Amazon DSP driver here

LarryBird

Well-Known Member
Sounds about right ha.

My center mgr took an interesting approach -- couldn't believe spent a good 75 minutes with me -- and at one point even went so far as to say: "If I ask you to do anything unsafe, or anything contrary to company policy, there's a level higher than me." While I'm no greenhorn, it was wild to hear this. Mgr even did more than just strongly hint at over-dispatching. Throughout our long sit-down stressed safety and the methods -- area knowledge will come (of course). Told me about various accidents: collisions, debilitating injuries from years of careless work habits. Said there's no pkg worth risking anyone's life or health. Music to my ears.

Here's what I think after 4 months in the same (yes: relatively easier, but no piece of cake) job. There's no need to cut corners. Hone safe methods. When driving, drive. When delivering, deliver. When using your strength and agility, use it as though you're going to have to keep using it 25 years from now. Scratch is the company's problem. I have no doubt about my work ethic, my ability to organize, navigate, hustle when it's safe to do so, drive with great caution. It's just a matter of paying attention, giving a damn for yourself. The rest is competence. Some days there's no scratching unless you're willing to take stupid risks. At Amazon, those were the days I was 'over-allowed'. Most days I was in the ballpark over or under, while taking all my breaks. But if they threw me blind on a heavy, difficult route, fine, I brought it in late and in one piece.
It can all be summed up in 3 words:
Cover Your Ass.

Let them worry about the numbers. You worry about your career, your long term health, the safety of yourself, the public, and the equipment, and keeping the customers happy. Cover your ass in those 4 areas and the rest will all fall into place.

Most importantly, you won't find yourself in front of the panel fighting to get your job back when management doesn’t have your back after something bad happened while cutting corners to make them look good. You will be persona non grata, and they will slide someone right into your spot while you enjoy a month off til the teamsters manage to bring you back...unpaid, of course.
 

Whither

Scofflaw
Whither, was your first day all that you dreamed of and more? lol

Ha, in a good situation. Been riding in the jump seat on my training route last 2 days, seasoned bid driver at the wheel. He's going above and beyond to help me get my bearings, even making a point of introducing me at the businesses. I'll likely have 2 more days to learn as much as I can, then next week my qualifying period begins.

I like the route. Roughly 80/20 resi/commercial with a few bulk stops. Was vaguely familiar with the area, but starting to develop a feel for it. Needless to say been paying close attention: the dock numbers, where to park at trickier stops, the bottlenecks, busy intersections, resis with dangerous dogs, when to break off resis and start pickups, etc etc.

Definitely a more demanding job than Amazon: but worth the additional trouble.
 

amazondriverdude

Well-Known Member
Ha, in a good situation. Been riding in the jump seat on my training route last 2 days, seasoned bid driver at the wheel. He's going above and beyond to help me get my bearings, even making a point of introducing me at the businesses. I'll likely have 2 more days to learn as much as I can, then next week my qualifying period begins.

I like the route. Roughly 80/20 resi/commercial with a few bulk stops. Was vaguely familiar with the area, but starting to develop a feel for it. Needless to say been paying close attention: the dock numbers, where to park at trickier stops, the bottlenecks, busy intersections, resis with dangerous dogs, when to break off resis and start pickups, etc etc.

Definitely a more demanding job than Amazon: but worth the additional trouble.

Are you driving solo on Monday?
 

LarryBird

Well-Known Member
Ha, in a good situation. Been riding in the jump seat on my training route last 2 days, seasoned bid driver at the wheel. He's going above and beyond to help me get my bearings, even making a point of introducing me at the businesses. I'll likely have 2 more days to learn as much as I can, then next week my qualifying period begins.

I like the route. Roughly 80/20 resi/commercial with a few bulk stops. Was vaguely familiar with the area, but starting to develop a feel for it. Needless to say been paying close attention: the dock numbers, where to park at trickier stops, the bottlenecks, busy intersections, resis with dangerous dogs, when to break off resis and start pickups, etc etc.

Definitely a more demanding job than Amazon: but worth the additional trouble.
If it is one of the designated training routes, and not a specific trip they're gonna qualify you on, then they're usually pretty nice. An hour or two of commercial stops in the morning, by 12:30 they're in a residential development or somewhere else that you can fly, once you know the area. No large pickups, maybe 2 or 3 cupcakes, and no air to bring back.

That's the tradeoff of these trips - guys who bid them get an easier, low pressure route, but they have to move off for guys to train and qualify on.

The guys who have been on the bid training trips never bid off, put it that way. They've been on them forever, and the only way they'd leave is if someone higher bumped them, or one of the 2 or 3 "dream trips" that every center has opens up.

You can tell which trips are the 'dream trips', by the age of the guy on them - it will never dip below early 50's...the seniority of the guys on them - always top 5 in the building, employed by UPS longer than new drivers have been alive...and lastly, the fact that the trips never truly come up for bid - rather they're passed along, like gifts of fine wine or gold watches, by one outgoing senior driver to the new incoming senior man about center, as a status symbol...bid route bling, if you will - "Hey, look at Old Man LarryBird with the hot new route, with the brand new Workhorse 500 package car...:censored2:ing route only does 75 stops - sure it's a 190 miles, but it's all country road riding time, with like a few dozen errands to run throughout the day - he's got it made, the lucky old grey haired :censored2:er". Kinda like that. Some variation of it.

I digressed there for a paragraph, or so. What I'm basically saying is, if it's training trip, enjoy it while you can. It won't get any better than that at UPS for you, for a long long time. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll cover one of the 'dream trips' and get a small taste of the good delivery life once in a while, but don't get your hopes up.

I've learned over an almost 20 year career at UPS, to expect the worst, than you'll only be slightly disappointed when it's so much :censored2:tier than you ever could have imagined. Getting your hopes up for good things and nice situations at UPS, well I certainly wouldn't recommend it, and I really wouldn't even want to imagine the levels of devastation one would be setting themselves up to endure - it would take a serious masochist to play that mind game UPS calls hope and hop on the their merry-go-round of horrors for a second ride down the highway to hell-town via hope.

Here are some things you can expect as a new driver as you progress through your cover years:

Expect :censored2:ty work conditions - if it's 95°, -5°, raining heavy, snowing, extremely busy, the day before or after a holiday, or a day you needed off(expect the unexpected), you are working...these are your days to shine.

Expect :censored2:ty runs/cover routes.

Expect the :censored2:ty equipment - new trucks are not on splits.

Expect :censored2:ty dispatches - you will be running trips that dispatch threw together at 30 mins before start time by taking 30 stops from this trip, and 25 from that truck, 12 here, and 40 from there: like a salad. So we call them salad trips in my building. Hope you like salad. As a cover, you will eventually be eating it everyday as your area knowledge expands.

Expect this to go on for an unbearably long time - the money will help. Once you get to top rate, your ability to tolerate the life of a UPS cover driver will have reached maturity...you will be there 4 years and in the swing of it, and you will now have a $70k per year PT job, with the smell of a FT bid in practically filling your nostrils.

If you've made it this far - Congrats. You are a lifer. UPSer forever...

You probably only have 3 to 5 more years before you are actually a FT driver - it's quicker than it used to be. Don't fret and be a bitch - we all went through it. We're sort of happy?. We're glad we stuck it out?.
 
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Whither

Scofflaw
If it is one of the designated training routes, and not a specific trip they're gonna qualify you on, then they're usually pretty nice. An hour or two of commercial stops in the morning, by 12:30 they're in a residential development or somewhere else that you can fly, once you know the area. No large pickups, maybe 2 or 3 cupcakes, and no air to bring back.

That's the tradeoff of these trips - guys who bid them get an easier, low pressure route, but they have to move off for guys to train and qualify on.

The guys who have been on the bid training trips never bid off, put it that way. They've been on them forever, and the only way they'd leave is if someone higher bumped them, or one of the 2 or 3 "dream trips" that every center has opens up.

You can tell which trips are the 'dream trips', by the age of the guy on them - it will never dip below early 50's...the seniority of the guys on them - always top 5 in the building, employed by UPS longer than new drivers have been alive...and lastly, the fact that the trips never truly come up for bid - rather they're passed along, like gifts of fine wine or gold watches, by one outgoing senior driver to the new incoming senior man about center, as a status symbol...bid route bling, if you will - "Hey, look at Old Man LarryBird with the hot new route, with the brand new Workhorse 500 package car...:censored2:ing route only does 75 stops - sure it's a 190 miles, but it's all country road riding time, with like a few dozen errands to run throughout the day - he's got it made, the lucky old grey haired :censored2:er". Kinda like that. Some variation of it.

I digressed there for a paragraph, or so. What I'm basically saying is, if it's training trip, enjoy it while you can. It won't get any better than that at UPS for you, for a long long time. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll cover one of the 'dream trips' and get a small taste of the good delivery life once in a while, but don't get your hopes up.

I've learned over an almost 20 year career at UPS, to expect the worst, than you'll only be slightly disappointed when it's so much :censored2:tier than you ever could have imagined. Getting your hopes up for good things and nice situations at UPS, well I certainly wouldn't recommend it, and I really wouldn't even want to imagine the levels of devastation one would be setting themselves up to endure - it would take a serious masochist to play that mind game UPS calls hope and hop on the their merry-go-round of horrors for a second ride down the highway to hell-town via hope.

Here are some things you can expect as a new driver as you progress through your cover years:

Expect :censored2:ty work conditions - if it's 95°, -5°, raining heavy, snowing, extremely busy, the day before or after a holiday, or a day you needed off(expect the unexpected), you are working...these are your days to shine.

Expect :censored2:ty runs/cover routes.

Expect the :censored2:ty equipment - new trucks are not on splits.

Expect :censored2:ty dispatches - you will be running trips that dispatch threw together at 30 mins before start time by taking 30 stops from this trip, and 25 from that truck, 12 here, and 40 from there: like a salad. So we call them salad trips in my building. Hope you like salad. As a cover, you will eventually be eating it everyday as your area knowledge expands.

Expect this to go on for an unbearably long time - the money will help. Once you get to top rate, your ability to tolerate the life of a UPS cover driver will have reached maturity...you will be there 4 years and in the swing of it, and you will now have a $70k per year PT job, with the smell of a FT bid in practically filling your nostrils.

If you've made it this far - Congrats. You are a lifer. UPSer forever...

You probably only have 3 to 5 more years before you are actually a FT driver - it's quicker than it used to be. Don't fret and be a bitch - we all went through it. We're sort of happy?. We're glad we stuck it out?.

It's definitely not a dream trip. Bid driver has less than 4 years seniority and he's been running it for almost 3 years now. Steward wasn't happy at all to hear I'll have to qualify on it. Center uses it as a training route of last resort, far as I've heard. Last stop of the day is a bulk pickup. Ranges between 75-150 pieces, several over-70s, plenty of air. Every day a surepost stop, no less than 80 pieces strewn about the floor. Each day there was one piece that neither one of us could find: one day the UPS shipping label had fallen off, next found it later on the 8000 shelf, then wrong car. It's hard to fly in some of the resi areas due to the layout of the streets. River bluff town. A few stops I'll have the choice between making very fine maneuvers in a P-1200 (there's clearance, but little margin for error) or long walks up and down janky staircases. Me, I err on the side of walking off these kind of stops. Fingers-crossed I don't get tasked with delivering a heavy irreg at one, but I prolly will ha.

We ran the route very smoothly my 3rd day in the jump-seat. Maintained a steady clip all day. Far as I could tell, the only time we might've cut was chatting at businesses, but the bid-driver went out of his way and introduced me to regular customers. He was interested to see whether we scratched the route, said if the time studies meant anything at all we'd be close. I joked we'd be an hour off, even though we arrived at the last stop (the pickup) 10 minutes before their window without any downtime besides our breaks, of course. Sure enough, 89 clicks over, ha.

So I'm not sweating scratch. Bid driver and I were talking with my safety mentor, a high-seniority guy. He relayed that a driver recently qualified and never once ran better than 150 clicks over. I won't be that guy, but I also won't take stupid risks to beat a fictional measure of productivity.

As for hopes, yup, no point being naive. To the company we're productive machinery, that's all. Nevertheless, to be a union member and fetch decent pay/bennies, that's a big step up from Amazon.
 

Whither

Scofflaw
Live look at Whither after his first week at UPS LOL


Great movie!

First day on my own. I didn't beat up the bathroom (ha!), let alone get into an accident or injure myself. Orion buried a couple businesses at the bottom of my board but caught em in the nick of time, so no missed service. Luckily my package car doesn't have DIAD cradle, so, fingers crossed, no map nav BS for me while qualifying. My sup mentioned wanting to get me a cradle, ha, but I haven't reminded him about it.

Strange day. Awful load quality, but expected after the holiday: obviously a difficult chore for preload and I'm not a tattler. 3 wrong cars. 8 or 9 bad PALs: was able to solve the riddle and deliver the 3 actually on my route. My FDL got filled with 50-plus send-agains.

And these irregs, lots of fun -- had a 7 footer today paired with a 5 x 3 footer at a resi, among other obstacles.

Managed to leave my beloved dolly (aka hand truck, two-wheeler) at a stop but with a little smarts avoided doubling-back for it for a bulk stop wo a dock, but my guess was right: CL-1, so just 8 more send-agains weighing about 250 lbs. Recovered it later, exactly where I thought had left it, by adding an extra (*gasp*) .4 miles against my allowed miles.

I was too jumpy, of course. Forgetting to bring DIAD, losing track of pkgs, and that along with all the phone calls I fielded from my sup and drivers coming to pick up my wrong cars and the 25 stops off-route (it was a full-dispatch split, would've been running those in the blind), I could easily have shaved an hour off the day.

Nowhere close to scratching the route, but who cares. I'll learn the trade. No regrets about my decision, not yet. Crappy world out there, might as well get a little pay and have some job security before the unions all fall down. Who knows, with a little luck maybe I'll get to participate in a wildcat strike. Since this business-friendly unionism is a one-way ticket to extinction.
 
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LarryBird

Well-Known Member
Great movie!

First day on my own. I didn't beat up the bathroom (ha!), let alone get into an accident or injure myself. Orion buried a couple businesses at the bottom of my board but caught em in the nick of time, so no missed service. Luckily my package car doesn't have DIAD cradle, so, fingers crossed, no map nav BS for me while qualifying. My sup mentioned wanting to get me a cradle, ha, but I haven't reminded him about it.

Strange day. Awful load quality, but expected after the holiday: obviously a difficult chore for preload and I'm not a tattler. 3 wrong cars. 8 or 9 bad PALs: was able to solve the riddle and deliver the 3 actually on my route. My FDL got filled with 50-plus send-agains.

And these irregs, lots of fun -- had a 7 footer today paired with a 5 x 3 footer at a resi, among other obstacles.

Managed to leave my beloved dolly (aka hand truck, two-wheeler) at a stop but with a little smarts avoided doubling-back for it for a bulk stop wo a dock, but my guess was right: CL-1, so just 8 more send-agains weighing about 250 lbs. Recovered it later, exactly where I thought had left it, by adding an extra (*gasp*) .4 miles against my allowed miles.

I was too jumpy, of course. Forgetting to bring DIAD, losing track of pkgs, and that along with all the phone calls I fielded from my sup and drivers coming to pick up my wrong cars and the 25 stops off-route (it was a full-dispatch split, would've been running those in the blind), I could easily have shaved an hour off the day.

Nowhere close to scratching the route, but who cares. I'll learn the trade. No regrets about my decision, not yet. Crappy world out there, might as well get a little pay and have some job security before the unions all fall down. Who knows, with a little luck maybe I'll get to participate in a wildcat strike. Since this business-friendly unionism is a one-way ticket to extinction.
Just keep plugging away. Try to fix mistakes in the sorting of the truck as you get room, or make a note in your head of where the packages are as you come across them if they can't be moved to a shelf or where they're supposed to be - saves you the time of looking for stuff over and over.

Just remember, the packages will come off, and we get paid by the hour. If there's things that are out of your control, like a bricked out car, or a bad load, snap a picture of the load area. If somebody asks you why you were 2+ hours over, you can show them, instead of trying to explain it. Pictures really are worth a thousand words.

Basically, don't stress. It's hard not to feel like you're "behind" all day, but if you can train yourself to remember that there's no set times for how long stops will take you, and that you're right on the pace that your load and bulk for that particular day has allowed you to be on, then you'll feel a lot less under the gun - as long as you're making service on your commercial stops by 5pm and the residentials get delivered by the end of your day - you're not "behind"...you might be overallowed, but that's all just bull:censored2: that came from some jerkoff sitting behind a desk making up numbers based off of ideal conditions.

Every day is not ideal. I'd venture to say that not even 1 out of every 5 days is ideal.

If you get an ideal day here once a month, you should be happy - you're way ahead of most people. This job sucks. There's a reason they're paying us $37 per hour to do it, and it's not because UPS likes giving away free money, it's because the job is relentless.
 

Whither

Scofflaw
Day 1 alone: 187 clicks over, too pumped.

Day 2 alone: close to running the full route already, they're not bothering with the low dispatch/packet guidelines. 11 more stops, 2 more pickups, 50 more delivery pieces, including 2 stops off-route (surprised I worked Monday, given that they're split-routes). Punched out ~70 minutes earlier than day 1. Still might be farther from scratch than you'd think -- but who cares! -- as haven't ran the route per ODO. Would be impossible to follow 100 percent thanks to a heavy surepost stop that Orion always wants to save til mid-day. Think @zubenelgenubi mentioned somewhere that miles driven affects your time allowance. Can be tough to decide when to break trace to avoid missed service and/or bc it just makes sense, but today felt like I started to find my way ... ran whole sections - business as well as resi - in reverse without frittering away too much time.

Anyway. Not letting it go to my head, there's still plenty of dangers to avoid, but. I've begun making my case for qualifying.
 

Whither

Scofflaw
Day 6 alone: got it whittled down to 40 clicks over. Helped getting out of the building ahead of schedule for once. Got to my final pickup (last stop) 40 min earlier than the window, but business was fine with it. If they'd dispatched me another 25 resi stops, as my on-car promised will happen soon, I'd prolly have scratched.
 
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Whither

Scofflaw
Scratched it with my on-car in the jump seat scrutinizing my every move. That's 5 in a row. And 6 of my last 7. Asked about my telematics reports, said I've not been flagged, would've had a talking with me otherwise.

12 more days of probation, including 1 with the center manager in my jump seat, and that's all folks.
 
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