Let me say, I'm not usually a quitter. I quit when things absolutely are batshit crazy where any sane person would walk the fuck out.
Net result, I did after a few months. During Christmas rush.
Here is the thing. No matter how in shape you are, if you are stuck loading or unloading, you stand risk of being hurt by repetitive stress injuries. It is one hell of a workout, yes, but not a healthy one. Back injuries abound. muscle pulls and tendon strain are common. You are going to bend over to pick up the packages off the belt if you are a trailer loader when you get tired. Your legs can only stand so much. Then your back will be shot. Your first couple of weeks, no matter how strong you are, you will be sore as hell when you finish your shift. And if you work twilight, you will be so jacked up by the time you get home you won't be able to sleep. I took sleeping pills around 3 AM to finally get to sleep by 5. Slept till 3 pm, had to report to work by 4:30. Not much of a life for $8.50 an hour. I have a full time job (my own company) that suffered greatly because I could not hack doing the UPS gig and my full time job. Bad idea for me.
I am a Triathlete used to Ironman competition, I train regularly, and I hit the weight room 4 times a week. I'm pretty damn buff, but that job took it out of me. If you get stuck on a belt that has 150 packages of 65 lb facing bricks, you have to load them and stack them floor to ceiling on the trailer row after row. UPS demands neat "Walls" of packages as you are loading so there is no wasted space. Try stacking a 65 lb box 10 fee high row after row. Your shoulders, back, wrists, hands, and legs will not appreciate it. It's not like going to the Gym. You can't "take a breather". You have to work like a robot for 3 hours, until the buzzer sounds and you get a 10 minute break to run to the bathroom, chug down some water, shove a power bar in your mouth, and go back and do it again for 2 or 3 more hours. Peak season sucks, as you may work from 2 pm to 10 pm. Yes you get overtime, but you are beat to fucking death. You have to "SCAN" packages at a rate of about 1 every 8 seconds. That means, you wear a little scanner on your hand (that makes loading harder), you scan the bar code, hear a beap, and then load the package on the trailer. By load I mean HOSS it to where it fits like Tetris in a neat wall you have to build, wall after wall. God help you if you fuck up and the wall collapses.
Sometimes, the barcode will not scan. You have to manually enter the code, sometimes, the Pick-off guys fuck up and send you a package that is meant for another trailer, and you have to carry it out and drop it on the floor so it can be picked up and sent to the correct trailer. Sometimes, the barcode is so damaged you can't even read it. When there are errors like this, you have to address it with your scanner receiver, and correct it. All this takes time and fucks up your 8 second per package rate, and you'll hear about it by the Supervisor (Supe).
To top this all off, unless you are working like a freaking maniac at super-human speed, you will Never be able to keep up with the belt feed rate. You will be force fed packages so fast, they will start to back-up on the trailer conveyor, then the chute, then the main belt. This causes log jams. So you have to stop what you are doing, get up on the catwalk, and break the log jam. Time after time after time. Running back and forth.
Sound like fun?
It's a Union shop. Seniority rules. You pay Union initiation of about $150 bucks, deducted from your first four paychecks, so you end up working one whole day free every week your first month to pay the union to join. Then you have to pay them monthly, so you work a free day and 1/2 every month to pay the union. You will probably be stuck loading for 10 years, because there are going to be hundreds ahead of you in seniority to jump on an easier job or try and get a driving job. And a Driving job is NO PICNIC. Sure it pays well, but you bust your fucking ass,while others with seniority earning 4 times your pay are working 1/4 as hard.
I'd wear gloves! The kind that are fabric, with the rubber palms. They are cheap, grip the boxes well, fit your hands tightly so you have dexterity, and keep your hands from getting so beat up you will end up washing them for 10 minutes without gloves, and you may get cut and scraped without them.
Comfy shoes? Forget it if your HUB, like mine, had a mandatory Steel Toe policy. You had to wear steel toe shoes and preferably boots. Tough situation.
Oh, and after you load 1200 packages on a trailer, you then get to load "E-Regs" Irregulars that won't fit on the conveyor belt. These can be anything from Earth Mover Tires weighing 250 lbs each, to Snow Plows weighing 400 lbs each, to RailRoad Ties. ANYTHING can be shipped UPS.
You are tired from loading the trailer, then you have to load the E-Regs. Then you load another trailer, and the E-Regs. If you equated this to a Gym, you'd be doing about 100 reps of overhead press at 80 pounds for 100 sets, then work on curls, leg presses, and squats. It's just too much for the body, and in my opinion, will tear you down over time.
Basically, the job SUCKS for $8.50 an hour (Less TEAMSTER Union Initiation and monthly Dues) you will only see about 1/2 your pay for the first month. Unless you absolutely like a bust-ass workout every day, at a fast pace, with only a 10 minute break, in a very dirty environment, with NO music - UPS says NO iPods or Cell Phones in the HUBS - they assume if you have them when you leave that you stole them by tearing open a box from Amazon - ---
Then think TWICE about taking a "Package Handler Job"
There is horrific turnover. Why? I just outlined it above.
What do I really think of a UPS Package Handler Union Job? :thumbsdown:
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