I was a letter carrier at USPS and now work for UPS.
More specifically....I was a a T.E. at USPS. The union royally screwed us by getting rid of that job title and changing it to C.C.A so they could cut $5.95/hr from us. I'm a cover driver at UPS now and make $25.21/hr.
With that said, UPS is 10 times harder and worse than USPS. Seriously. I'm not the type that likes to give advice because people are different (you might like UPS, I dunno) but I'm pretty adamant on this subject. lol. Delivering mail I remember thinking "damn the UPS guy has it easy, he just drives around mostly while I'm walking all these loops". Boy was I wrong. Getting in/out of that truck 180 times a day by itself is a lot of wear and tear on the body. Every day is overwhelming, these trucks don't go out half empty, or even full...they are WAY OVER full every fricken day pretty much.
It was a probably a mistake for me to leave USPS (although I'm not sure how I would have afforded my mortgage).
You would likely work Saturdays as a new UPS driver delivering next day air. If you have cover drivers their, it's likely you would work only a couple days a week then Saturday.
I know USPS has no OT list....no more than 8 hours or you can grieve it....UPS's "list" is ridiculous...it's 9.5. Here, that puts you clocking out at 7:15, not much time for a life. I remember clocking out almost every day at 4:30 for one summer at USPS, man it was awesome.
I could say a lot more but this is too long already. I encountered some harassment at USPS...the Postmaster stood behind me my first couple days as a CCA while I was casing mail...I didn't know the route...of course I was slow casing it. Then he drove by me multiple times on the road. But the harassment at UPS is WAY worse!
I probably make $3/hr more now but it's seriously not worth it. Not even close. Not to me anyways. I have delivered to that postmaster and see letter carrier friends every day. I just act like I made a great decision and UPS is great, lol. If UPS was a 8 or 9 hour job and was done around 5:00 it would be a different world to me probably. But I often don't get home til 8:00 or 9:00 at night at UPS.
We've had 2 drivers quit within the last couple weeks. In my center I'm sure over 100 people have quit since I've been there...I'm including preloaders, supervisors etc. but that should tell you something. It's not a good place to work. That's my opinion anyways.
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