I was thinking the same thing since his pay rates per time periods are a bit off. When I started in 93 my pay rate was $9/hr. but somehow when he started in 83 he was granted $12.50/hr. And my top rate of driving in 98 was $19.56 but he was making more than that several years earlier. The only thing he seemed to get right was the DIAD coming out around 92ish
Not a troll, and not making any of this stuff up.....I just found this forum yesterday and figured you guys may like my story, sorry if it is kind of long and it needed 2 segments.
Oh.......regarding the above quote......you can thank those clowns at the teamsters for backing down to The Man and lowering the starting rate for all part-timers; when I started in '83 the part-time rate WAS well above 12 bucks an hour, the Teamsters conceded to company demands a few years later and lowered it to 9 bucks an hour. Wasn't even that hard either, UPS just asked and were given it and it has saved them billions over the years; I could write up a whole other thread on the cozy relationship between union and company but I am sure there are more qualified people to do that and frankly at this point it really doesn't matter to me.
OK, so after that trip in January of 1999, I came back and started scheming how I could get my arse over there on a more regular basis; if you have been to Thailand you would know what I am talking about and why I wanted that so badly; it's paradise-on-earth.
The new vacation schedule came out in May and I selected 2 weeks in July to be with my young kids, and 2 weeks in January to go back to Thailand; I had to cash in all my sick days to get that extra week. But I knew in my mind that STILL wouldn't be enough; 4, 5 or 6 weeks would be better to really explore the place and have the most possible fun.
Because I was still a cover driver, by choice because it allowed me to do some of the easiest, high-seniority country routes for most of the year, I had a lot of leverage with management. When bids came out every year, I just threatened to choose one so-so route in an 800 and my boss and his boss and even HIS boss would plead and beg me to stay as cover; they needed people who knew the routes and I was very qualified on all truck sizes and on about 15 different routes, IE: very valuable. So sure, I would stay as cover, but 'what can brown do for me' every bid time became the norm and I usually got what I asked for.
This time I asked for an extra month in VLO time; unpaid leave, starting directly after my 2 weeks in January; this would give me SIX weeks to explore Thailand and miss most of the winter; a bargain at any price, including being their slave for another year.
During this time, between 1997 and 2001 or so, the internet was just coming into vogue and getting popular; I had it, and most other people were getting it during this period as well. In my off hours I would scan the 'net looking for more info on Thailand, and eventually I stumbled upon some dating websites, ways to meet Thai ladies, same as you see today for Russians and Ukrainians and Phillipino's, Thai's, etc.....so I joined one. It only cost me 20 bucks so what the hell, and once I got inside I had the chance to contact hundreds of girls who wanted western boyfriends; it's quite common on the 'net now and was just in its infancy back then.
I would scan the website, then I would look at the photos I took of Mai-Lin from the hotel room, the beach and at her home, etc....and soon it came to me that what I had in my hands was exactly the same as what I was looking at on the web! Each girl had about 30-40 photos, none nude but some pretty daring in bikini's and low-cut dresses, etc....with a description attached and a way to contact her. My photos of Mai were the same and I finally said to myself "why can't *I* do this?" It didn't take any special skills, just a camera and a credit card processor, and of course I had to learn how to build a website, but I had more than 9 months to learn how to do that. Since I was pretty quick at learning stuff, I took on-line tutorials in the little free time I had after work and on weekends and soon I had the skills needed to build a basic-but-functional website using Microsoft Frontpage.
Now I just had to convince myself I could pull this all off. I had 6 weeks all lined up in early 2000, and while cruising around the back-country roads of New England in summer and fall of 1999 my mind was torn; I either go back and really screw off and have fun, or I go back and WORK and gather up a bunch of girls who would like to be on a dating website, take their photos and information and create a website when I got back. If I just did the vacation, I would come back to the usual drudgery and would surely regret it; if I did the work, I wouldn't be able to enjoy my vacation as much, but I just *may* be able to start a new career.....with a lot of luck and with all the planets lined up perfectly.
Needless to say, and as the basis for relating this long story, I saved up as much as I could by working 55 hour weeks and chose the latter. I contacted Mai-Lin and told her my plans and sent her some links to typical Thai -girl dating websites, and asked her if she had friends who would be interested in something like that. Yes, yes.....many would like that, as many as I could work with in fact, just bring a camera and a few bucks {50 each} for her friends and they would be IN.
I hit the ground in January of 2000 and started taking photos and writing up biographies and getting contact info on each girl in Bangkok, 30 all told. None were nudes and all were done very classy, albeit sexy, and this would be the base of the new website. I then flew off to Phuket halfway through the trip and worked with 20 more, so in late February I returned to the states with 50 models in the bank and my plan was halfway done.
By June 12th of that year, the website launched; it took me 4 months to build it, and I only added 25 girls to start; to keep customers happy I needed to add 5 new girls per month, so I banked the other 25 and added them slowly, knowing that I wouldn't be able to return for more content until January of 2001, when my next winter vacation times rolled around. Yes, I was still a full-time driver at this point, working from 8am till 7 or later every day and then coming home and working on the site; 16-18 hour days were not uncommon.
Sales started coming in and it was exhilirating to see that; each new guy had to pay $19.99 to see my models, and they came in droves. By the fall of 2000 I was making an extra 1000 a month from this, even after the credit card processing company was keeping their 12%. I had also finagled another 6 weeks from the bosses [by being their cover-driver-bitch] in January to go back and get 50 more girls, enough to last through all of 2001.
Dreams of leaving the company started coming into view by late 2001 and into 2002; but I knew I needed a home in 2 places, Bangkok and New England, to make it all work, so I needed to gross at least 10K per month. That would leave 12% for the credit card processors, money for models and photo equipment and travel expenses, and an apartment in both places plus private health insurance for me and my kids. 10K would cover all that, but not a dime less, so I bided my time and worked my ass off for more than 2 years; regular international flights, working on the website, dealing with the models and the customers [which by summer of 2002 had reached 500], tech support, photography, etc......it was all on me - and all WHILE I was doing the daily routine behind the wheel!
Days were with the brownshirts.....nights were working and making things perfect on the site.....weekends were with my kids; not a moment was wasted and not much time for relaxation either. By fall of 2002 the 10K gross mark had been reached and even surpassed, and I gave my notice to those suits in October of that year, to their utter shock and dismay. "No one leaves UPS" was the common mantra at the time, hell it still may be; but I knew I had to get out of there and I came up with the best plan to do just that; and it somehow worked.
Fast forward to 2005, 2006, 2007....before the recession.....that one website, which I sold in 2009 and won't divulge for reasons of anonymity, was grossing between 30K and 40K a month and giving me a lifestyle I could only dream about, in 2 seperate countries. Winters in Thailand, summers in New England, and no more working for the Man; I was self-employed and loving it and had no one to answer to. I am 46 now, haven't worked in more than 2 years and have enough in the bank to live the rest of my life. If I had stayed with UPS I would be in feeders now, probably making 65K a year and just waiting to retire; instead I am looking forward to another winter in southern Thailand, my 8th in a row, while spending summers in a beautiful part of the country with family and friends doing a whole lot of nothing.
If you don't believe this story, that's completely "up to you", a familiar line heard in Thailand. Not sure why I would even take the time to relate it here were it not true, and for anyone who thinks I wasn't even with the company and have made that part up; well I had 19 years in with those guys, 13 on the road,and I know every bit of what you are all going through right now. Except, of course, in my time it was a bit easier as there was no GPS and things weren't as regimented.
That's it, thanks for reading
Ex-UPS guy
