Remember that many Districts still like you to drive (even if it's only for a peak season at Christmas) before becoming a full time supervisor even if all your experience has been in the hub and preload. And for every opening that comes up in the package car ranks there is a 6 to 1 ratio for most of the country under our union contract. Six union employees for each "outside" hire. And a supervisor, by dint of being a non union employee, is considered an outside hire. That means that the wait can be longer than if you had used your seniority by remaining an houly employee and then moving to driving earlier, doing a good job, and then following the MAPP process to apply for a full time management job. If you have an engineering or accounting degree it will usually speed things up for you since I.E., T.S.G., and particularly P.E, as well as Automotive, have a hard time finding folks with science degrees that they can promote, or the skills they need. They often have people doing internships for class credits from universities in the hope of finding good people to fill their friend/t specialist openings because they can't find enough people in the p/t ranks. Those friend/t specialists can move up to friend/t supervision, gaining pay and becoming part of the MIP plan, if they are hard workers and can catch onto the UPS culture quickly, and many of them are never asked to drive but are used as helpers or loaned to package centers during peak instead. Most of those students are not offered a position at our Company because thay are just not hard working enough, or reliable enough, etc. And a driving job will only seem easy, physically speaking, if you have been working as a loader unloader. It is still a LOT more hours and there are a lot of memory and time management skills compared to being a p/t person so even though the p/t hub folks (and preloaders to a lesser extent) usually make the best drivers, not all of them have the mental and driving skills to make it as a pkg. car driver even with advantage of being physically prepared. Also, hourlies are simply sent back to the part time ranks if they can't hack it or have an avoidable accident in their first 30 days (even if it's just a broken mirror) and can try again after 12 months while p/t supervisors are often told it is do or die. If they can't make it as a driver they have no job and aren't allowed to return to a p/t supervisor job. I should add that that rule varies by District nowadays and that those sups. who are moved to driving at peak season are usually always brought back to their original assignments even if they are poor drivers, with the rationale being that they are rarely given enough training or time to really learn the job what with the hustle and bustle of Christmas. I should add that some of the "outside" jobs are given to females hired from outside the company because of the perceived lack of female drivers and therefore many times the ratio becomes 12 to 1 that an opening is filled by a p/t sup. without taking into acount that there are OMS and specialists that also may request the job. Most of the time you would be better off staying as an hourly. If you feel certain that you will excel as a supervisor, have done and mastered a number of hub or preload jobs, and feel like you need a challenge then you probably should move to supervision and hope that you might just be promoted to friend/t without driving which can happen at times with the District managers O.K. if you become the best candidate.
