I'll have to ask him for specifics when I see him again because I wouldn't want to regurgitate inaccurate information, but it's not nearly as bad a job as you might think, and nobody's making near minimum wage. Everybody has hefty pension plans. The drivers tend to make more than the web developers working for startups in my area. Way more.

Nobody gets a promotion based on competence. It's pure seniority. The people that are there the longest get first dibs on better positions. And if somebody can't hold their own and doesn't contribute, you can forget about letting them go. It's almost impossible to fire someone who isn't worth the union wages they're making.

Now that's fine and dandy, I hope lots of folks get nice retirements after working at UPS their whole life. But Amazon is more efficient and will replace these high-wage manual laborers with robots and algorithms, and the union guys will try and use the power of government to stop them.

UPS drivers are making six-figures with seniority, and most of them love the work -- they're outside and get to interact with people frequently. (I've yet to work at a business that isn't on a friendly, first-name basis with their UPS driver.) The preloaders who actually put the packages on the trucks don't have it so great. The shift starts at 2-3 AM, you're working on a conveyor belt in a big warehouse, and you have to load 5 trucks in 6 hours -- while the drivers get 8-10 hours to unload their one truck.

Source: Dad works for UPS, I worked as a preloader.

Man, the Amazon subcontracted and watched down to the second with no room for human discretion warehouse worker stories are bone chilling.

Many UPS drivers make 6 figures (with overtime).....

Dunno. My uncle has worked at UPS for decades. The job treats him well. The only bad thing that happened is once he was knocked off his feet by chemical fumes due to a mislabeled container, but he turned out alright.

I guess you have not seen or worked really awful jobs for really awful wages before?