The Life of the Loader: Package Handling at United Parcel Service

My job is similar to a cog in a huge machine. I work for the United Parcel Service (UPS), and it is only through the conjunctive work of thousands of individuals that UPS can fulfill its promise to the consumer-the promise of delivering packages on time all over the United States. Explaining the entire journey a single package goes through would fill up a small book, so I will have to settle with explaining of the particulars of my duty in the UPS system: Package handler, package manager, or, just simply, loader.

I am stationed in one of ten bays, collectively called Primary Direct 1 (PD-1) that open up to the UPS Montgomery Hub parking lot. There are six additional PDs, each consisting of ten bays. I stay in PD-1. Feeders (that is, UPS trailers), back on to whichever bay I am currently stationed in and lock into place. I can now enter the feeder, which is big and empty. Other feeders back onto the other nine bays that are manned by other package handlers. They and I work as a team to load packages into the feeders which, at my PD, will all head to Florida once completely filled (with the exception of one bay, which goes to Kentucky). The feeders are typically already in place upon my arrival at work.

As soon as I arrive I go to the time clock, swipe my time card, and pick up the equipment I need to load. The first piece of equipment consists of the eye of a laser scanner encased in metal. This eyepiece is roughly the size of a small cellular phone, and it is encased in metal for protection due to the rough nature of the job. It is designed to sit on my first two fingers via a wraparound strap, much as a watch wraps around a wrist. The second piece is the computing unit, which is wirelessly connected to the eyepiece. The size of a small plate, it, too, is encased in metal and has a screen and depressible buttons, enabling a loader to keep track of his or her own load progress, the time, the number of the feeder he or she is in, and to what particular city in the United States this feeder is going. This computing unit hooks onto a cotton belt, also supplied by UPS. The equipment gathered, turned on, and logged into, I then head to the bays for which I'm responsible.