The date that I started work at YHR was in October of 2010. I was terminated on January 4th, 2011 in person by Peggy Gordon (Operations Manager). Peggy wasn't alone in this, Ann Craven and Tammy Fahsholtz also were key players in this.
My job title was ‘Single Copy Driver’.
My duties were to load up my designated vehicle with newspapers and deliver them to pre-determined locations. These duties also included refueling the vehicles.
My route was the lower Yakima valley, which included the cities of Wapato,WA. Toppenish,WA. Zillah,WA and Granger,WA and on Jan. 2nd, 2011, Satus Pass. I used a car whenever I delivered on a weekday, and a truck whenever I delivered on Sundays or holidays. I was told to use vehicles #7 (car) and #15 (truck), both of which have mechanical or electrical issues.
I was told that the reason for my termination was that I took to long to deliver the newspapers to Satus Pass, WA. The delivery to Satus Pass is a ‘Sunday’ newspaper, which is a very important point. The ‘Sunday’ newspapers are received by drivers in two separate parts, usually on pallets. One part is the news print, and the other part is the pre-packed ads. We (drivers) are given the job of inserting the ads into the news print. This is only done on ‘Sundays’ and occasional ‘holidays’. This takes much more time than the regular weekday newspaper delivery does.
I had to make several stops along the route to put more inserts into the news print because some stops require a larger number of newspapers than other stops, which depleted my supply. This also required that I climb into the back of the truck bed and retrieve the news print bundles and pre-packed ad insert bundles, and move them to the tailgate of the truck, unless it is raining or snowing, when, if that is the case, I have to put them together in the cab of the truck, which takes more time. It is at this point that I start to put the pre-packed ads into the news prints (tailgate or cab). I was given the Sunday delivery exclusively while I was at the YHR. Only occasionally was I given that day off.
The weekday paper delivery can be done very quickly compared to the ‘Sunday’ paper because there are no inserts for them. This fact does not appear to be included in management’s decision making. Another driver (Don Zeier) ran the ‘Sunday’ route two weeks prior to my Satus Pass delivery of Sunday Jan. 2nd, 2011. It took this driver longer than it took me to do the same route. He did not go to Satus Pass that day, it was the usual run.
I delivered the papers in a vehicle which had mechanical issues along with it being the ‘Sunday’ paper. The front end of truck #15 had drifting problems which was known to other drivers, and since I posted a written complaint about it in the designated place, management must have also known. The drifting would occur beginning from about 45 MPH to about 60 MPH. Driving in town was fine, but a driver would have to travel over the posted speed limits in order for the truck to drive more manageably (which I would not recommend). Driving faster with a vehicle with known mechanical issues seems even more dangerous to me, especially if the roads are icy, which they were on many days.
Truck #15 would catch a groove in the road and follow it. This made steering the vehicle dangerous for me and other travelers on the road as well as for other delivery drivers using that vehicle. Another vehicle, car #7, the usual Monday through Saturday car, which I also used on days other than Sunday, had charging problems. The other driver, Don Zeier, who ran this route on my days off, was driving car #7 when it just stopped running. He was near Zillah, WA at about 2 a.m. when this happened. Lucky for him he had a cell phone or he would have been in trouble. Don Zeier is about 70 years old. This car was known by the YHR to have electrical issues. This vehicle also had heating problems, some dash lights not working, an exclamation light (breaks) that would flash on the dashboard, and a loud clunk sound coming from the rear end of the car. This same car stopped running for me in the company parking lot the first week that I worked at the YHR. It was given a charge and sent back out to be used by drivers. Don and I had complained about it, but nothing was done to remedy the situation, other than my dismissal. We were told in a meeting in December that there would be new vehicles later this month (December). There were no new vehicles In December.
Peggy Gordon informed me of the termination. She told me that I took to long to deliver newspapers to Satus Pass, WA. I was taken totally by surprise by the dismissal because I had not received any warnings whatsoever. I know that I did that job the best way possible given the circumstances.YHR management did not even bring District Manager Jeff Cook, who was the overseer of me and my route into the discussion of my performance. They never sought his input. I was the one who told him that I had been dismissed, and he was genuinely shocked.
The YHR management team has issues with communication and with making assumptions without asking questions. The Satus Pass issue is a perfect example of poor communication at the Yakima Herald-Republic. I arrived at the YHR on ‘Sunday’, Jan. 2nd, 2011 and I found that the Packaging Center didn’t have my papers ready yet. Once they were ready, about 1 a.m., I was allowed to take them and load them up in truck #15.
Curtis Bitz was the man in charge on this particular ‘Sunday’. It is my life learned experience that made me think that Curtis had been informed of my route change to Satus Pass. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that management had not informed Curtis of my route change. (BTW, this was my first day delivering to Satus Pass, WA). Apparently, that wasn’t taken into account.
After receiving my YHR papers, I asked who was going to bring me the Seattle Times (SE) papers because I was scheduled to be at Satus Pass at 1 a.m. and I would be VERY late if I were to wait for it. Curtis answered by saying that we would wait for the SE. Since he was in charge, I said OK, but I did wonder why to myself. So, like usual, I started inserting the pre-packed ads into the ‘Sunday’ YHR.
The SE papers arrived about 3 a.m. I waited until they were checked in by the Packaging Center and then distributed to the drivers. I got mine shortly after 3 a.m. I left the YHR distribution center and went to my first stop, a drop-off to Bill Yallup. Bill is a home delivery driver. This is when I found out that I did not receive all of my pre-pack ads. I was way short of these. If I were to give Bill his entire allotted amount of pre-packs, I would not have had any left for the rest of my route, including the next drop at Satus Pass, WA.
I made a call back to the YHR distribution building to Curtis. I told him that I was short of pre-packs and he then walked through the building and only found about 20 of them. That was enough for Satus Pass only. I was there for about an hour at the place where I met Bill. Curtis drove to the Branding Iron restaurant in Toppenish where we met up and we tossed the pre-packs into truck #15 and then I left to Satus Pass. From where I made my drop to Bill Yallup to the Branding Iron restaurant probably took at least another half hour until Curtis brought me the 20 pre-packed ads. I never found out what happened to the missing pre-pack ads for my entire route. This was never answered. There should have been pre-packs next to the newspapers that were allocated for Bill Yallup and Satus Pass. There wasn’t, and I told Peggy exactly that.
At my dismissal meeting with Peggy Gordon, she said that the pre-packs were next to the news prints. I told her that there were no pre-packed ads sitting next to the newspapers for Bill Yallup and Satus Pass. She didn’t give me an answer at all, only a quizzical look. As I wrote earlier, this was my first day making a delivery to Bill Yallup and Satus Pass, so because I wasn’t told that the pre-packed ads were supposed to be with their newspapers, I thought that the pallet which had a load of pre-packed ads on it already, were included on that pallet. They were not.
After Curtis gave me the pre-packs, I had enough for Satus Pass only. After getting to Satus Pass, I did not find the driver who I was supposed to leave the papers with. I made several attempts to contact Peggy Gordon while at Satus Pass, but I could not call out from that location. I tried both, the CB and my cell phone. I then drove back down the mountain to find a place to where communications to Peggy Gordon could be made. It took half and hour to find such a place. I called Peggy and told her the situation and then I went back up to Satus Pass. This took 1 total hour from the time I went down the mountain from Satus Pass and back.
The word got out that I was way short of pre-packed ads. I met Jeff Cook and Jessie Ramirez at the Branding Iron restaurant in Toppenish after leaving Satus Pass. The pre-packs arrived shortly after, and after making my Toppenish delivery, the route finished at 9 a.m. Curtis assisted me in my route by making the Zillah and Granger deliveries. He expressed that he knew that I would need assistance because of the extra load that I was given.
So, in conclusion, I left the YHR distribution center about 3 a.m. and finished at 9 a.m. I did have help because of all of the new route and publication problems. This whole thing had nothing to do with how I did my deliveries, and everything to do with communication breakdowns. The management team at YHR was the real reason for this fiasco.
That is another important point. We used to be able to go and get our loaded racks of newspapers (after Ok’ing it with someone in the packaging center). and then load them up into our vehicles. There was a change in this because we were told that we had to wait until the person in charge of the Packaging Center did a better job of checking the racks.
I was never warned at any time about taking to much time, or anything else, verbally or written.
I told Peggy that there was nothing that I did wrong. I also informed her that there were communication errors at the YHR. She just smiled when I said that.
The management portion of the YHR made plenty of assumptions but did not ask any questions from me or, apparently from Jeff Cook either. If they had asked, they would have known the situation much better. The Sunday paper with the ads insertions and poorly maintained vehicles along with weather issues is why they perceived that I took longer than what they expected. I did not feel that I took too much time, given the circumstances that I had to work with. There are safety issues that need corrected, and there is much more to the Sunday route than what management wants to believe.
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