What I am about to tell you is a true story. It happened in the fall of 1997. Every year around September U.P.S. (United Parcel Service) hires a lot of new drivers. It’s a temp position for the Christmas holiday. I had just completed my commercial driving course and I needed a job. A friend of mine knew a supervisor at UPS. My friend Dave told me that his buddy might be able to get me a job.
Dave called me later that night after he spoke to his friend. He said that I should go to the Elmsford distribution location the following day for an interview. I was really excited. I always admired the UPS guys; they looked so cool in their brown uniforms. Plus, how hard could delivering packages be? When I arrived at the warehouse the next day I was totally disappointed. There must have been 100 other guys filling out applications. To make things even worse, I was the only black guy there. “ Fuck," I thought to myself. I don’t stand a chance. White guys ruled UPS in Westchester County. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember ever seeing a black UPS man in Westchester. I suddenly felt really uncomfortable. I had hung out with white people all my life. On many occasions I found myself in the same situation, being the only black guy in the room. It never bothered me. But this was different. This was competing for a job. The odds were not in my favor.
I sat down and filled my out my application. It felt like it was a waste of my time. I really wanted this job. The starting pay was $15.75 per hour, but what where my chances of beating out these white boys? After about 30 minutes of filling out this long multi-page application, I still felt uneasy. At least 30 other guys finished before me. They placed their application forms in a big pile. The two UPS human resources representatives didn’t say a word to them as they walked by. I completed my application and headed toward the desk. After I laid my application on the desk, one the UPS guys picked it up. “ Oh you’re Will!”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “ Yes,” I said. We shook hands and he started to ask me some questions. All the other applicants were staring at me. He told me that my friend Dave told him about me. Then he asked me to come back tomorrow for a road test. I was really excited. My boy Dave came through big fucking time. I left that warehouse feeling good. My life experiences taught me that the key to everything in life is who you know, not what you know.
The next day I took the five-minute road test and passed it with know problem. After the test, John (the UPS rep.) told me I got the job. Damn, just like that I was in. He told me I had to go to Brooklyn, to complete 4 days of training. I couldn’t believe it. I went home totally blown away. I was going to be a UPS man. All I thought about was wearing that brown uniform.
The training went very quickly. On the last day, they told us where to report. They told me to report to the Elmsford Distribution Center and that I would be working in White Plains. I hit the jackpot. White Plains was my hometown. While passing out the uniforms the trainer said, “ Fella’s women seem to love this uniform. Be careful because this brown uniform is going to get you a lot of pussy.” Everybody started laughing, but the trainer said, “ I’m dead serious guys. You won’t have time to chit chat with the ladies, so have your phone numbers ready.”
I remember looking in the mirror that Monday morning. “ Damn I look good in this uniform,” I thought to myself. The Elmsford Distribution Center was broken up into three sections, by zip code. I was assigned to 1060, which was White Plains and a few other small towns. At 8:45 am they had roll call. In White Plains alone there were 40 other drivers. I was shocked, I would have never guessed that it took 40 UPS men to service my town. And just like I had thought there was only one other black guy there. Out of 41 drivers, two of us were black. No wonder I never saw any black UPS guys in my town.
They hooked me up with a guy named Steve, he was white of course. He was pretty cool. We got in the truck and took off to start the route. Steve was around 35 years old. He had been working for UPS for about 11 years. He was married with two kids. Our day started out fast and furious. First thing we had to do was deliver all the next day air packages. Those packages had to be delivered by 10am. He told me to drive while he punched in the information into the DIAD (die-add). I’m sure that many of you are familiar with the procedure of signing for a UPS package. The DIAD stands for Delivery Information Acquisition Device. It’s a very expensive and sophisticated peace of equipment. We did some training on it at the training facility. Steve told me everything about it. He told me the DIAD tracks everything you do, down to the minute. When you sign for a package, the driver returns to the truck and slides the DIAD into a slot on the dashboard. The device then sends a signal to a satellite in space, then the satellite send a signal to a mainframe in Texas. He hated the DIAD because it not only tracked the package it tracked the driver. “ Holy shit,” I said. He warned me to be very careful. After the mad dash to get the next day airs delivered, we were finally able to start my real training.
We went all over town making deliveries. He showed me the ropes and introduced me to his regular delivery customers. I met a shit load of people all in one day. Steve told me to get to know these people cause I would be seeing the same people every day. We delivered to many places of business. I had never met so many fine secretaries and receptionists in my life. We made a delivery to this doctor’s office, and Steve told me to check out the receptionist. When we entered the office, I new exactly which one he was talking about. “ Hi Denise,” Steve said. She was about five foot seven inches tall. She had blonde hair and was blessed with big plump tits that were busting out of her blouse. “ Hi Steve, how are you doing today?” she said. “Man she was hot I thought to myself.”
“ Who’s your friend?” she said smiling as she stared at me.
“ Oh that’s Will, he’ll be your driver during this years holiday season.