Double-handling

At 20 years old, I embarked upon the adventure that was being a part time supervisor in a UPS hub. What an experience. The package sorting facility itself is a unique and trying experience. Almost every employee worked part time, likely in part because few people could survive the unloading, sorting, and loading randomly sized and weighted parcels for a full 8 hour shift. It was warehouse work, completely jacked up.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the place would melt down every night. I remember — as belts we’re stopped and packages jammed, piling several feet in the air — sitting on the floor of a trailer with the hub’s big boss lady, Pam. Mountains of boxes, many ripped open, surrounded us as we looked at each other with defeated faces, while the truck pulled off the dock, sticking to the Teamster schedule, regardless of the state of business.

I learned so much over the next few years, and was able to develop and test out management systems for the first time. I built efficient and enjoyable to use “Typical Day” one sheet checklists to run work areas, complete with charts to quantify every important metric. Over the course of several months, I did this for every area of the hub, teaching other sups how to follow the systems, and hiring and training new package handlers. Doing all this as a young man in a building full of union employees, often with shop stewards three times my age, forced me to focus on processes instead of people. It was a priceless experience.

One concept that was ingrained in my mind was the curse of “double handling” — touching a package more than once, as opposed to making sure you are putting it where you go with each contact. Double handling once is twice as much work the first time you do it, multiplying from there.

Now, over 10 years later, this is still stuck in my head. Whether I’m carrying items out to the car, filling up water buckets for chickens on the farm, or making a smoothie, I’m scoring myself based on the minimum points of contact necessary. I wonder how much accumulated time and energy this has saved me. Hopefully more than the amount of energy I’ve spent getting annoyed by those around me thoughtlessly wasting time moving things back and forth without intention…