Welcome to our community

Be apart of something great, join today!

For those that like to ship items via UPS...

Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.

zach

New member
Aug 7, 2008
4,117
1
Evil Empire
One of the worst jobs I had was during college....loading semi's for UPS. The holiday season was brutal! I was in a busy section that would send trucks to IL, MI and WI. The boxes just kept on coming and would pile up all over the floor of the trailer. Your frustration would eventually get the best of you and you would start tossing the boxes anywhere they would fit so the truck can leave on time. Not to mention you would come home covered in box dust and when you blew your nose, all the black dust would come out.
 
One of the worst jobs I had was during college....loading semi's for UPS. The holiday season was brutal! I was in a busy section that would send trucks to IL, MI and WI. The boxes just kept on coming and would pile up all over the floor of the trailer. Your frustration would eventually get the best of you and you would start tossing the boxes anywhere they would fit so the truck can leave on time. Not to mention you would come home covered in box dust and when you blew your nose, all the black dust would come out.

Glad to know people take pride in their work....
 

DaClyde

Well-known member
Jan 17, 2010
1,614
58
Huntsville, AL
Glad to know people take pride in their work....

I worked at RPS for a couple of years in the mid-90s. It takes a very good team lead to be able to motivate a bunch of poorly paid package handlers to actually want to take pride in the job they're doing. When I started, it was just as zach said. Sometimes we were literally slinging boxes into the truck to get the job done with. We were also considered one of the worst facilities (load quality-wise) in the southeast. We shipped flourescent light tubes for Lampi (oh, the piles of powder and shards of glass when those broke...oddly most of those were broken coming from the customer to the facility before we'd even touched them) and bats for Worth. The trucks look like they'd rolled on the highway when we were done tossing boxes in. So not only was it poorly loaded, but because it was so sloppy, boxes were damaged and we were probably only using about 60% of the capacity of the trailers.

We got a new lead who came in, spouting the corny teamwork mantra and assorted slogans ("load it right, pack it tight!") and even taking polaroids of the trucks before closing the door, and much to everyone's surprise, after the corniness of his pep talks wore off, we actually learned how to properly load a truck, with the new lead right there next to us building a wall of boxes. We weren't paid any better, but we finally had a team lead who actually led and got the rest of us to actually WANT to do it right. And when you're able to use more like 85-90% of the capacity of the trailers, that means fewer change-overs and dead time, and we actually got out of there faster every night. That last bit no one seemed to mind, even though we were paid by the hour and technically getting less work.

But I've been there. I've seen boxes of tungsten ball bearings loaded on top of very crushable light bulbs. I've seen tombstones fall off the conveyor and shatter. Even had a brief "bomb scare" as we found a package buzzing. Turns out it was coming from Remington (the electric razor people) :)
 
Last edited:

Flip_and_Rip

New member
Oct 5, 2013
63
0
Las Vegas, Nevada
Worked their too during my college years, I collected during that time, made me wonder how many of those boxes were hobby boxes/cases of card products; seeing them getting flung around and tossed like footballs, by careless workers...Glad I left that job
 

George_Calfas

Well-known member
Aug 22, 2008
36,264
30
Urbana
Fight Club

Even had a brief "bomb scare" as we found a package buzzing. Turns out it was coming from Remington (the electric razor people) :)

Modern bombs dont tick; But, when a suitcase vibrates, then the throwers gotta call the police. My suitcase was vibrating?
It's a vibrator, they can't say it's "your vibrator" they have to call it "the vibrator."
 

zach

New member
Aug 7, 2008
4,117
1
Evil Empire
Glad to know people take pride in their work....

Very easy to sit on a golden throne and judge.

I think that was 25+ years ago. You show me a 20 something year old, making $8.00/hr working in conditions like that in 100+ degree summer heat, up to his knees in boxes that are coming off a conveyor belt for 4 hours straight, and then tell me how much pride he should have.
 
If I was a customer of yours and my stuff got broke, and I found out why, I would be pretty damn mad!

I work for a grocery store here in WI, and I can tell you its one of the best places to work, and the reason why is people (and not just employees..the CEO, the managers, the bosses, EVERYBODY) actually gives a damn and takes pride in their work and WANTS to work there. The customers WANT to shop there because they see people doing whatever they can to make sure things get done RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.
 

Dmscards

New member
Apr 2, 2013
620
0
Los Angeles
If I was a customer of yours and my stuff got broke, and I found out why, I would be pretty damn mad!

I work for a grocery store here in WI, and I can tell you its one of the best places to work, and the reason why is people (and not just employees..the CEO, the managers, the bosses, EVERYBODY) actually gives a damn and takes pride in their work and WANTS to work there. The customers WANT to shop there because they see people doing whatever they can to make sure things get done RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Neat
 

Members online

Top