I have to disagree with you guys saying that UPS is better than Fed Ex. I worked at UPS for about 4 years and they treat their packages like crap. They step on the boxes, kick them, and throw them around like footballs.
UPS sucks too.

Manny

I get an average of one package a week from UPS. All my packages have been in excellent condition. I have never had a problem with UPS. Fed Ex and DHL on the other hand have not been so consistent.

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Agreed. Yes, Brickman...Fed-Ex Ground & Delivery. We used DHL quite some time ago and they were horrible. You're right, Leannamarrie, Fed-Ex and DHL are consistently terrible. DHL has a whole bunch of really rude, unprofessional employees to be sure. Fed-Ex is just good at busting stuff up and not paying for their mistakes. I bet Fed-Ex's loading docks are a really loud place as everyone's packages are slamming against the trailer walls during loading, LOL.

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HopFrog,

I left Fedex because of a management change; our terminal manager left (to become an asst. hub manager in Chicago), and the asst. P&D manager (an ex-trucker of 10+ years) left to go to another company. With them gone, we got a new terminal manager (who had no business at all in management) and our safety manager was promoted to P&D manager (who had no trucking experience at all). Unfortunately, with these people in place, our terminal took a nosedive: the morning sort was always late (out last relay from columbus or toledo would get there around 0745-0800, when we had been getting out of there by 0700-0715), and there were almost always packages everywhere.
We found out this was because the asst. P&D manager used to get on the dock and load trucks if need be, and generally kick arse and take names to get the sort done.
In fact, one day I came in to find about 200 packages outside my truck, and my truck's shelves were full(~400 packages). I went through my truck and ended up removing about 300 of the packages, because they were supposed to be on other trucks! By the time I got the packages off my truck, and reloaded my packages it was around 0930. And when I had the nerve to ask management why this was being allowed to happen, their standard response was 'we are working on it'.
After putting up with this for six months, I realized it wasn't getting better and probably wouldn't (I had been contracted for 2+ years at this point) so I found someone to take over my truck payment and left.

In retrospect, I should have stuck it out longer, even with the crappy environment that sucked the happiness out of a tough job, but, what can you do? I did make money, about $700-850/week (after expenses and taxes), and was home every night and weekends. And of course, around Xmas, my pay would go up, around $800-1000 week.

I can't understand how the HD folks aren't making money, unless they aren't doing much for stops, I used to do at least 100-120/day (P+D combined), and we got paid a fuel surcharge (based on miles driven), core zone fee (based on how far your delivery area was from the terminal and how densely packed your stops were), paid for stops and packages delivered, and a few other things that I can't remember.

If you were able to make that at 100-120 stops per day than I agree there is no excuse for the HD people not to be making money. We were doing 200+ a day over at UPS so I know the opportunity must be there for them. Seemed like taking vacations would be a real pain though as you would have to get things arranged for someone else to drive your truck.

Butt (lol) both of us....liked the scenery too...

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Fedex bought Watkins out, and when I worked on dock and yard dog for Watkins in late 1970's, loads from CA looked like they were poored into the trailer sitting vertically on its end.

Switching trailers in the yard from LA, sometimes the trailer tilted 3' when you lift it up to move it: scarey poo poo on a little automatic yard dog. Unloading them was over 10 hours since everything had damage reports and hundreds of bills to dig out like hide and seek.

DHL, used by Dell, is a damage king as well noted as a customer. I've replaced all 7 of my flat screen LCD's at least once, and material handling is usually the culprit somewhere down the line (like not loading light or sensitive items on top or cramming them into cracks of heavy shifting loads).

Nope, Fedex and DHL suk. In fact UPS is the best one of all, and its no picnic to deal with themselves (rarely if ever knock on the door 'once' when items arrive before they are stolen). If possible, I like Priority Mail to my US Post Office box. Otherwise, I specify UPS (signature guaranteed, which they ignore often) or make the senders life so miserable every time they make me use another carrier (usually DHL or Fedex) that they will get the message one day hopefully.

Cheap for Fedex and DHL customers means more expensive for the customers' end-customers: same as end-customers of Chinese goods you return constantly or services 'not' done by illegal aliens. Americans are getting a lot shoved down their throats since they have no middle class wages bargaining power any more.

...And simply added to tomorrow's load? That's brilliant. There are a few like that where I work.

I spent the week before last in Tennessee, and they had all the 'quality' driver's doing my area. The Friday before I came back, one guy left with 16 stops and brought back I think 7. So all week I had to bust my arse to get caught up.

You gotta love those 'floater' drivers. They work a different area every day, so why should they care what they bring back? Chances are it won't be them who gets stuck delivering all their returns the next day. For the dedicated guys returns only add to the next day's load.

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Z-Lady's devoted hubby.

That was one of the things I PAID for; a vacation allowance. Everyone who was signed up for the program paid something like $5 a week into the fund. Then, we would give management a list of 4 weeks we'd like off, and they would assign the weeks off (we'd get two) based on seniority- which meant I would never get the week with the 4th of July off, but would always get the second week in January off! The good thing was that during our week off, the 'swing' guy would use his own truck to run or route. The problem was, the swing guy was usually completely overwhelmed by my route (most of my stops were resis [residentials, about 70-75%]) so on my first day back, I was always facing a bleep-storm.
Now for days off (like if I was sick, or my kid was) then I'd have to hire a temp (or my my route's case, two temps) at $100/day, to ride around in my truck and do about 40-50 stops in the course of a day (and if he/she did more than 50, then I was REALLY lucky!).

Oh heck no, the left over is NEVER their problem, always the REGULAR guy's problem!

Oh and Hopfrog, I was contracted with FedEx Ground, not Home Delivery, but again, the only thing I can think of is that they aren't getting much in the way of stops.

Shoulda know, CG!

It's funny you mentioned that, a couple of us Fedex guys used to joke that we worked so many hours, that on the days we got home early, we'd have to go chase the UPS guy out of our houses!