package driver 40 hr/wk?

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
I have 2 kids and they both were very active in sports and other activities while in school. They both realized that neither myself or their mother (RN) would be able to get to every one of their games so they were very appreciative when they looked in to the bleachers and saw either one or both of us. I was able to watch more of my son's baseball games because he played his games on a field which was on my delivery route so I would simply take my lunch during his games. I watched one of my daughter's away games because she was playing at a school that was on the way back to the center so again I just took my lunch then. This was all pre-PAS and pre-GPS.

I also commend you for your role as a single father. It is vital that you have a strong support network in place before you become a driver. A 40 hour work week, while possible, is highly unlikely and you would lose a ton of money. My last paycheck had zero overtime and I was down at least $150-200 from my usual take home so taken over a year that is almost $10K.

You have to decide what is important to you and will soon realize that you can combine both elements, just not to the degree that you may like. Good luck.
 

SKAGITDRIVER

Well-Known Member
with this post now 10 months old I am curious Rott what did you choose? My advise quit now do not look back UPS does not care about you nor your family check out the divorce rate for both drivers and managers and you will not make weekday sporting events for your kid except on the rare occasion Good Luck
 

City Driver

Well-Known Member
I could send you 30 years worth of pocket calendars that I used to keep track of my hours (yes I'm a packrat) and guarantee that you won't find any one week with just 40 hours. In fact I could count on one hand the number of days in 30 years that I ended up with just 8 hours or less. It's not the job to have if you are looking for a 40 hr week

thats the magic number

hopefully ill be able to retire the day i hit 30 years......still got a looooong way to go
 

brownrodster

Well-Known Member
I have been working pt sort for 2 years. I'm just curious on the average weekly hours drivers put in? I am a single father and I am not sure driver would be the way to go..... on the oter hand I need money but I dont think working over 40 hrs. a wk will allow me any time to go to sons ball game, etc.... from what i see it looks like the drivers dont get in until after 7 pm almost every night. is that by choice or is the workload .



I can count weeks in which I worked under 45 hours on one hand. Normally a workweek for me is 47-52 hours.

The only days I work 8 or under is when I am mistakenly underdispatched and I sneak out before they can give me more work.
 

brownrodster

Well-Known Member
What about pt drivers? or is there even such a thing as pt drivers?

I was thinking about applying for a supervisor position, but I have been told by many co workers that once your a sup you are stuck there. how true is that? I was also told that to even go driving from a sup pos. you have to have a college degree...... to be honest I've heard so much from different people I work with, I dont know what to do.... I cant even get a straight answer from HR

We have part time saturday drivers. They usually work for 4-5 hours on saturday morning.

There are combo drivers who work 40 hours per week doing 4 hours in the hub pretending to work and 4 hours driving around doing nothing. Those jobs take mega seniority to score around here. I dream of having that job over being a full time package car driver.
 
It depends on where you live. The average is anywhere from 9.5 to 12 hours a day. I would say get on as a Saturday Air driver and get your top scale there and then do utility driving. At least as a utility driver, you can turn down the extra work if you have some stuff to do that day.

what is a utility driving? i havent heard that before.
 

Dustyroads

Well-Known Member
We have a few drivers I know who really hustle on the days they need to be at kids events and make almost all of them. A good friend of mine coaches his girls' softball team, and makes all of the practices. They all use their 8 hour requests for kids' events, skip their lunches to make a school play, sometimes they will ask a buddy to run a stop or two, but will always repay the favor.

It's not an easy task being a parent, nor is it easy being a UPS driver. However, there are thousands of em around the country that manage to do both well. It's not impossible.
 
Cover or casual driver. PT or FT employee who does not have his/her own route. May also be bid cover.

thanks for the info UpstateNYUPSer. i applied to saturday air the week i turned 21 but my area isnt hiring which totally sucks for me. i wouldnt mind driving once a week nor would i mind covering other drivers. the extra cash would of been mad sweet to, considering how im a college student
 

Brown_Eyed_Girl

Well-Known Member
I cover for the nighttime drivers and think the money is decent. Adds an extra $100 per week when covering for vacations. One of the drivers is retiring in September and I'm crossing my fingers to get his route. Keep trying to get in Killer!
 

brownrodster

Well-Known Member
Cover or casual driver. PT or FT employee who does not have his/her own route. May also be bid cover.


We have "utility driver" defined in our supplement. It is a PT employee that can drive and deliver ground packages when there are no more FT employees available. They have their own wage for this job that is around 21$ an hour. It is a different wage than that of an air driver.

We do not have PT cover drivers in our area. We use unassigned FT drivers to cover routes. Our FT drivers don't work PT when they are laid off. They sit at home. So having a utility driver around every once in a while to drive a route is more fair to the employees than to train a new FT driver who will then sit at home on layoff after working for the needed week or two.
 

Kraetos

Preload, Loader
Or you can just never make a decision, and work on preload getting the weekly 20 and get another part time job and get another 20 = 40...low paycheck but time off? Need more money, extend second job to full-time...I do UPS in the mornings, and then do part-time at the post office. Good benefits, double coverage.
 
I cover for the nighttime drivers and think the money is decent. Adds an extra $100 per week when covering for vacations. One of the drivers is retiring in September and I'm crossing my fingers to get his route. Keep trying to get in Killer!

yeah i've been buggin HR and the boss of the warehouse for a while but nothing. the boss of the warehouse (i dont know what else to call him) says businesses are not finding it worth it shipping mail overnight on fridays so for that reason the volume has been down. whatever but i just really want to start driving by next summer at least.
 

Just Lurking

Well-Known Member
with this post now 10 months old I am curious Rott what did you choose? My advise quit now do not look back UPS does not care about you nor your family check out the divorce rate for both drivers and managers and you will not make weekday sporting events for your kid except on the rare occasion Good Luck

Being a single Dad - divorce may not be his biggest problem now.

Since all of Rott's four post were in this thread we will probably never know. Hopefully he moved on with his life.
 

cliffyhills

New Member
Im still working pt on the primary sort . signed every bid sheet that is posted. starting to think those bid sheets are put just to give upsers in the hub a sense of hope that they will be driving soon. (no i dont really think that) but i am almost 3 years in and I look forward to driving. I dont like the fact that when i was hired the HR told me that the aveage wait to get a driving position was 1 - 1/2 years. oh well i am being patiant.


IS 40 A LITTLE TO OLD TO START ON A PACKAG CAR? physically i feel fine , but reading this forum it sounds like guys are retireing with all sorts of pains.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
I was hired off the street when I was 28, am 48 now and feel like I am 58. My knees ache and find myself shaking my hands to try to get the feeling back in some of the fingers.

You are 40 with 3 years in. Unless your local is different from mine, you will need to work 27 more years to get a full pension, which means you will be 67 when you do retire. I cannot imagine doing this job when I am 67, let alone 89 (Marty).

An excellent way for you to get a feel for this job is to work as a Peak helper.
 

browniehound

Well-Known Member
The only 40 hr week I got was my Vacation weeks... ;)

Once in a while I would get a call in the morning
asking if I wanted the day off.. I'd say sure
a topped driver could live very comfy off a 3 day week at UPS..

Absolutely! I worked a 3-day 2 weeks ago and took home 670 bucks. I live a simple life and don't need a lot of money. At the same time, I will take the OT if its offered, such as delivering a misload to another town.

The sup. tells me to deliver it, I am going to deliver it. Today he told me to deliver a ML "on the way in". Well his "way in" was past a huge shopping mall and the main road to get to the interstate.

Needless to say i sat at 1 traffic light for 15 minutes. It took me 45 minutes to deliver this 1 ground package. My sup. knows the traffic situation in the area, so I can't understand why he would have me deliver this misload.

The profit from the package was probably less than $1, yet he paid me almost $44 to deliver it? Man, I'm happy I don't have this guy making MY business desicions. If he was, I would have fired him for this one on the spot!

My only rational guess now is his over-allowed numbers are better than his missed numbers. He's not a stupid guy, so I'm trying to understand his reasoning.

I understand we need to service our packages, but there is more to the equation. Since when do we through money out the window to service one package that nobody cares about?
 

Bad Gas!

Well-Known Member
The other day in the Atlanta floods I had to go back on 25 stops after pickups....Usually no problem..but we had 20 inches of rain in some places, roads closed left and right and yes it was still storming and water still rising...Well, the 20 minutes back to my area took 1 hour and a half....and 15 of the stops were undeliverable because they were either flooded or trapped in a flood zone neighborhood...I made service on what I could...Another great decision by Brown mgt to send me back in that traffic though...I would rather run 20 stops an hour any day over sitting in a traffic jam.....UHHHHHHHHH
 
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