The Economy

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

 

Cool.

 

I know a dude who did just that, unloading cargo near the airport. It was at some ungodly hour of the morning, but the pay was good and I think there was a partial benefits package, so people would stay. Mind you this was part time work.

 

For two years, I worked part-time for USPS, but this essentially became full-time (if I wanted it) in the stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. It's not exactly easy work - you're hauling packages or driving the entire time - but it paid $16/hour, and they were happy to pay out OT at $24/hour too.

 

My cousin’s aunt and uncle, on their dad’s side of the family, both worked at the post office for 20-30 years. USPS rushed a bunch of older employees out the door through early retirements when it looked like only the olds would send mail anymore. Then Amazon exploded. Now USPS is hurting badly for help.

 

I did UPS nights part-time for six months in 2014. I’d get called at 11 p.m. and told to be there at 3 a.m. I’d finish up designing the sports pages at midnight and then loaded trucks for three hours in the early hours. It had great tuition assistance, but I had no time to go back to school working two jobs. With Honda it was an entire second full-time job, but the hours were steady. With UPS there was no steady schedule, but it was a good workout and if you stay long enough you can get a route on a truck. I didn’t have that kind of patience, though.

 

Shocking. Absolutely shocking, I tell you.

 

UPS drivers are Teamsters and routinely earn in the low six figures.

 

And if you don’t load their truck exactly the way they like it, they’ll remind you of that fact.

 

I believe it. A lot of people have suggested I should move to Amazon, but I say no. Walmart, for all its issues, is more humane and forgiving than Amazon is, at least based on what I've heard from several people who have tried Amazon.

I've had some pretty good success at Walmart, and if I ever decide to leave the industry entirely, I'll probably just do something else entirely, not something similar or related but with another company.

 

Sometimes you see it all spelled out at once and just want to take a stick to everything like Buford Pusser clearing out a roadhouse.