that's the one thing I try to do when I train you.
• 59:19
  Our CAS is I'm going to train them.
• 59:22
  Of course, you can't do it all in three days, 3-4 days, 24
• 59:26
  hours, whatever they're trying to enforce.
• 59:30
  You're not going to. Yeah, you're you're training
• 59:33
  hours with whoever's training. You should be an OJI, but a lot
• 59:38
  of offices don't have them. So is I try to train them in to
• 59:42
  be familiar with the stuff and I coached them through even
• 59:46
  afterwards. You know, when you get your,
• 59:48
  your Advos for the, for the month, the week or however, you
• 59:52
  know, we get them sparks, we got them Saturday.
• 59:54
  Hey, you know, make sure you're putting it in the scanner
• 59:56
  correctly. You know, I try to get them that
• 59:59
  way they know. When they go regular or they go
• 1:00:03
  on a hold down on their primary route or they take an ox route
• 1:00:08
  over, they're at least somewhat familiar with the
• 1:00:11
  responsibilities that they're going to have to do what that
• 1:00:14
  involves the upkeep of the route.
• 1:00:16
  And that's why it's important for Rcas when you're first
• 1:00:19
  starting to pay attention to that because that is your pay as
• 1:00:23
  lot as well as that regular. And so you're going to want to
• 1:00:28
  make sure that you're doing everything correctly.
• 1:00:32
  I would say the only thing I would change in your scenario
• 1:00:35
  there is before that 90 days management student asks you do
• 1:00:41
  you want to hold on to your ox route or do you want to switch
• 1:00:46
  to the your primary as the hold down.
• 1:00:50
  I wasn't even talking about that at the moment, but yes, in the
• 1:00:54
  event if if you're on an ox route and you're a designated 79
• 1:01:00
  and you're doing A5 in one because you're in a non formula
• 1:01:04
  office. So you have a primary full route
• 1:01:08
  as well as your ox route that you're responsible for covering
• 1:01:11
  and your regular route. Your the regular carrier on your
• 1:01:16
  your full route now is unable to carry the route for whatever
• 1:01:21
  reasons it may be and you are covering that route daily.
• 1:01:24
  When you get to that 90th day, yes you are going to have to
• 1:01:27
  make a decision. Do I stay with this route as a
• 1:01:31
  designation 74 or do I relinquish this route and go
• 1:01:36
  back to just my aux route and stay a 79?
• 1:01:40
  You can't do both. The other thing I wanted to add
• 1:01:43
  with that is that if you are, you know, holding down a route
• 1:01:47
  or if you're on the OX, if you're one of those designation
• 1:01:49
  codes, the ones that if your office does Sunday Amazon or
• 1:01:54
  Sunday delivery, the people that are holding down a full size
• 1:01:58
  route, even in that first initial 90 day pay period that
• 1:02:03
  that they know it's going to exceed over 90 days and they're
• 1:02:06
  holding that. Then they are supposed to be
• 1:02:09
  bypassed in the rotation for working on Sundays.
• 1:02:14
  But the ox route carriers are supposed to be a part of the
• 1:02:20
  rotation because you may only be on like a four hour ox route.
• 1:02:26
  And there's some Rcas that want the want to work, but I've in my
• 1:02:32
  experience with it, they don't. I've had to, I've tried to do
• 1:02:37
  different resolutions to change that, but so that's a little bit
• 1:02:40
  controversial there. But the update in the ARCAM was
• 1:02:46
  that the Sunday People, the, the ones holding down a full size
• 1:02:50
  route would be bypassed. Now let's say that management
• 1:02:55
  didn't have enough volunteers, didn't have enough Subs to work
• 1:02:58
  at all. And then they had to work them.
• 1:03:02
  Then after that point is when they could even utilize regular
• 1:03:06
  per that MOU so. Also on an ox route, they can,
• 1:03:13
  after you complete your ox route, they can send you out to
• 1:03:17
  do any other type of assistance, whether it's going to rescue
• 1:03:21
  another RCA or if a regular has a breakdown and there's no other
• 1:03:26
  coverage. They could have you go out and
• 1:03:28
  do that. They could have you run parcels
• 1:03:30
  that a regular may have had for a second trip.
• 1:03:33
  They you know they can do all that up to 12 hours a day.
• 1:03:40
  So even if you know on an OX route, they can still utilize
• 1:03:43
  you as needed after you complete your OX route for the day.
• 1:03:46
  Yeah, and it's Article 30.2 dot Q additional duties, leave
• 1:03:51
  replacements may be required to perform duties in addition to
• 1:03:55
  the route assignment, such as auxiliary assistance on other
• 1:03:57
  routes, priority mail, express duties, etcetera.
• 1:04:01
  When performing additional duties, the leave replacement
• 1:04:03
  will receive compensation at the hourly rate in addition to the
• 1:04:07
  daily evaluated hours for the assigned route.
• 1:04:10
  So let's say that you, you know it.
• 1:04:14
  It's like we said earlier, feast or famine.
• 1:04:17
  It could also work out in your favor.
• 1:04:18
  Let's say that you're only, you know, you're, you're going to
• 1:04:21
  stay under 40 hours for the week and you're, you know, all the
• 1:04:26
  evals that you have combined are only going to be about 28 hours.
• 1:04:31
  And you finished your primary in six hours and now you're going
• 1:04:37
  to go do 2 1/2 hours of box help or green card time.
• 1:04:42
  Now you're going to boost your pay up a little bit more, even
• 1:04:46
  though you didn't work that, that much.
• 1:04:48
  So that that kind of works in your favor with the incentive
• 1:04:51
  system of the evaluation. And I'm not saying, you know,
• 1:04:56
  slow down or, you know, work at your pace that you're going to,
• 1:05:00
  to what's safe for you and, and, and be thorough in your job.
• 1:05:05
  But there was one guy, he was, he was staying at like 30 hours
• 1:05:13
  a week, working six days a week. And then he would work like, I
• 1:05:18
  don't know, like 15 hours or no, it wasn't 30.
• 1:05:21
  I can't remember. He would stay under 40 hours,
• 1:05:24
  but he had more green card time than the evals.
• 1:05:28
  And he, it was just, it was crazy.
• 1:05:31
  Like granted, it's not paid at overtime, but he was at least
• 1:05:35
  like he was making a little bit more with that.
• 1:05:38
  So also really see that as like pay study more.
• 1:05:42
  In your example of let's say they were working, they work the
• 1:05:45
  route in person. Let's say it's a 45-9 hours a
• 1:05:48
  day. They're still getting paid that
• 1:05:50
  nine hours each day they ran that route.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah. Also, Rcas, if you were assigned
• 1:05:58
  a regular route for the day, they cannot send you to another
• 1:06:04
  office after you have completed that regular route.
• 1:06:09
  If you are on an OX route, however, and another office
• 1:06:13
  needs some assistance, they can send you, but not if you're
• 1:06:17
  scheduled on a regular route. And just keep in mind that 12
• 1:06:20
  hour that's, it's your, it's your call, you know, you're the
• 1:06:26
  one who knows what's safe for you.
• 1:06:27
  And I, it's I, we had a route that was an ox route that first
• 1:06:36
  RX evaluation came out and it dropped it from like 41 hours
• 1:06:40
  down to 35 or no, it was 20, I don't remember.
• 1:06:43
  It was like super low. And he finally got it built back
• 1:06:47
  up and it was almost a full size route.
• 1:06:50
  And they would send him to another office and he would
• 1:06:52
  just, it sucks. That's like one of the
• 1:06:56
  disadvantages of the ox route part.
• 1:06:58
  But I, I think personally, I. Go ahead.
• 1:07:01
  I think that I do think that there's a lot more advantages of
• 1:07:04
  being on an ox trout than their disadvantages, but take it or
• 1:07:10
  leave it. And another office means not
• 1:07:14
  necessarily. So if you're in an office where
• 1:07:16
  you have RMPOS and so your postmaster has the main office
• 1:07:21
  and then one or two or three other little offices outside of
• 1:07:25
  that too, they can send you even after a full route as long as
• 1:07:29
  it's within the 12 hours. They can send you to any any
• 1:07:33
  other underneath that one postmaster's umbrella.
• 1:07:37
  They just cannot send you to an office with a different
• 1:07:41
  postmaster. I just want to clarify that too.
• 1:07:44
  Yes, Yep. I'd get sent to the main office
• 1:07:47
  at 7:00 at night. Like, hey guys, walk in and be
• 1:07:52
  like, they're like, what are you doing here?
• 1:07:53
  And I'm like, I've already done mine.
• 1:07:55
  Here I am. Right, Right.
• 1:07:58
  Illusional RCA life man. Oh, I know.
• 1:08:03
  It's like, well, when you get done with that road, I need you
• 1:08:05
  to come back here and run and and and do this.
• 1:08:08
  Yeah, I've been there, been there, done that.
• 1:08:10
  I, I even had it when I was off. I had volunteered to go run an
• 1:08:16
  ox route in a neighboring office, and I get up to that
• 1:08:20
  office and I got, oh, yeah, you need to go back to your office
• 1:08:23
  when you get done with this route and go do something else.
• 1:08:25
  Are you kidding me? OK, you know, something like
• 1:08:29
  that. So, yeah, they can do that if
• 1:08:31
  it's within the 12 hours. And.
• 1:08:35
  And honestly, guys, if you're in one of those famine offices
• 1:08:40
  where you know, the Unicorn offices anymore to where you're
• 1:08:43
  only getting one or two days a week, you know, reach out to
• 1:08:46
  other offices if they're nearby if you wish to, to get more
• 1:08:51
  hours. I mean, I did.
• 1:08:52
  I had a whole summer where I ran, there was 2 routes in that
• 1:08:56
  office that was north of me and I ran both those routes all
• 1:08:59
  summer long to get hours. You know, I, I, I, I knew both
• 1:09:03
  the carriers pretty good. The 1 was an ox route.
• 1:09:05
  It was like a 3536 hour ox route.
• 1:09:08
  The other one was like a 401K in the summer and dropped down to
• 1:09:11
  AJ in the winter because it's seasonal area.
• 1:09:14
  And I literally could just like, hey, I need some hours and, you
• 1:09:18
  know, I'm like, all right, if you want to work, I'll take the
• 1:09:19
  day off. Or, you know, hey, I'm not
• 1:09:23
  scheduled the rest of the week. All right, I'll take the rest of
• 1:09:25
  the week off. You can run my route.
• 1:09:27
  You know, if you know, carriers and other offices, it usually
• 1:09:31
  really helps in that instance. I mean, been there, done that.
• 1:09:35
  Yeah, I am. So somebody else asked to.
• 1:09:38
  So if you are getting spent if you're a sub and you're getting
• 1:09:41
  sent to another office under the same umbrella of this of your
• 1:09:44
  postmaster, postmaster and even if you are like a if you're
• 1:09:51
  going to another office within that 50 miles, they are supposed
• 1:09:57
  to pay you that postal mileage under like the E travel.
• 1:10:02
  E Travel. Yeah.
• 1:10:04
  And sometimes they'll and, and and sometimes depending on your
• 1:10:07
  management, if especially if it is under your postmaster and
• 1:10:11
  you're going from one to the other, a lot of times you can
• 1:10:14
  remain on the clock for that travel time too.
• 1:10:17
  Yeah, yes. But you know I.
• 1:10:19
  Would say you should be on the clock of that travel regardless
• 1:10:22
  of where you're going, yeah. Sometimes mine give me.
• 1:10:25
  An under the 12 hours. Yes, and if you are on an OX
• 1:10:28
  route, you can be pulled off onto another route as well.
• 1:10:32
  It yeah, it's. Management makes the decision to
• 1:10:35
  split the OX route and then instead of.
• 1:10:38
  Well, we had the situation. Well even yesterday in my
• 1:10:41
  office, our little 2 1/2 hour OX route, he does A5 in one, he was
• 1:10:46
  on his primary the J route. Yesterday my sub was on another
• 1:10:51
  K route. I was working and there was we
• 1:10:55
  have two Subs left in our office right now.
• 1:10:57
  And so the OX route and knowing that we had the Advos, you know,
• 1:11:02
  he knew he wasn't going to have time to do both routes.
• 1:11:05
  And So what happened is I don't know who could have been the
• 1:11:09
  supervisor for all I know, or I may be the H route person, just
• 1:11:15
  they just went and delivered packages for the Ox route.
• 1:11:18
  So the whole 92 pieces of mail that the ox route got yesterday
• 1:11:22
  is cased up and waiting for him for tomorrow.
• 1:11:25
  But yeah, I, we've split that ox route before.
• 1:11:28
  I remember when I was still in RCA, came in off the route and
• 1:11:34
  the other RCA, who we're both regular now, of course, but it
• 1:11:38
  was just him and I and we get back and the ox route hadn't
• 1:11:42
  been delivered yet. And I was like, great, it's
• 1:11:44
  already 5:00, what's going on? And he was just wrapping up on
• 1:11:48
  the other route. He goes, I'll meet you out
• 1:11:50
  there. We'll split it.
• 1:11:51
  And we just laughed because, I mean, it's 10 miles out to the
• 1:11:55
  first box and I'm like, OK, you know, So I grabbed the route.
• 1:11:58
  I took it out there. He came up shortly behind me.
• 1:12:01
  I met him up, He took, I took through one section, he took the
• 1:12:05
  rest and we got back to the office about the same time.
• 1:12:07
  So, yeah, it happens where you have to split 2 1/2 hour ox
• 1:12:10
  route because, well, that's what happens.
• 1:12:13
  It's life. I've had, you know, I had days
• 1:12:16
  as an RCA where I ran that little ox route.
• 1:12:19
  I ran it with the 47K and then I still took a, a subdivision off
• 1:12:24
  of another route that day and was done within 12 hours.
• 1:12:27
  I mean, it happens, you know, of course, I can't say that.
• 1:12:33
  I think it really comes down to people and their work habits.
• 1:12:36
  And I'm not going to put it as a generational thing because there
• 1:12:40
  are some really good workers out there in the younger
• 1:12:42
  generations. But I do notice a difference to
• 1:12:45
  where myself and, and my, my one good work friend there, my work
• 1:12:51
  husband, so to say, you know, we did what we had to do to get the
• 1:12:56
  job done. Now, if there was a day that I
• 1:12:59
  was scheduled on a route that I didn't know very well and he was
• 1:13:02
  scheduled on a route that he didn't know very well, but we,
• 1:13:05
  we each knew those route, those other routes better than the
• 1:13:09
  person assigned to him that day, we just walk in and let's trade.
• 1:13:12
  Yeah, let's trade. We let management.
• 1:13:14
  I'm running that route now. He's running that route now.
• 1:13:16
  OK, As long as it's covered, it works.
• 1:13:18
  You know, we really did work together.
• 1:13:20
  I, I go out and rescue him at the end if he was having a bad
• 1:13:24
  day on a different route. You know, we really work
• 1:13:27
  together as our CAS and came together to get it done.
• 1:13:31
  And I don't see that as much now.
• 1:13:33
  But again, that could just be specific to my office and the
• 1:13:36
  people that we have working there now.
• 1:13:38
  But you really kind of have to have a relationship, a good
• 1:13:43
  working relationship, I should say, with the other leave
• 1:13:46
  replacements in the office, because sometimes it's going to
• 1:13:49
  come down to, all right, we've got a route or two down.
• 1:13:53
  You guys are assigned full routes.
• 1:13:54
  We're going to have to split this up two or three ways.
• 1:13:57
  And if you guys know how to split that up, it makes it so
• 1:14:00
  much easier than management trying to go in there not
• 1:14:03
  knowing what the hell they're looking at and say no, right?
• 1:14:06
  Well, you're going to take this part, You're going to take this
• 1:14:08
  part and, and you can like, no, no, this part's closer to the
• 1:14:12
  route I'm on. And you can do that easier if
• 1:14:15
  you guys know the routes and you work together when it comes to
• 1:14:18
  getting the coverage and getting the job done for the day.
• 1:14:21
  Yeah, seriously, it's, it's, I mean it's, it all is teamwork.
• 1:14:24
  Like you just I, I think that there's kind of this division to
• 1:14:29
  sometimes that happens between like the Rcas and PTFS and the
• 1:14:34
  regulars. And like if you're an RCA or
• 1:14:36
  APTF, just remember like the regulars went through that too.
• 1:14:41
  It may not be exactly the same, it may be slightly different
• 1:14:45
  experience, but we all need each other to function.
• 1:14:49
  Absolutely, absolutely. And and if you know, if we don't
• 1:14:54
  have the Subs, then we don't get days off.
• 1:14:58
  And so that's why sometimes, you know, I don't know if people get
• 1:15:02
  frustrated because it's always us trying to look out more so
• 1:15:06
  for the RCA's or even in the new contract.
• 1:15:11
  But that's how we got the the RCA's to have leave.
• 1:15:15
  And there's a lot of different benefits stuff that happens that
• 1:15:19
  way. And it is it all perfect?
• 1:15:21
  No, I mean they're still working rules that I don't necessarily
• 1:15:24
  agree with and I don't think help the morale of the RCA's,
• 1:15:30
  you know, but but they are what they are and that's why you go
• 1:15:34
  to union meetings, you try and change some of those working
• 1:15:36
  rules, but really familiarize yourself with that.
• 1:15:40
  That's article 30.2 is most of those RCA and PTF working rules,
• 1:15:48
  especially with scheduling. The other thing I was there was
• 1:15:52
  one more thing I was going to say, oh, that if you should also
• 1:15:57
  make sure and I, I, I think that this is getting corrected a lot
• 1:16:00
  more than what it used to be. Make sure that if you're an RCA
• 1:16:04
  or APTF, sorry, RCA, especially if you're a designation 79, that
• 1:16:10
  your form 50 that you get in the mail says the correct route that
• 1:16:15
  you are assigned to on it. Because if, if it doesn't say
• 1:16:21
  the correct route and then you end up becoming, you know, a
• 1:16:24
  different designation code, it's harder for it to, it takes
• 1:16:28
  longer. So if management, you just go up
• 1:16:32
  to management and ask them, Hey, can you make sure that my, can
• 1:16:35
  you send in a, a request to change my form 50 so that it
• 1:16:39
  says that this is my primary? And then you'll it'll show up a
• 1:16:44
  little bit easier. It's just an administrative
• 1:16:48
  thing. Yeah, definitely.
• 1:16:49
  Because that could definitely, especially, you know, if we
• 1:16:52
  initially got hired in and you got hired in for Route 12 and
• 1:16:57
  but then they decided to change it and put you on Route 3
• 1:17:00
  instead. But they never changed it in the
• 1:17:02
  system. It's still going to show that
• 1:17:04
  you're assigned to Route 12. And if you have a grievance
• 1:17:07
  because they didn't call you in, they called in Joe Bob to cover
• 1:17:11
  your route instead of you for Route 3.
• 1:17:13
  And you go to file a grievance on that because you should have
• 1:17:16
  been called because that's your primary route.
• 1:17:18
  But your Form 50 says that your your primary is Route 12.
• 1:17:23
  Yeah, that that good. So that's important to making
• 1:17:28
  sure administratively wise that your Form 50 is correct.
• 1:17:32
  And if by chance, if you can't find that paper copy you get in
• 1:17:36
  the mail, I do suggest you have a folder for those secure place,
• 1:17:39
  put them away. You can access them on light
• 1:17:42
  blue through EOPF and all your your personnel file stuff is all
• 1:17:47
  right there as well. And I was going to say one more
• 1:17:50
  thing. And where did it go?
• 1:17:52
  Because then I got sidetracked. But what you're thinking about
• 1:17:55
  it, I would say I've also seen in that same situation with the
• 1:17:58
  Form 50 being not correct where someone was holding down a route
• 1:18:02
  because the regular was off for the route.
• 1:18:05
  That local management supervisor, our manager told
• 1:18:09
  them this is going to be your sub record.
• 1:18:12
  And they didn't change it currently in the system.
• 1:18:14
  And then, which means they never got switched to the designation
• 1:18:18
  code 74, yeah, to start, you know, accruing leave.
• 1:18:23
  Also as Rcas, PTFS, sleeve replacements in general, if you
• 1:18:28
  are a member of the union, you can EA local steward, you can be
• 1:18:34
  an area steward, you can be a local officer, you can be a
• 1:18:38
  state officer. And there's nothing saying that
• 1:18:41
  you can't run for the national board.
• 1:18:43
  I'm just saying as an RCA, as APTF, you can put yourself out
• 1:18:49
  there. You can be a delegate for
• 1:18:51
  National Convention, you can be a delegate for your state
• 1:18:54
  convention. I mean, I remember being on a
• 1:18:57
  local board out of my old local, our whole entire board, all four
• 1:19:01
  positions were Rcas for a year or two.
• 1:19:04
  We have, we currently have an RCA on our state board, which is
• 1:19:09
  a in the position that is a full time position.
• 1:19:12
  We just had an RCA elected this at our most recent state
• 1:19:17
  convention back in June to be our state secretary.
• 1:19:21
  It is possible. I ran for national office as an
• 1:19:24
  RCA. I'm not going to deny that.
• 1:19:26
  There's nothing out there that says you can't do those things.
• 1:19:29
  I mean, several of us in the past, and there's several of
• 1:19:32
  them that were, you know, I was a steward as an RCA in two
• 1:19:35
  different offices. You can do it.
• 1:19:37
  I know PTFS that are area stewards.
• 1:19:40
  If you are serious about the job and you want to be more
• 1:19:43
  involved, there are those things that you can do as well as a
• 1:19:47
  leave replacement. Sorry, I'm all typing the thing.
• 1:19:50
  I was also going to say somebody asked in the chat when when can
• 1:19:54
  they how often do Subs get A to a chance to change their routes
• 1:19:59
  on the matrix? And I kind of briefly talked
• 1:20:02
  about it earlier. If a route becomes vacant due to
• 1:20:06
  the sub going regular, the they quit.
• 1:20:11
  You know, something along those lines.
• 1:20:14
  It's supposed to be offered at the time of the initial vacancy
• 1:20:17
  by seniority. To all available qualified Subs.
• 1:20:22
  If a sub is injured, they cannot move, I believe.
• 1:20:27
  I'm trying to think about that, yeah.
• 1:20:29
  I think that's correct. Yeah.
• 1:20:31
  I was like, wait a second, I think it says to all qualified
• 1:20:34
  RC as at the time of initial vacancy, but the secondaries and
• 1:20:40
  the tertiaries would not change unless one of those became their
• 1:20:45
  primary or you know, like let's say they went PTF.
• 1:20:51
  And then typically when a sub is on a ox route, they don't really
• 1:20:56
  have the secondaries and tertiaries anymore either.
• 1:20:59
  So but management shouldn't just be Willy nilly changing the
• 1:21:02
  matrix either all the time. No.
• 1:21:05
  And I've seen that happen and that was a grievable issue.
• 1:21:09
  And if management is smart or even if you're a I, I became
• 1:21:16
  kind of a a record hoarder, I guess while I was in RCA and I
• 1:21:22
  made sure my primaries and secondary, my primary, secondary
• 1:21:26
  and tertiary, every single matrix they ever posted that it
• 1:21:30
  never changed, right? Because until I actually, I
• 1:21:35
  ended up becoming a designation 74 and moving from two different
• 1:21:39
  routes and then was holding down 1 and then move to another and
• 1:21:43
  then I went regular on that route.
• 1:21:45
  But my secondary and my tertiary always were, were pretty much
• 1:21:50
  the same. And I know somebody kind of
• 1:21:53
  briefly talked a little bit about SNDC offices.
• 1:21:57
  I, I personally am not in one, but I'm in a, I've, I've had to
• 1:22:01
  deal with a larger post office with about the same amount of
• 1:22:05
  routes as some SNDCS. And I think it's in the smaller
• 1:22:10
  offices, it's a little bit easier to be to manage it.
• 1:22:14
  I think in the sense that you can just go have a conversation
• 1:22:18
  with your one manager and hopefully you know, everybody,
• 1:22:21
  usually, you know, there's four rule carriers in here and they
• 1:22:23
  can kind of all figure it out, you know, versus an SNDC.
• 1:22:29
  They should more so have those things posted and verified,
• 1:22:36
  especially because that's how you're going to help retain
• 1:22:40
  these the RCA's and get a sense of normalcy for them because
• 1:22:45
  they, they can rely on that the IT helps set their schedule.
• 1:22:49
  The Matrix does a little bit more with their primaries.
• 1:22:53
  They they're familiarized on some of those routes.
• 1:22:57
  What is the other thing I was going to say?
• 1:22:59
  I actually used to give some of the newer RCA's the sheet of
• 1:23:02
  paper that had like different stewards phone numbers on it
• 1:23:07
  manager, like the manager's office phone numbers, the diff
• 1:23:13
  both stations and which routes were in each of the stations so
• 1:23:17
  that they, if they were scheduled in the other office,
• 1:23:19
  they at least knew, Oh, OK, I have to go over here.
• 1:23:24
  And then the other thing I put on there was on the way way
• 1:23:28
  bottom, I'd write known routes. And once some of these Subs had
• 1:23:32
  started accumulating, going to different routes, you can write
• 1:23:36
  down like, Hey, I, I've done that route before.
• 1:23:40
  If you're a sub that hasn't done a route in over a year, you also
• 1:23:46
  get paid hourly or eval, whichever is greater on that
• 1:23:50
  too. And the same for running a route
• 1:23:53
  the first time you've run a route in its entirety, or if you
• 1:23:57
  have not ran that route in 12 calendar months.
• 1:24:00
  Yeah. So just kind of something to
• 1:24:03
  keep in mind because I've had that happen to me like my last
• 1:24:06
  year as an RCA, so. Oh yeah, it happens.
• 1:24:09
  Yeah. But I think that's AI think that
• 1:24:12
  covered a lot of it. So I'm going to think of like 20
• 1:24:16
  million things after this that we missed.
• 1:24:19
  Oh, I know, right? Yeah, yeah, 20 million things
• 1:24:23
  about RCA life. I know it is too many.
• 1:24:27
  I try and forget some of those things.
• 1:24:28
  Yeah, I'll never forget working. No, I'll never forget it.
• 1:24:31
  I. Didn't say I will, I just said I
• 1:24:34
  tried to. You know, and there's, there's.
• 1:24:37
  There's Christmas Eve being out there delivering at 9:00 at.
• 1:24:39
  Night. I mean, there's days where I
• 1:24:41
  kind of miss still being in RCA honestly.
• 1:24:43
  But you know, if yesterday hadn't been my K day, I and I
• 1:24:49
  hadn't had M sparks, I would have been more than happy to
• 1:24:52
  volunteer to run the ox route. It wouldn't have been an issue,
• 1:24:55
  you know, weren't happy to go run out and and run that real
• 1:24:58
  quick. And then, you know, you know,
• 1:25:00
  with newer Subs, if you got one that's a little behind and
• 1:25:03
  there's nobody else available to go help them and I get back.
• 1:25:07
  I have one of those absurdly light days where I'm actually
• 1:25:10
  back before 2:00. It don't happen too often
• 1:25:12
  anymore, but then you know, I have no problems running out and
• 1:25:17
  helping them. I have no problems helping them
• 1:25:19
  with line of travel, especially for they're going on a route
• 1:25:22
  that they've never been on before and it's got some
• 1:25:24
  squirrely sections. I still tell you know guys, hey,
• 1:25:27
  call me if you need me. I can at least try and get you
• 1:25:30
  through it if I have to you know it's RCA's know even when I was
• 1:25:35
  in Italy, they could have texted me and I would have been no
• 1:25:37
  problems getting back to them if the time difference wasn't six
• 1:25:41
  hours. But you know, I, I, I don't
• 1:25:44
  know, I'm sorry to call you on your day off.
• 1:25:46
  No, no, don't be sorry to call me on the day off because you
• 1:25:50
  know, you may be newer to my route and I'm more than happy
• 1:25:53
  to, to walk you through something or explain where
• 1:25:56
  something is or where to deliver this package to this business
• 1:25:59
  or, or, or something like that. You know that that's, I think
• 1:26:03
  having the communication with the regular is very important.
• 1:26:07
  In my first regular, I learned a lot from.
• 1:26:09
  She's the one that taught me the basics on how to do an edit book
• 1:26:12
  when the first, when the Rex study offices were doing their
• 1:26:18
  very first phase of mapping, she was one of those mapping
• 1:26:21
  facilitators that went to other offices.
• 1:26:23
  And when she was mapping the route initially, and now this is
• 1:26:26
  before Rex was launched across the board, so we were still a
• 1:26:29
  test study office. She pulled me and was showing me
• 1:26:32
  how how the mapping worked. At the time I was still in RCA.
• 1:26:37
  You know, I and I try, I follow kind of suit.
• 1:26:40
  When I became a regular, I got myself a notebook and I leave it
• 1:26:44
  at, and it's my route logbook. So if there's anything
• 1:26:47
  important, like if I haven't seen the RCA in a while or
• 1:26:50
  something important because I'm going to be gone, whether it's
• 1:26:54
  on vacation or concert festival or conventions or whatnot, and I
• 1:26:58
  know there's something important that I need to tell them.
• 1:27:00
  I write it in there and I leave like an old parcel marker in
• 1:27:04
  that spot to they, they know, and I'll leave the log book
• 1:27:08
  right on the desk and they know to flip it and read it.
• 1:27:11
  And I hope it doesn't always happen.
• 1:27:13
  But you know, that way if something happens, new boxes
• 1:27:17
  come on or something different, why I'm gone.
• 1:27:21
  I at least when I walk in, I can open up that log book and be
• 1:27:24
  like, OK, so this address added a box, this address added a box.
• 1:27:28
  So I'm not getting back on my route and going, Oh, wow, that's
• 1:27:31
  new, that's new, that's new. Why did they do that?
• 1:27:34
  Why did they do that? You know, having that
• 1:27:36
  communication, I feel is always important.
• 1:27:39
  Not all the regulars feel that way too, unfortunately.
• 1:27:43
  But I think you should have communication as an RCA with at
• 1:27:49
  least your primary route for sure.
• 1:27:51
  And if you can have that communication with the other
• 1:27:54
  routes that you run, it makes it smoother for everybody whenever
• 1:27:59
  you know when when they're off. Yeah, seriously, I agree with
• 1:28:02
  all of that. I had really good communication
• 1:28:05
  with my secondary and my tertiary people to the point
• 1:28:07
  where like when one of them find like one of them ended up being
• 1:28:10
  injured and I moved to his route because it was just, we were all
• 1:28:14
  like right there. It's just a team.
• 1:28:16
  It's just, I felt that way, I think building that camaraderie
• 1:28:20
  with them. And there's a lot of things that
• 1:28:21
  I still do to this day that I learned from them in the ways
• 1:28:26
  that they would do snakes. I think we covered it all,
• 1:28:29
  though. I think that's a lot of it.
• 1:28:31
  Yeah, I can't think of anything else.
• 1:28:35
  All right, so we'll go ahead and wind this down.
• 1:28:39
  Your final thoughts, Josh? No, sorry, it's starting to get
• 1:28:44
  cooler out there. So be sick, don't get
• 1:28:49
  overwhelmed. If you do, take a step back,
• 1:28:52
  take a deep breath and step back in.
• 1:28:54
  Have a good week meow. Well.
• 1:28:57
  Thank you guys for yeah, I'm sorry, I'm in ramble mode
• 1:29:02
  because of I'm distracted tonight with my with my little
• 1:29:05
  buddy here. But I just want to encourage you
• 1:29:09
  guys. If you're a regular listening to
• 1:29:11
  this, you know you are. No, you're not a, but you're my
• 1:29:14
  buddy. I want to encourage if, if
• 1:29:19
  you're a regular listening to this, to please share this with
• 1:29:22
  an RCA and and thank an RCA or PTF in your office.
• 1:29:27
  If you only have, if you only have PTFS, because like we were
• 1:29:30
  saying, I mean, none of us could function without any of them.
• 1:29:35
  And sometimes like it's, it does get very overwhelming being in
• 1:29:38
  RCA. So we just, we all need to look
• 1:29:41
  out for each other. We need to build that unity
• 1:29:44
  because it's it, we won't be here without each other.
• 1:29:49
  So try and stay safe and have a good Halloween because that's
• 1:29:56
  also coming up. There's going to be a lot of
• 1:29:59
  kids out if you're going to be delivering on that night.
• 1:30:03
  But just at kids in general and animals running around and just
• 1:30:08
  try and be safe. And yeah, I think that's it,
• 1:30:12
  Kristen. Thanks guys.
• 1:30:13
  Yeah, definitely. You know, I'll share this.
• 1:30:16
  I mean there's a lot, it's an information overload when you
• 1:30:20
  get hired in as an RCA or APTF, it isn't a lot of information
• 1:30:25
  overload for everybody right off the get go.
• 1:30:28
  But it is also a job of of repetition.
• 1:30:33
  So the more you do it, the more comfortable you get doing it.
• 1:30:36
  And once you find your system on running your primary route, you
• 1:30:40
  can pretty much take that same system to almost every router
• 1:30:43
  route you run. Now it's different little you
• 1:30:46
  know, you may have change your systems up between government
• 1:30:48
  vehicles and PO VS or the difference in the different
• 1:30:52
  types of government vehicles, which we talked about last time.
• 1:30:55
  But you know it, it is a lot to begin with and it always seems
• 1:31:01
  like it's a lot. But if you take it in stride and
• 1:31:04
  you try to, you know, try to learn one new thing as you go,
• 1:31:09
  you know, don't be afraid to have that communication with
• 1:31:11
  your regular regulars. Please communicate with with
• 1:31:14
  your leave replacements. I mean, that makes it easier for
• 1:31:17
  everybody across the board. Yep, It is starting to get
• 1:31:20
  cooler out there in areas. I know I'm no longer having the
• 1:31:24
  other window rolled down and I'm wearing a hoodie intermittently
• 1:31:27
  between hot flashes. But it's definitely coming to be
• 1:31:32
  that time of year where some of us may see that dreaded S word
• 1:31:37
  sooner than later. So you know, guys, stay safe,
• 1:31:40
  hydrate always. It doesn't matter what time of
• 1:31:44
  year it's drier in the winter. You still need to stay hydrated.
• 1:31:47
  And I do want to put it out there because it was a last
• 1:31:50
  moment where I pulled saying, hey, if there's any leave
• 1:31:52
  replacements that want to come on and talk about their
• 1:31:54
  experiences and whatnot. And we didn't solidify anybody,
• 1:31:58
  but I did make a little bit of an announcement earlier today in
• 1:32:01
  just the Facebook group. You know, if you guys have an
• 1:32:04
  experience or a story or something that you wanted to put
• 1:32:09
  out there, you want others to hear.
• 1:32:11
  So either you know, they're aware of something or they can
• 1:32:13
  learn from something, or you want your voice heard by others
• 1:32:18
  that may or may not be listening in higher positions.
• 1:32:22
  And you want to and you want to come on and talk, please reach
• 1:32:26
  out to us primarily either right here on Discord in the group.
• 1:32:32
  You can private message us individually.
• 1:32:35
  I still have the private messages turned off on the
• 1:32:38
  Facebook page. You can e-mail us United we
• 1:32:41
  scanpodcast@gmail.com. You can remain completely
• 1:32:45
  anonymous. We don't have to use your name
• 1:32:47
  location, nothing like that. The only exceptions are if you
• 1:32:51
  have signed a social media policy, whether that be steward
• 1:32:57
  system, local state boards, if you have signed a social media
• 1:33:01
  policy within any of that, unfortunately we will have to
• 1:33:07
  turn you down. We're not going to put you in
• 1:33:10
  jeopardy of losing those positions.
• 1:33:12
  And so that is unfortunately our only exception.
• 1:33:15
  If you have a story that you want to tell and experience, you
• 1:33:18
  don't want to come on, but you want to type it up and e-mail it
• 1:33:21
  to us, we'll be more than happy to read it.
• 1:33:24
  We'll keep you completely anonymous.
• 1:33:26
  Not an issue there. So I just kind of want to put
• 1:33:29
  that out for everybody to hear so it's not last moment.
• 1:33:31
  You can reach out to us and however you wish and we will put
• 1:33:37
  things in motion for a future episode.
• 1:33:39
  But on that note, guys, we should be back next week and I'm
• 1:33:43
  not sure what we're going to talk about yet, but we'll figure
• 1:33:46
  it out. Something will always come up.
• 1:33:48
  So on that note, guys, have a safe week and we'll talk to you
• 1:33:52
  again next week. Bye.