UPS, greatest company in the world to work for!

FedexExEmployee

Well-Known Member
If you are management, UPS is like a business version of walking the trail of tears. Management folk have no steward to defend them. You come in every day, work ten plus hours (at salary), work weekends from home, do a good job, still get screamed at, are given unattainable goals, have positions in your department cut so that you have to do the same work with less people, are belittled constantly, never see your kids, never have a hobby, eat from a vending machine because your lunch hour doesn't exist, come in sick because you don't get sick days, and have your vacation weeks moved all the time because the controller wants to have a department meeting where he singles his sups out one at a time and tell them what a waste of space they are and how he could get better numbers from trained monkeys. For the priviledge of all this, you get stock at the end of the year, but the stock is VESTED for five years, so you only get a fifth of it initially. If you quit, you lose it.

Then you wake up one day and find yourself thirty pounds overweight, taking anti-anxiety pills to get through the day, waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, divorced, your kids don't remember what you look like, and fantasizing about running your car accidentally/on purpose into a bridge abuttment for the long-term disability. Then you do the math: salary divided by 70 hour work week equals a little less than $14 an hour, gross, plus you pay for part of your benefits. You could have done better in the union without paying out for a bachelor's and master's degree. You update your resume and send it out. You get calls for interviews but because you don't get sick days, you have to be stealthy. The company interviewing you ends up hiring you because they know that if you can survive even a year as UPS management, you have the staying power of a cockroach. UPS UNION jobs have great reps on the street with other companies, but UPS MANAGEMENT jobs have rotten reps. Deservedly so.

At one time I considered going into management at Fedex.
I realized it wasn't going to be for me.
If it's not for you, do your best to get out of it.
My good friend from my old station became a manager shortly before I left. He's miserable and is now seeking employment elsewhere.
Your 1st paragraph sounds like his story. Your 2nd paragraph may be his future if he stays.
Anyway, if you're that unhappy, do your best to leave.
That's always been my personal belief.
I know it's not always that easy either.
Everyone has their own unique situation.
 
I feel the same way, job is good, meeting people good, pay good , benefits/pension good
production standards :censored2:
hours :censored2: / sporh stops per on road hour are way too high
I tell my customers when they remind me I get paid the big bucks that I'de rather make less and work like a "human" not a :censored2: machine
 

Brownnblue

Well-Known Member
My brother in law works for the local electric utility and does much better then me. 30% higher salary, and his benefits/retirement package beat ours by a country mile.

He could advance in the company and make more money, but he chooses not to.

My seven year old wanted to add some smiles in, so here he goes...:funny::whiteflag::peaceful::wink2::surprised:
 

MrFedEx

Engorged Member
UPS might be a great place to work if you are union - but that's the whole point of the union - you pay dues so that the company can't screw around with you as much as they'd like. Fact is, you come to work, do the job reasonably well, and don't make any obvious mistakes (stealing, violence), all of the threats and warning letters in the world won't take your job.

If you are management, UPS is like a business version of walking the trail of tears. Management folk have no steward to defend them. You come in every day, work ten plus hours (at salary), work weekends from home, do a good job, still get screamed at, are given unattainable goals, have positions in your department cut so that you have to do the same work with less people, are belittled constantly, never see your kids, never have a hobby, eat from a vending machine because your lunch hour doesn't exist, come in sick because you don't get sick days, and have your vacation weeks moved all the time because the controller wants to have a department meeting where he singles his sups out one at a time and tell them what a waste of space they are and how he could get better numbers from trained monkeys. For the priviledge of all this, you get stock at the end of the year, but the stock is VESTED for five years, so you only get a fifth of it initially. If you quit, you lose it.

Then you wake up one day and find yourself thirty pounds overweight, taking anti-anxiety pills to get through the day, waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, divorced, your kids don't remember what you look like, and fantasizing about running your car accidentally/on purpose into a bridge abuttment for the long-term disability. Then you do the math: salary divided by 70 hour work week equals a little less than $14 an hour, gross, plus you pay for part of your benefits. You could have done better in the union without paying out for a bachelor's and master's degree. You update your resume and send it out. You get calls for interviews but because you don't get sick days, you have to be stealthy. The company interviewing you ends up hiring you because they know that if you can survive even a year as UPS management, you have the staying power of a cockroach. UPS UNION jobs have great reps on the street with other companies, but UPS MANAGEMENT jobs have rotten reps. Deservedly so.

Best posting I've ever seen on this site.
 

rocket man

Well-Known Member
ON MONDAY:anxious: ON TUESDAY:surprised: ON WED:whew:ON THUR:biting:ON FRI:money:ON SAT:wornout::wornout:ON SUNDAY ITS UP TO YOU ITS A NORMAL LIFE WE WORK A LITTLE HARDER WE PUT UP WITH MORE THAN MOSTITS WORTH IT .If your a union brother or sister you deserve this and if your riding on our dime your woking with us and your not in the union go to the fedx cafe oh oh thats right there is not one .
 

local804

Well-Known Member
Whipped Dog,
It can't as bad as you say. Is it?

If it is, I will tell you what I've heard being told to people who complain about their job at UPS. "Mcdonalds is always hiring".

.


Once again, do we run away from out problems or do we deal with them and try to make them better? With that attitude, there would be very few people working at UPS and too many working at McDonalds.Typical responce instead of fixing the problem.
 
W

Whipped Dog

Guest
Whipped Dog,

Are you one of the people that majored in something that you totally hate and have no interest in pursuing a career in? So you come to UPS because they pay a competitive (or much better)salary and put up with the daily beatings because it beats making 45K as a social worker or math teacher?

Well, I did end up getting a new job. I started out at UPS all hopes and dreams, thinking that if I did well by the company, they'd do well by me. They didn't. There are a million examples of how UPS screws around with its management people, and you could start a whole forum on gross misconduct by upper mgmt alone, but I won't go into them. The post I did was an amalgamation of people I knew at UPS. The one guy, a supervisor in the hub, actually did run his car into a tree. Everyone says it was an accident, but when he'd get frustrated with his manager (who, by the way, was "disciplined" twice for fixing numbers - the discipline being moved from one hub shift to another), he'd say "someday I'm just going to crash my car and end all this." He survived the crash, but is on disability for a while. Another sup on the same shift went out for a nervous breakdown. Two more walked off the job.

And no, I didn't major in something for the money. I actually liked my major and my job now. Admittedly, I probably would have enjoyed majoring in Theater Arts or Caribbean History (real majors at my alma mater, FYI) more than Finance, but the demand for people well-versed in the history of the rum trade in the Dominican Republic is rather slim. :-)
 
Best job I ever had. Best company I ever worked for. I started in 1968. Part timer making $3.54 per hour. All my other jobs before UPS paid $1.00 to $1.10 per hour. I was part time make more than most people working full time. It was hard work but I came out of the lettuce fields of California. Working at UPS was easy compared to the hot, dirty, wet, and cold jobs in the produce fields. No unions to represent the workers in the fields then. No OSHA, the bosses didn't care if you had water, bathroom facilities.

I thought UPS was crazy to pay me that much money to load trailers. I was glad to work my a** off for them. I took everything they wanted to give me. It also gave me the opportunity to go to college. This was before UPS offered college tuition. I went because I wanted to.

When I graduated, UPS offered me a fulltime job. I was a full time preloader, a driver, a clerk, I even worked in the small hub when they didn't have enough loaders. In 1975 I was making more money than my mom and dad together. That year UPS offered my a management job. I took it and a small cut in pay. Best move I ever made. I had many management jobs over my career. All were great. Hard work, you better believe it. I held myself accountable and the people that worked for me accountable to do the best job we could.

I left UPS in 1995. I invested in the company as much as I could afford. My investments paid off handsomely. So did my other investment, thanks to the income I earned from UPS. Is it the best company ever. For me the answer is YES.
 

lost

Well-Known Member
I love the job,Some people say I am obsessed with ups because I have the little pkg cars,and so forth on a shelf in my apt. Although I know we are to strive for the bes I feel the goals are unrealistic.
 

JustTired

free at last.......
Best job I ever had. Best company I ever worked for. I started in 1968. Part timer making $3.54 per hour. All my other jobs before UPS paid $1.00 to $1.10 per hour. I was part time make more than most people working full time. It was hard work but I came out of the lettuce fields of California. Working at UPS was easy compared to the hot, dirty, wet, and cold jobs in the produce fields. No unions to represent the workers in the fields then. No OSHA, the bosses didn't care if you had water, bathroom facilities.

I thought UPS was crazy to pay me that much money to load trailers. I was glad to work my a** off for them. I took everything they wanted to give me. It also gave me the opportunity to go to college. This was before UPS offered college tuition. I went because I wanted to.

When I graduated, UPS offered me a fulltime job. I was a full time preloader, a driver, a clerk, I even worked in the small hub when they didn't have enough loaders. In 1975 I was making more money than my mom and dad together. That year UPS offered my a management job. I took it and a small cut in pay. Best move I ever made. I had many management jobs over my career. All were great. Hard work, you better believe it. I held myself accountable and the people that worked for me accountable to do the best job we could.

I left UPS in 1995. I invested in the company as much as I could afford. My investments paid off handsomely. So did my other investment, thanks to the income I earned from UPS. Is it the best company ever. For me the answer is YES.

Sounds like you might have been a good person to work for. You know.....old school. My first couple of managers had similar stories. Although I wasn't real fond of the first, I did respect the fact that he made something of himself. Especially considering he hadn't even finished high school. He retired a millionaire and I think that is great. I'm sure you are in a similar situation.

I would say that you got out at just about the right time. Things were just starting to get crazy. I would be interested in your take on the direction this company is headed. Or just some of the things that are happening from your perspective. I started in the early 80s and have enjoyed all but the last 10 years. A new generation is in control and lets just say that this is not the same company that I went to work for back then. There seems to be a change in philosophy and I don't think it bodes well for the future. JMO
 

Brown Dog

Brown since 81
Fieldhand,we (UPS) were lucky to have you with us. You are a success story and a part of the reason UPS is also. I hope you are enjoying your retirement and reaping the benefits of your hard work. YOU HAVE EARNED it. The company has changed since you left and you might be surprised at the lack of control entrusted to the local center managers. But never the less, opportunities still abound and we still make quite a handsome living doing what we have chosen here.:peaceful:
 

trickpony1

Well-Known Member
fieldhand-
the reason you and another retired management poster have the wealth that you do is because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. If you will remember, the stock was private, it split like rabbits and you hypo'ed everything you could to wrestle even more stock.
Try doing the same thing now.
Inasmuch as the current union contract offer benefited one group of people (those at or near retirement), the IPO benefited a specific group of people (the already millionaire managers and the descendents of the founding fathers). Every one else can get screwed.

I don't think you did anything magic.....you just did your time.
 

tieguy

Banned
fieldhand-
the reason you and another retired management poster have the wealth that you do is because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. If you will remember, the stock was private, it split like rabbits and you hypo'ed everything you could to wrestle even more stock.
Try doing the same thing now.

You don't know that he never said that. He left before the ipo.

Inasmuch as the current union contract offer benefited one group of people (those at or near retirement), the IPO benefited a specific group of people (the already millionaire managers and the descendents of the founding fathers). Every one else can get screwed.

you keep forgetting that there were quite a few "everyone else's" that rolled their thrift plan into ups stock and also doubled their money over night.

I don't think you did anything magic.....you just did your time.

that was rather harsh. don't ya think? we usually thank our retirees who have walked the brown mile.
 

JustTired

free at last.......
that was rather harsh. don't ya think? we usually thank our retirees who have walked the brown mile.

Have to agree with that.

The only thing that does ring true is that he was in the right place at the right time. There was money to be made and those that bought all of the stock they could afford generally made a fortune. A lot harder to do now.

I benefitted from the stock (sold high). But if memory serves.....there hasn't been a split since the IPO. As a matter of fact the price has been up and down ever since. Those that had stock options available to them are the ones who really gained from the IPO. And most left after exercising those options.
 

Brown Dog

Brown since 81
]fieldhand-
the reason you and another retired management poster have the wealth that you do is because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. If you will remember, the stock was private, it split like rabbits and you hypo'ed everything you could to wrestle even more stock.
Try doing the same thing now.Inasmuch as the current union contract offer benefited one group of people (those at or near retirement), the IPO benefited a specific group of people (the already millionaire managers and the descendents of the founding fathers). Every one else can get screwed.I don't think you did anything magic.....you just did your time.[/quote] TRICKPONY
I 'm not sure why you're so angry with "field" He didn't say he did anything "magical", conversely he said he worked hard and was happy to have the opportunity. I've always been an hourly and I also benefitted quite handsomely from the public stock splitting and doubling. We did benefit from being in the right place at the right time but I don't see how that "screws" everyone else. Many of my hourly coworkers also benefitted. I agree with Tie, I tend to appreciate and respect those that have blazed this path before us, both mgmt and hourly alike. I hope you too work hard and enjoy some of the benefits this company has to offer. No matter how different those benefits might be than our predecessors.:peaceful:
 

HazMatMan

Well-Known Member
The porters/janitors at UPS make about $25/hr. I was talking to one today and he said almost all of the ones we have are all stewards. Not sure if that means anything but it's worth pointing out.

I believe the porters in my building make 25 cents less than the drivers if i am not mistaken...The porters are usually drivers who can't be drivers anymore due to injuries...
 

myback

Well-Known Member
I'm serious. I will defend my statement, but I wanted to get some responses to my subject first. So, please respond with your opininon.

I'm looking forward to reading both positive and negative comments.

Although I don't want to spend one day longer than I have to in the employ of UPS, I truly believe its the best place in America for any blue-collar worker to work at.

Management postitions might be a different story. I don't know how good their options outside the company might be. I look forward to reading some responses because I know there are people that think I'm delirious for making the above statement.

Brownie:peaceful:
 
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