delivery driver

warehouse worker

account manager

plumber

joiner

I was a package car driver. 

You are sent away for a week for a residential boot camp course where you learn all the UPS values and structures. How to deliver (Correctly) packages and to use their DIAD (handheld computer)Which is a nightmare in itself (its from the 1990's and hasn't been updated)

After passing the test you go back to your depo and get a route. I got l mine it was about 25 miles away from the depot so traffic every day just to get to my delivery area, I purchased a TOMTOM trucker satnav so i knew what streets I could fit down and what ones to avoid! my deliver area was split by a railway track, my van would not fit under any of the 2 bridges so many of my streets were split in two, making planning of my route difficult at best! - it takes about 6 months to learn your route but still need satnav! 

after 3 months I was delivering 110 packets a day. THis did not include my pickups (about 30 more) I also had to play my routes and reorganise my van every day (it was loaded in postcode order) but my route was not in postcode order so you spent about 30 mins every morning before you deliver, sorting out the rubbish the loaders had done.

When you finally sort out the deliveries you then had to deliver all the 9am then 10am then the 12am packets... adding those into your route really messed things up.. so you could be driving all over your patch because a 9am packet needs delivering. 

I had NO lunch breaks as I spent all the time reorganising my packets, ready for the afternoon delivery and pickups. if you had lunch it meant you finished work an hour later. (Unpaid break) 

Hours were 8am until I had delivered all my packets . so each day I didn't know what time I would be home.. Some days I got back at 5pm most days I was 6 7 or 8 pm... (you get paid overtime) but I wanted to finish at 5pm every day - Nope!

They blame you for all the mistakes, you have to stand out in front of all the drivers and explain why you had a accident (this is really funny as there are one or two of these a week, you have to attend the debrief and this eats into your delivery times..

If you like long hard hours then you will love this.. if you want a life after work then you will hate this job (I hated it) I would recommend you steer clear of this job (there is a HIGH turnover in new staff)

 could not get any time off. I had accrued weeks of leave so I just quit and took them to a employment tribunal to get all my leave back.. (which I did) 


A Typical Day at Work:
A day at work at UPS is fast-paced and physically demanding, with strict deadlines and high expectations. Employees often feel under pressure due to heavy workloads and minimal support.

What You Learned:
Working at UPS teaches you time management, adaptability, and resilience in a challenging environment. You also gain valuable experience in logistics and teamwork.

Management:
Management tends to focus heavily on results rather than employee well-being. Communication is often top-down, with little room for feedback or collaboration, which can leave employees feeling undervalued.

Workplace Culture:
The workplace culture feels rigid and corporate, with limited recognition for hard work. Concerns like safety issues or inappropriate behavior are sometimes ignored, creating a toxic environment.

The Hardest Part of the Job:
The hardest part is dealing with the lack of support and recognition while managing high physical and mental demands. Reporting issues like bullying or unsafe practices can lead to backlash, adding stress.

The Most Enjoyable Part of the Job:
The most enjoyable aspect is the camaraderie among coworkers who face similar challenges, as well as the sense of accomplishment when meeting deadlines in a high-pressure environment.

UPS’s work culture feels overly corporate, with little to no recognition for hard work. Bullying is prevalent, and raising serious concerns, such as employees drinking on the job, often results in further mistreatment. Health and safety issues are overlooked until accidents occur, showing a lack of proactive care for employees’ well-being. It creates a toxic environment where speaking up is punished, rather than addressed constructively.

I have worked for this company for around 11 months, as a package car driver, and all i'll say is if your considering joining then you'll have no life what so ever!! 
If your a single with no life then this is the job for you. 
The management are appalling, their attitude towards their employees is just get it done or start looking for a new job! 
Their behaviour is bordering on Bullying and harassment, and if you don't do what they say, then they find things to put you on discipline for. 
They fail to listen to the drivers, who know the routes inside out but make changes anyway (not for the better) without consulting them about this to see if the changes would work.
 They cut routes willy nilly, and pile more work on your vehicle which means you have to stay out longer as your area has now increased. Most of time you wont get back to the depot before 7pm, time you unload all your international express and other pks and parked vehicle up, log out, fill all cash on delivery paper work and hand cash in, that's another 45 mins!! 
It is physically demanding and draining, doesn't have to be like this if the management cooperated with the drivers to find out what works and doesn't. 
Oh, don't expect to plan any trips to doctors or dentists or what ever other appointments you may have!! Cause unless it works for them you are not allowed to take time off!! 
And when you are sick, they don't give a toss about your well being, all you get is, "your not getting paid" and "I need you in, no excuses".
Only good thing working here is the end of the day, walking out through security!!

I have worked for the Exeter branch of UPS as an agency driver for over one year, and I love it. Start time is not to early, although finishing times can be as late as 7.30. But all this depends on the route of the day and your own competence. 

Being an agency driver, you know that you are not going to get the best or easiest routes, so don't expect them. If you are willing to work, then you will get the hang of things quite quickly. (although being a now self confessed technophobe, I still cannot get the hang of the hand held computer known as the DIAD)

If you have a lazy attitude, then you may as well go and work for someone else. From early in the morning, everyone one does their bit to help things go smoothly. If you are employed to do a job, and then cannot be bothered to do it, then someone else has to do their job, and yours. That is where most problems arise. So don't join UPS if you are lazy.

At UPS, the jobs are not difficult, just time consuming and occasionally frustrating, especially whilst driving all day with other road users such as cyclists, horses, learner drivers, and worst of all, Amazon drivers.

The pay structure is excellent. Management are very good and polite, until YOU annoy them. The official UPS drivers do have a macabre sense of humour, but you get used to that and quickly join in. Then it's like one big dysfunctional family, whom actually get the job done with some pride, and they are always prepared to help each other out. 

Everyone grumbles about their job at times. At UPS, many drivers have been there for decades, and even though they are way past their sell by date, they still come in everyday to work because they also love their jobs.


If you like long hours and to feel like a number but not a valued employee then this place is for you! Yes they'll pay you a pretty decent wage and you don't have to work weekends so that's a bonus. But don't expect expect to be home for tea with the family unless you manage to bag yourself a cushty run. Each day is ground hog day where you just blag it hoping you manage to get all the delivery and collections done. But heed the warning..... the more you do..... the more they expect..... It's organised chaos from the get go where and every man (or woman) for themselves. What's even better is if you make a mistake in any way at all...it's ALWAYS your fault. There's ALWAYS a reason you could have done it better 😂 or different.  The staff from top to bottom are all overworked but as long as those magic numbers and figures add up just right...it's ok!  It doesn't matter about customer service making sure they get their packages aren't damaged....the re-wrap service works a treat. As for driver 
wellbeing. It doesn't matter that he's been blowing out is peach all week trying 
his best because there's always someone else (apparently) that can do it if he can't! 
Overall, it's a shower. The place is 
littered with hard working people that get zero recognition from them at the very top. Well, actually, that's not quite true. Every now and then you get an award to remind you of how long you've actually been battering your body into the ground. Oh and let's not forget the Christmas bonus. Them foreign chocolates and a cup you get really makes it worth the while. 

i have been at UPS Dordon for 2 months or little more i found the job to be very fast paced which is expected. The best advice i can give to anyone looking to work as a parcel sorter/loader would be if you like physical work and have patience can work as part of a team and being able to employ common sense and can adapt to changing conditions you will enjoy working at UPS . oOn the other hand if you have a short fuse are not very active this definitely is not the placr for you as with all busy work environments being a team player and having the ability to recognise that everything you do will have an impact on  not only your team(section) but everything and everyone else including yourself  Thats basically the environment at Ups. (One thing to bear in mind there are people who have worked there for years but the majority will be  new and inexperienced.  due to the nature of job and also the in-house employment/promotion environment which is a bonus if you are looking to further your career at UPS.
??(oh yeah it may feel like people are rude or have something against you but its the job see them outside of work and they’re different people )=
{when there are targets = pressure 
anyone or thing that is under pressure is nearly always or becomes unstable}
Remember if one person does not perform their role to best of there abilities it has a ripple affect down the whole facility what you do or do not do will always affect others and in turn yourself

The jobs in the factory are quite physical. They advertise it as ‘free gym’. If your an aspiring weight lifter or a young person going college or university this would be good money on the part time night or preload shift. If your over 50 there’s no point applying unless you want a heart attack. It’s hard graft on the manual sort system. Once you get promoted and get sent out of the factory the load gets lighter. It’s less physical but you don’t see much increase in your salary until you go on the mapp management programme or package car driving which is hard to get onto due to everyone wanting to get into it.

UPS pension is good and they always pay your money on time. But they are a very stingy company for saying they have billions. They expect the earth off you for the bare bones of £14,000 a year. You can try and negotiate with your manager but they won’t help because they are on bonuses to cut back and save money.

It’s not a bad company if you can make a name for yourself and rise up the ranks. However when you do start getting to the top watch out for other people because they are power hungry. They will set you up so you get fired so they can take your spot. If you have any problems with any manager always speak to the HR department. Because the people who have HR in their pocket seem to get on. Also don’t bother paying the UPS union any money because they are a waste of time. When you need them to help you they are too ‘busy’ to sort anything out. You might aswell just put your money into the pension fund so UPS have to match it.

Not going to lie the job is hard work,  it's physically demanding  but saying that it keeps you fit.
The staff are friendly and help each  other out if and when needed and are a great bunch of men and women.
Equipment  needs to be modernised, the scanners are useless and make a simple task a total headache.
There is only a few members of staff that get moved around  from job to job so if your stuck on a job you really not happy with you need to let your shift leader know to see if you can try another task during the shift.
You need to be vocal with management and keep on at them if you feel they are not listening. ,  do not accept  something if your not happy.
Management do shout and swear but it's the nature of the job,it's faced paced and stressful  and every one swears  so if you are easily offended it's not the job for you but I do feel management  would be respected more if they didn't swear.
Being a team member is vital.
There does however need to be a proper trainer there for new staff, because training tends to be left to the current staff who are trying to do their own job plus train and at peak periods it's impossible. I had a lovely lady train me  who put me at ease and made me feel welcome and showed me how to do my assigned task.. Had I been working with her all the time I would have been more than happy.
Christmas is just busy busy mad busy and you start really early from around November till  January .
This job is not an easy job and after work you  do feel like you have done a full days work .

Wake up at 4:30am, set off on the road at 5:20am to begin shift at 6:00am at times until 4:00pm. Our centre is the busiest in United Kingdom and Ireland and handles on average of between 18000 to 22000 packages to be delivered around London.
My role gets me engaged with management and customer service queries to be addressed. Training new agency staff is always on-going as well as supporting the parmanent staff to resolve some routine queries. More often though we afford ourselves a joke or two while work is in progress - nice colleagues to team up with! 
Hardest part of the job is getting, at times the over-loaded drivers to cooperate with us at the centre to meet our committments for delivery times for packages or returning to centre and handing over customer packages for collection. I normally give a special focus on packages to be collected by customers from centre. This is because customers spend their time to travel and when a package cannot be located there and then its really dissapointing!
Twice in a week we get Breakfast in mornings or BBQ in the afternoon, depending on the weather. The company tries to motivate staff with this form of "thank you". Its extremely satisfying, though at the end of the shift when we have managed to get in place all the customer-collection packages.

Start at half 7 and load your van , which consists of anywhere between 70 - 150+ drops , have to deliver hello fresh whether the customer is in or not , lorries can be late and then warehouse staff hold you back even further so matter what inconvenience happens to delay your day , you still have to deliver those parcels no matter what time you get out of depot , normal day your in and out on the road by half 8 but in those days lorries are late and warehouse is pissin about , your out on the road about 10ish or later which means your day is a rush because you've gotta work to deadlines with parcels needing delivered by certain time due to express labels , dealing with frustrated customers who don't wanna pay a COD which should already be done by the office staff but they're the most laid back office staff I've came across , don't wanna do an ounce of work or be bothered so when out in the road don't even try and phone them , you'll be wasting your time. 

Overall 
No matter what happens in the morning whether it keeps you back you still gotta wait until all parcels are loaded before you can leave to do the route. 

Office staff is horrible and unhelpful 

Warehouse staff can be helpful but have too much banter instead of work. 

Job can become competitive and repetitive due to wanting to get finished as early as possible.

Both bosses can be unreasonable at times and won't believe anything you say if your trying to get a day off. 

Pros 

Can finish early 

Good pay 

Bosses can be decent at times 

Don't work weekends 



Top Job Titles	Average salary
Delivery driver 4 salaries reported	£31,780 per year
Warehouse worker 8 salaries reported	£12.93 per hour
Account manager 4 salaries reported	£34,250 per year
Plumber 6 salaries reported	£15.29 per hour
Joiner 6 salaries reported	£14.42 per hour

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