The making of a UPS driver
When big brown found that its twentysomething drivers were flunking out in droves, it had a serious problem on its hands: how to train generation y for a hard blue-collar job.
It’s 9:45 A.M., and at 93 degrees and 1,000% humidity, Saddle Brook, N.J., feels more like the Serengeti than suburbia. I’m in a doorless truck, wearing high-waisted shorts, facing a day full of handcarts and heavy boxes. When I arose at 5:45 this morning – an hour I haven’t seen the daytime side of since … ever – the day had something of the adventurous about it. Like more of my Generation Y peers than one might expect, I’d never worn a uniform, or even properly nine-to-fived it for that matter, and here at last was my chance.
UPS would soon fix me, though. At 8:15, after touring the huge open warehouse of concrete and conveyor belts that is UPS’s Saddle Brook center, I met Vincent “Vinny” Plateroti, a UPS “driver service provider,” or DSP – that’s UPS for driver – of 21 years and my escort for the day. At 8:45, we attended the “pre-work communications meeting,” or PCM – UPS for morning meeting – which included reports from the previous day and a short but detailed lecture on hydration.
