My experience as a Fed Ex driver

I was a package handler at Fed Ex for roughly two months. The process started like this, my dad took a picture of a Fed Ex truck with a sign that said great hours, great pay! Yeah... so at one point I decided to give them a call. Some guy picked up, said being a Fed Ex driver involves knowing how to drive, and being able to stick to your route, what you'd expect right. He said you come in at around 9 I think and work until 1 or so. Seemed pretty easy. Asked what the pay was, he said around 1k per week, that's a ton for a 20 year old. I was understandably excited! Skip forward a day, I arrive at the warehouse, took me time and a lot of effort just to get in, couldn't figure that out. They had me complete a bunch of forms, boring and timely of course. They had me get a physical at some random place a few hours later. Went back to the warehouse, they said you have to be at least 21 to be a Fed Ex driver, at the time I was 19 but as I type this story, that happened around 2 months ago as I remember. You'd think they'd tell you on the phone you have to be at least 21 to drive. No... they had me fill out a bunch of paperwork and contracts, as well as do a physical for nothing, bad start. You'd think they'd ask for my age since I look young. People say I look a few years younger than I am, which I agree and understand, I try to take it as a compliment often, doesn't always sound like one though. So, yeah. Why they didn't ask for my age is questionable. And I think I gave them my basic info at the time as well that your not old enough to be a driver making roughly 1k per week. You can probably figure out how I felt after doing all that annoying work for almost nothing.

Skip forward, they have me come in again if I remember that correctly to do a questionaire interview on a pc, bunch of typical questions as usual. They told me I could be a package handler working for minimum wage... they tell me, I can either work at around 12-6 in the morning, or somewhere along the line of 8-12 at night. Great hours they say, great pay they say, they don't think to say to someone who looks young that you need to be older to drive a truck, plus they teach you how to drive, and I think you get paid to practice before you work. So... I went from thinking I was going to drive a truck for 1k per week, and having to fill out tedious paperwork online, o and by the way, they were having issues with the online part, their English was poor, and they barely helped, to working minimum wage at either very early in the morning, or late at night scanning packages in a very bright and cold warehouse, no breaks, except to go to the bathroom, while was poorly maintained, and working non stop around heavy machinery. The packages were often very heavy. That went on for a few weeks, turns out the equipment is very outdated and poorly maintained. The same ones that allow you to do your job in the first place. I had to get used to waking up at 2-3 in the morning and getting off at roughly 6-7 am on a good day, once at around 8:30 am, minimum wage, and everything else I mentioned before. I was so tired one day, the manager on the same belt I was working on, which was belt 3, felt bad and sent me home to rest. Skip a week or 2. The manager in charge of ICs, still have no idea what that stands for, after asking to be put in smalls, aka, scanning smaller packages, let me relocate to another part of the warehouse. That was decent, for what I was going through, for a week or so. At one point, some of the workers decided to get me in trouble with the guy in charge of the warehouse so he forced me to work somewhere else, they acted like low lives the whole time I was working with them. So I definitely had it with them at that point. Can't stand people doing crap like that! After that, the... wait wait, back track a week... forgot to add, the manager in charge of ICs, basically very very heavy packages you have to carry to a tugger, yelled at me for asking to work at smalls since I was having difficulty lifting very heavy packages around heavy machinery. Confronted and yelled at me and said somewhere along the lines of, IF I TELL YOU TO DO SOMETHING... YOU DO IT. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT. YOU LISTEN TO ME AND DO WHAT I SAY. Me: I just want to work at smalls. Keep in mind, not only is he not fully covering his face with a mask, but he has the audacity to think he can push me around just because he thinks he can order anyone around at any time. And he was very over weight. So back to what I was doing a week later, I have a normal routine of working for awhile. If I had any issues, I'd go to one of 2 managers in ICs, this guy looked like he was in his late 20s, early 30s. He was a very nice guy, the type you'd see as a friend. After some time, I notice the manager/boss who runs the place. He's a nice guy. Very reasonable, you know, cares about the workers, makes sure everything runs smooth... yeah, no. This guy is anything but reasonable or nice, he yells at everyone to work, even though I see nothing but people working, walks around eyeing everyone, yelling at the workers who make mistakes, and just yells like he owns everyone, not to mention he says he's a "leader". A leader makes sure everyone is doing well, asks how your doing, actually shows he's about inspiring us. A boss tells you your late to work and if you keep this up, look for a new job, a leader would ask why your late, and say it's ok, and asks how your doing. This guy just acts like he's in full control, I asked other workers what they thought of him. They said to no surprise, he's a "dick". I file a complaint on him, he comes up to me, and says, he can easily fire me for no doing my job, when in fact, that's all I'm doing, apparently the speed I was going at wasn't good enough for him. When he's in my vicinity, I get nothing but anxious. A boss is a boss and a leader is a leader, there is a big big difference in how either operate. One heck of a fine line without a doubt.

Fast track again, as I'm doing my work in smalls, the same thing I've been doing for the past few weeks, the same manager in charge of ICs chooses to confront me NOW and tell me I'm supposed to check in with him when I clock in and ask him what to do. My question is, if your managing a workplace, after just a few days, you should you notice one person not checking in with you, and then professionally ask them why they are not checking in with you in the first place. Did it ever occur to you that you should tell that person to check in with you rather than expect them to do it? They wouldn't know to do that if you never bothered to tell them in the first place. So instead of telling them to do something your supposed to do daily, you go to them weeks later and yell at them for not doing it at all when you never told them to do it in the first place and then choose to believe they should have known somehow to begin with, and then continue to act like you have the right to yell at them for something you were responsible for? Yeah, your in the wrong there, not me. And I've never seen anyone check in with the manager in ICs, they just know where they're supposed to go, same as me. By the way, I'm not very strong which is why I chose to work in smalls, because I know my strengths and weaknesses well, and yet the new guy who already knows his place, has his own routine, and you act like he should know what you want him to do. Also, the managers are always walking around, and see what your doing, so why would you be surprised if you see that person coming in not checking with you, goes about his routine and you don't tell him sooner, and then just yell at him even though you know he doesn't go to you first? You see him almost everyday not doing that. So why yell at him when you never told him at all and act like he should've know. Then relocate him somewhere else he's not full qualified to be. Just because you work somewhere, doesn't mean you need to be good at every position there.

An incident that occurred one day, the manager that runs ICs and another one that usually works on the 1st belt kept yelling at me because I wasn't putting ICs in the right place. So you just gang up on a worker, yell at them for not doing something right, when your instructions aren't clear, in what world does that make sense? Then threaten to write them up for insubordination when your being a complete *ss and the workplace is very loud. After that dilemma, the manager from belt 3 came over and asked what was wrong, so I brought him up the speed on what happened. And how did he react... he understood and told me everything was going to be alright.

You see what I mean? It's like they don't have any common sense and don't care, but they still treat others with nothing but disrespect when you are working for a company that is promoting professionalism and working smart.

So for the rest of the time I worked there, it was winter, freezing outside and early in the morning. I was so miserable doing that 5 days a week and they kept cutting my hours. Another manager I was borderline mutual with, starts acting like a prick as well. The thing is, the managers don't want you to make much, and the packages have to be on the trucks at a certain time or the j*ck*ss managers get pissed and start full on yelling at us like we're slaves. So the more hours we work, the more we get paid, obviously, by the hour, but the managers don't want us making more since that somehow takes away from their paychecks somehow. Which doesn't make any sense to me. Their pay is not corolated with ours, they get paid different wages because they have different positions. So am I missing something, or are they just being pricks? So we work as long as we can in this toxic environment, just to make minimum wage, and some of the workers are around their 30s-40s on average I think. So you can understand the situation a bit better, and they talk about diversity, yet almost everyone was black or Hispanic, including the managers, almost no one was of any other ethnicity.

If they tell you to leave, and you stay a minute longer, they start to get pissed so if you get hurt and clock out they can claim they are not responsible, since the whole place is heavy machinery. The last day I was working for Fed Ex, one of the managers decides to make me pick up a ton of smalls, in bags, pretty heavy, on my own, a cart is supposed to be used to make the process much quicker and easier, but this guy somehow thinks it's better to just carry it all by hand... and they promote working smart. I was working hard, see the difference. I also banged my knees and legs in while working in the trucks, nothing in that working environment was safe. Also, the other guy who working in ICs, said he was going on a vacation. Apparently, it was permanent as I didn't see him again, understandably. In the end, I talked to another manager who was really nice on a decent basis when I saw her. Which is why I went to her instead of the j*ck*ss who "ran" the place. I even made an effort to stay in touch with a few people, I'm always trying to leave a positive impact of peoples lives.

Although the pay and hours were terrible, one relative still managed to find it rational to wake up earlier, as in in the middle of the night for this job. Work work work they say, work until you drop they say, work a miserable job for a 401k they say, bloody pathetic mindset.

All in all, that job was terrible.

Thanks for reading, hopefully this reading will help you. You can contact me by email for any further comments or to talk. [email protected]