What a day out here in the Chicagoland burbs, we had 350 stops and it was nuts out there. We ended up giving away about 70 stops at the end of the day and my driver let me go home at 6:30pm, with about 30 stops left, which he finished off.
I put in 6.5 hours and I'm pretty sure my driver ended up at around 11 hrs. My driver was kind enough to let me go a little early because I had been out in the ice & snow & winds and could not get warmed up, my face was so froze that I could hardly talk! Took me an hour to warm up again afterwards. The temp was in the teens out there with a constant wind of at least 20 mph for the entire afternoon.
From my viewpoint, it seemed that there were big discrepancies between driver loads yesterday, not sure how these get determined behind the scenes, but my driver got simply hammered in comparison to some others. Maybe others didn't have helpers onboard, or their residential routes were more spread out, hard to say. But some of the other drivers were way under 200 stops and actually got to go home early (or, on time), while my driver (and quite a few others) was out there 'til at least 8pm last night.
It was nice to see happy faces throughout the afternoon as we pulled up at their homes with their goodies.
I gave my UPS clothes back at the end of my shift last night and my driver was so cool, he gave me a nice Christmas card and tipped me for the month I've been jumping. Kinda sad to have my DH experience end, but then again, I am a little long in the tooth for it and it was tough on my 46-year-old body after being a desk jockey for most of my adult life. The pay, though obviously not much, was nice to have this month, and a Godsend in these tough times. Plus hey, I lost 20 lbs and am in the best shape I have been in for a few years, so it's all good!
I have a couple of job interviews scheduled in the next few days for a job in my area of specialty (IT project management), and God willing, I will be able to get back to that again after being out of work most of this year.
Merry Christmas to all of you UPSers out there and I wanted to further add that from my limited time with you out on the road, I am definitely impressed with the work ethic I have witnessed. I do not think the general public knows how physically and mentally demanding it is to be a UPS driver. It takes a huge amount of commitment to do it and those of you who are out there doing it every single day should be proud! I was proud to be part of it this season.
Peace out, Rod
Clocked out at 8pm.
