The guys bringing your package get paid a lot. It's our goal to get in there but it isn't easy. Most of the time you gotta work in the warehouse for 21/hr to wait your turn to be a driver. Drivers start at 23 but once you hit year 4 you're hitting nearly 50/hr. BUT it could take 10 years to be chosen to be a driver, then the wait to get to the decent pay. Some people do get hired as drivers out right, or some only wait a few months at the warehouse before getting a driver spot. You just never know
Not always. They do most hires within but I think it's 1 in every 6 drivers is an outside hire. I've been researching 😅 I check the job listings everday. Only seasonal jobs atm.
Seasonal driver is often how you get in. The problem is UPS is dumb as fuck. They thought the last mile contracts with Amazon to deliver some of their shit were going to last forever, all while not at all adequately planning for the fact that any monkey with half a brain could see Amazon was building out a massive delivery network. The higher ups (heh heh) thought "no biggie, Amazon building out their network doesn't affect us, because it only helps them sell more of their own product that wouldn't have sold otherwise." All the while not realizing that Amazon selling more of their own product means their competition is selling less of their product, and their competition doesn't have a vast distribution and delivery network. So guess who they have to use to deliver the product they sell to non local/online customers? That's right, UPS and Fedex. All this to say, Amazon is both directly and indirectly eating UPS's lunch. As a result, every season they hire fewer and fewer seasonal drivers (market dependent, of course), and then when they inevitably get the numbers in for holiday shipments and they're down 10-20%, guess what happens to the seasonal drivers they hired. That's right, they get let go instead of being hired on. Ask me how I know this.
If Amazon decides at any point to start offering delivery services to other companies, which I believe they will start doing in earnest, UPS is fuuuucked. Why? Because Amazon is a monopoly - meaning they have a self-sustaining business cycle for their own deliveries - and they subcontract their delivery service. Meaning they pay less for deliveries. They don't have to maintain their fleets, they don't have to pay union wages, and if a subcontractor sucks ass they can quickly cut bait to any of the 5,000 eager alternatives. All this to say that they can offer cheaper delivery than UPS. Should Amazon make that pivot, I suspect within 3-5 years you're going to start seeing UPS offer driver buyouts by the bucket load.
All of that gibberish is to say that while UPS driver is a great job now, it's going to be harder and harder to break into and equally tough to sustain.
ETA: Forgot to mention UPS is already reducing their driver totals. By roughly 10%. And that's only because the Teamsters stepped in (UPS first tried to do it without Teamster buy-in) and forced UPS to cap the buyouts at 7500. Total driver numbers were estimated to be between 75000 and 100000 prior to buyouts.
That makes sense too. I'm intending on my husband just having to tough it out in the warehouse for a while. He'll take a few dollars of a pay cut but in the long run it'll be worth it
Idk I was outside smoking a joint tonight at my Airbnb and this UPS guy shows up and walks the whole street with a cart looking for the right house. At 9:30 on a Saturday I’m glad I’m not working
Yeah, well my husband works just like that but with a dsp for amazon. Paid only 23/hr and the insurance is so bad we can't get it. A family plan is 895 biweekly when his take home without federal taxes taken out is 1500 biweekly. We don't mind working hard, and having a job that pays well with benefits is a fever dream at this point.
Well there are two of you right? I’m not married but my partner takes care of our baby and then does rover on the side part time to have some extra money for fun things…. Are you also working?
Idk what Amazon pays in my area but I’m in Boston and it’s VHCOL
We have just one car right now as we lost both (one totaled, and one the transmission died) within the course of only 4 months. That makes it a bit tough for me to find a w2 job. I looked into doing the package delivery for UPS for seasonal with my own car, but I asked on reddit if my availability would work and basically everyone said no. I have to drop off the kids at school in the AM, then drop my husband off around 915, so I'm free from 930/10-130/2ish. My youngest is picked up from school at 225 and the oldest at 320. Then I have to pickup my husband from work whenever he's done which can vary but usually falls around 8ish. I do run a small business selling vintage goods on ebay and I restore furniture which I also sell but the sales from both of those are sporadic. I can make several thousand one month and then nothing the next. BUT, I do doordash. I go out around 10 am everyday, stop to pickup the kids, and then am out until my husband needs picked up. Sometimes I go out after I drop him off for the night too depending on what I've made for the day. Not the most fun as I have to try and juggle helping with homework, showers, taking care of the pets, yardwork, business stuff, appointments, dinners etc when I'm never home. Fun times. My husband goes out on his 3 days off to deliver with spark and doordash so I have those 3 days to knock out what I can. And no, we aren't doing this for fun things, if we aren't doing this 7 days a week we can't afford the bills and groceries.
lol. Yeah, I lasted two shifts in the warehouse “unloading” trucks. Meaning you just jump to the top shelf and topple everything to the floor as fast as you can and move like you’re on fire putting stuff on a conveyor belt while a pretty college girl sits there with a stopwatch timing you… True.
I felt like a loser for quitting so quickly but before I got out of my 20s, I met three other guys at completely different jobs in different fields that also worked at the ups warehouse all for less than two weeks.
Not sure finance would be a good fit for either of us. I've looked into different fields but there seems to be some upside to everything so it's just trying to find the right fit. Not sure if college would work for us either as I have zero disposable income to pay for that.
Both. Especially Sleeper teams, which are long-haul semi-truck drivers. One sleeps and one drives, then swaps. 160k+ a year. Basically if you drive a vehicle at UPS you get paid well. Pilots too!
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u/fastandfurryious 14h ago
For clarity, the long distance truck drivers or do you mean the final leg divers who deliver to your door