Like FedEx itself, this web page is the product of Fred Smith's mind. While that might sound like an outrageous statement at first, after careful consideration, it should make perfect sense to you. While Fred is responsible for founding a company that revolutionized the shipping industry and provided jobs for over 100,000 employees worldwide, he must also be held responsible for what he has allowed that company to degenerate to during the past few years. For those of us who have "bled purple" for FedEx and who once sang the company's praises to anyone who stood still long enough to listen, the deterioration of FedEx's relationship with its employees invokes anger, to be sure, but it also brings us a sense of profound sadness. Like watching a dear old friend who has gone astray, you find yourself still caring for the person while feeling disdain for what he has allowed himself to become.
I put together this web page for a couple of reasons. First of all, my best friend, who works for FedEx out in California, had been prodding me to do so because FedEx employees he's in touch with via the Internet have expressed great interest in seeing such a site come into being. Since I have more computer expertise than anyone else he knows at FedEx, I was the obvious target for his encouragement.
What really got me up off the dime however, was the termination of one of my coworkers at GYY just a couple of weeks ago. I helped him, an employee with 18 years seniority, prepare his GFT letter. This fellow, a devout Christian and family man, was terminated because he flunked the JKT while having 2 unrelated reminder letters in his file at the time. One of the letters was no longer "active" (a meaningless piece of FedEx policy jargon) because it was over a year old, but due to FedEx's policy of being able to reach back as far as 18 months into your file to use letters against you, the dead letter was resuscitated and used to terminate my hapless peer. Being from Chicago, I am all too familiar with such dubious tactics. Local political hacks gained national fame back in the 60s when it was discovered that they were using deceased registered voters' ballots to help their candidates get elected to office. By using a reminder letter, which by FedEx's own definition, was dead, to terminate an employee, the company proved that it has sunk to the same level as those crooked politicians of yesteryear.
That's not the whole story though. It gets even worse! You see, one of the letters in my terminated colleague's file that was instrumental in getting him fired was for what was termed as "timecard abuse!" Now I've heard of child abuse, spousal abuse, and even self-abuse, but I wasn't aware that it was possible to "abuse" an inanimate object like a timecard. Talk about trivializing the language! In any case, what this fellow's manager defined as "timecard abuse" was a few incidents where he had either forgotten to enter an adequate amount of break time, or had some small amount of unaccounted time between codes. In short, what this fellow's manager gave the grandiose title of "timecard abuse" was really nothing more than unintentional clerical errors! Now there's a good reason to take a man's livelihood away from him after 18 years of service!
But wait! That's still not all! I am reminded of the popular phrase "adding insult to injury" when I think about the so-called straw that broke the FedEx camel's back in my terminated coworker's case. According to the justification of his termination as detailed in his letter of termination, the final transgression which sealed his fate was his flunking of the JKT. Under any other circumstances, he would have been given three chances to pass the test, and even if he did flunk it on the third attempt, he would at least have been given the opportunity to find other work within the FedEx system! Alas, because of two unrelated performance issues, he was denied even a second chance, let alone a third or other employment within the company. One is left to wonder just how many heads are mounted atop the staff of the JKT? Not content with merely denying him 100% of his propay and giving him another chance at the test, FedEx now has upped the ante and demanded 100% of his career as tribute to the JKT policy.
Does anyone but me see the lack of anything "fair" in slamming the door on 18 years of service over something that constitutes 5% of the Performance Review? Is this not yet another example of FedEx's seemingly critical lack of any sense of proportion? The employees of GYY already had lodged a letter of protest to FedEx management over the disproportionate policy of giving a 5% weight to the JKT in the Performance Review while using failure of the JKT as a means to deny an employee 100% of his or her propay. In this case though, FedEx was more than willing to equate that same 5% to 100% of a man's career. If this isn't a case of "adding insult to injury" then I'd certainly like someone to explain to me my misunderstanding of the phrase...
As I worked on preparing my coworker's GFT, I gained an education in FedEx policy and procedure which made me angrier with each new piece of knowledge I gained! In my research, I found that our industry peers at Airborne Express and United Parcel Service, could not have letters for different performance indices arrayed in combination with one another to discipline or terminate them. Furthermore, I also found that at both of those companies, any documented disciplinary procedures in an employee's record are only held to be in effect for nine months from their time of entry into the employee's file except in the case of vehicular accidents where a 12 month retention period is applicable. If it is the stated aim of Federal Express to treat its employees fairly, how can a policy, which is far harsher in its repercussions than what can be justly termed as the industry's "standard" be characterized as being fair?
Combining different performance indices to discipline an employee is patently unfair because it negates any legitimate efforts an employee has made towards effecting any improvements in areas where his or her deficient performance has been brought to their attention. In my coworker's case, for example, he had successfully improved upon both his absenteeism and time card entry problems as evidenced by the fact that he had received no further counseling for either problem in the 10 and 15 months since he had been served with reminder letters for those two performance indices. However, despite his earnest efforts to make improvements in his performance, this implementation of what I believe to be an unjust FedEx policy effectively ignored his efforts toward self-improvement. There's something terribly wrong with a policy which fails to take into account an employees gains in performance while placing premium importance on his failings.
Our courts have long held that a person may not be tried for crimes of a dissimilar nature in a single case unless the two crimes are tied together. For example, an accused person who shoplifts something one day and who then steals a car on another day is not tried for both crimes in one case because the two crimes bear no direct relationship to one another. On the other hand, if someone is accused of shoplifting and then hijacks a car to flee the scene of his shoplifting crime, he is tried on both counts in a single court case because one crime is directly related to the other. This is the litmus test of logic FedEx has seemingly abandoned in its implementation of current policy. Absenteeism bears no relationship to time card entry nor does it have anything at all to do with the JKT! Remember your old high school logic tests? Can you imagine the following question appearing on one of them?
Orange is to juice as absenteeism is to;
A) tardiness
B) job knowledge test
C) time card data entry
If your answer is anything but "A)" you flunked logic but qualify as a contributor to the next edition of the FedEx "PEOPLE Manual"......
Unfortunately, my terminated coworker's story does not have a happy ending. Even though I thought we had a good shot at fighting the company on its own terms and winning, he was so disheartened by the whole prospect of having to fight for a job he didn't deserve to lose in the first place that he took a job that Airborne had immediately offered him. While I hate the notion that FedEx drove this poor wretch out 2 years short of pension eligibility, I can't very well condemn him for being so "FedUp" as to feel the fight wasn't even worth winning....
I could go on and on about the countless flaws of logic and the utter dearth of compassion contained within the pages of FedEx's "People" manual, but there might not be enough room on the Internet for all that writing. Yet, I have not come to bury Caesar as it were. I created this web site in the perhaps naive hope that someday I might again happily sing Caesar's praises. Only an idiot would want to bring ruin upon his own house, and for us, that house of ours is FedEx. Restoring compassion to its policies and some measure of financial dignity to its employees will not bring down the house we call FedEx! If Airborne Express can survive while keeping its employees abreast with the ever-increasing cost of living, FedEx certainly can do the same. If our industry peers can enjoy the security of having disciplinary records expunged from their files after one year, FedEx can certainly function within the same more humane parameters.
Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely that FedEx will right its past and present wrongs of its own volition. That's why it's vital that we network with one another and develop a contiguous front to force FedEx to address our concerns. Your ideas and experiences are essential! Use this site to our greatest advantage. Don't merely be a voyeur. Participate!