Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration
businessinsider.com
Tech workers react to UPS drivers landing a $170,000 a year package with a mixture of anger and admiration::Some tech workers questioned whether UPS drivers deserved high pay — others jumped in to note the importance of the jobs and harsh working conditions.
The amount of shit a delivery driver puts up with? They certainly deserve it. Good on them, we should all be well paid, and thinking otherwise is Stockholm syndrome.
Meanwhile software devs? We sit around in a comfy meeting room sipping coffee and are occasionally a bit stressed. Sure there's exceptions, but most devs I know have it pretty good while making a shit ton of money
And I will add that you also deserve to be well paid and have your own stressors and those matter too. We all deserve a good wage. What's the point otherwise?
But I'm especially glad because delivery drivers are often treated poorly.
Also make sure you add the amount of schooling, training, and certifications that you as a Tech industry worker are expected to shell out for to get ahead, gone are the years where a high school diploma and some skills gets you in the door in Tech. Also the hours we need to put in.
So sure it's not as physically demanding as delivery driving, but it is absolutely mentally demanding and time consuming. Most things in tech are also things the average person isn't interested in learning, so it's not like a delivery driver can go and code or engineer some kind of solution for complex IT problems or environments, but a developer/IT worker can absolutely get out there and deliver packages if they had to for some reason.
Either way, good on the UPS folks, now it's time to take that and leverage it across the board for all of the other career paths.
Your response implies that tech workers are mentally more fit than those who work for UPS. This is flatly untrue, if tech workers are so damn smart, why don't we unionize? We would make a ton more money, have better work life balance, and job security! It's the same story for every industry, unions are the antidote to capitalism death cult.
I think they were more so arguing about the costs of the training itself. Those loans aren't free for a lot of people, and scholarships aren't unlimited.
A lot of people don't have time to work while they're in school, so those loans can also take on a pretty nasty interest rate.
I'm of the mindset that people who work hard deserve good money. If a job is something that most people can't or won't do, companies will usually have to pay more to encourage people to stay and do those jobs. Otherwise, why would people go into debt for schooling and training? Why go through the stress and expenses for no reason? Yes there's passion for some people, but that doesn't pay tuition lol
This is in no way to undermine the argument that UPS drivers deserve every penny they get paid. I am regularly very stressed out by my current client. Consulting can be an absolute bitch.
While my job can be stressful, I switched from contracting to a ft job with a single employer well over a decade ago and never looked back. Have I earned less money over those however many years? Oh, yes. But I work regular days, rarely get hassled, know the system inside and out, and really like my coworkers who are mostly people who have also been there for a very long time.
Damn, I must have had the wrong dev job. Did one for 13 years where i had to wear flame retardant clothes, drive up mountains in the winter and sit out in the desert in the summer, annual training as a first responder. But I did sip a lot of coffee and have a lot of stress.
Well the one thing that pandemic has taught us is that people are never satisfied no matter how much they get. Before the pandemic, nobody gave a flying shit in the tech world, specifically the devs, about work from home or hybrid work nature. But somehow now they are entitled to it. Still the tech giants obliged and are allowing them to work from home. Now they are pissed that someone who works physically and deliver items to their door steps is earning as much as they are while they sit on their fat asses watching a screen. Sure they have other deadlines and stuff which the drivers won’t have to face, but don’t be so fucking greedy and jealous when someone is getting paid for their hard work.
That crab mentality (crabs in a bucket) can be hard to shake but it's got to go. The Boondocks explained it nicely (short SFW extract from an otherwise NSFW TV programme here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipg4EL_JUyE)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=ipg4EL_JUyE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Good bot. Do we do that here?
As far as I'm concerned, why not? Useful bots deserve recognition as well
tech workers: i'm underpaid and everyone else should be too!
fucking unionize already. tired of this crabs-in-a-bucket mentality
Or, perhaps this article is just trying to sow discord between workers.
One of the old tricks in the books to make people despise unions is to take the very best union deals and sensationalize them, so that others hate the union out of jealousy.
Make it appear like the UPS driver is getting paid $170K for 32 hours of work, in a fully A/C'd vehicle on a short, easy route, starting pay, right out of college without a degree, four weeks of vacation yada yada.
When in reality, the $170K probably only kicks in if you take the absolute worst routes, worst shifts (weekend/night) with max overtime and even then, a third of it is retirement, insurance and health care contributions. And you only get the max after 10 or 20 years of service, if they didn't fire you as you increased.
The headline is sensationalized for sure. But the article itself actually makes the point that the tech workers are misunderstanding that the $170k figure includes both salary and benefits.
On the whole though this is a useless article covering drama on Blind, wrapped up with a ragebait headline.
This is the buried lead. Blind is a negative echo chamber where your posts gets no value if you don't mention your TC (total compensation). Opinions from there should be taken with a grain of salt.
My guy at work is amazing. He's almost always on time somehow, gets in and out, knows the answer to stupid questions people ask him and has classic rock from a bluetooth speaker in his truck. He deserves every penny, and some damn air conditioning.
What strange math. My healthcare costs are DEDUCTED from my salary
Most places I’ve worked at say “it would cost you 5,000 / month for healthcare, but we’re only charging you $500 / month, so that’s $4,500 / month we’re paying you”
Highly likely.
I think people just don't realize how underpaid they are. They think that because they make six figures, that means they're getting paid what they're worth.
Actually what people don’t realize is what the above poster means between the lines, this is an article by big corp to make the general public angry at unionized organizations.
Bingo. A greedy neoliberal company putting out articles to help greedy neoliberals companies.
They might tolerate competition and superficial disagreements, but the moment something is a threat to profits they have incredible class solidarity.
Companies are not liberal or conservative... They are all capitalist.
They all push neoliberalism because it's constant failure to deliver on it's promises makes them rich.
If you were paid what you were worth the company wouldn't make any money.
Corporations exist by the excess value of their workers' labor, by definition.
Eh that's a paradox though. If the company makes no money, there's no job for you in the first place making you worth nothing.
No you are misunderstanding the roles of labor and capital. If I withhold my labor, then the owners have nothing to sell. If they withhold pay to me, I go to another company with my labor. Capital cannot create value, only labor can.
You can go to another company, but they too wouldn’t exist if they didn’t make money.
It’s not a paradox. The money the company makes is profit. Profit is what’s left of revenue after costs are subtracted. People’s pay is a cost.
They're quoting Blind users though, Blind is a cesspool of silicon Valley tech bros. It's often just a dick measuring contest between FAANG workers about who makes more money.
Some tech workers. This is just a stupid ragebait piece.
Fuck off with this class war baiting bullshit
Tech workers need to ask themselves why their boss makes more than them for doing nothing
There’s no way any substantial amount of tech workers are concerned about what UPS workers are making. These kinds of articles are rage bait targeted at “low skill” workers to make them furious at what they perceive to be high salary earners complaining about “blue collar” workers earning more money.
All of this bullshit is a distraction from the fact that the middle class is shrinking at a massive rate and the lower class is being turned against itself so nobody can rightfully blame the rich.
Fuck this article and the hatred it’s designed to generate. This is all bullshit.
"Wait, it's all bullshit?" points gun "Always has been"
It's Business Insider. What do you expect?
Tech worker here. I'm gd pleased to bits for anyone making a decent income. Congrats UPS drivers. Do teachers next!
Ah. The anti-union propaganda has begun to stop the tech industry from unionizing, lol.
They are scared they will and with good reason. A strong union will level the playing field.
You'd think these complainers would realize it's great when other jobs get a massive raise... because those engineers can now say "Why should I work here and deal with your nonsense when UPS drivers are making near 100K in low cost of living income areas?"
Like, please please please let the cashiers at walmart start making 30 dollars an hour so I can tell my boss that I need a raise or I'm dipping to walmart.
Holy hell, I wish more people got this concept.
They don't have to worry too much about us tech workers unionizing because the tech world is full of more introverts on average than other (especially blue collar) fields. And a lot of us are constantly scared of getting fired or replaced.
So many of us still believe the lie that our individual hard work will be rewarded.
It's going to be a while.
I was fantasizing a bit about becoming wealthy enough to stop working, and it occurred to me that the actual best thing to do if I'm ever in that position would be to start talking with my coworkers about unionizing. Then maybe even get fired for it and sue for more money. Money I'd probably plow back into unionizing tech workers.
I like your way o thinking
As a tech worker, I say good for them.
As a fellow tech worker, I agree. Probably most tech workers would agree, but since that's boring, this article focuses on the opinion of just "some tech workers on social media". So dumb.
Like 3 ancient jaded guys that are working on network infrastructure for a small hospital in Montana posted on Xwitter that they're upset. 10000 bots reposted it...now it's newsworthy.
I'm going with Xitter pronounced sh-ITT-er That makes tweets Xits pronounced sh-IT-s
“some tech workers on blind”. Even worse
As a tech worker in Europe, the concept of "deserving" or "not deserving" a specific number has always been a total joke. Your salary is like 80% determined by location alone.
Any notion of "merit" (whatever that even means, there isn't even a good way of measuring it in many industries) has always been only very loosely correlated with compensation.
So if you can get it, go get it.
This is a little misleading. It's $170k in pay and benefits, not just salary. Still, UPS drivers deserve it and this will make everyone's experience with UPS so much better.
Because the engineer is being exploited and refuses to unionize.
Bitch, UPS workers work harder than I ever did as an electronics engineer.
If he wants the $170k so badly, he should go get a job as a driver then.
As someone who has worked as a UPS driver and now as a software developer, I can say that the UPS drivers definitely work harder than your average engineer.
That quote is also deftly ignoring the fact that you’re generally paid for the value you generate, not how hard to you work.
Generally you're paid the least they can get away with (with some variance in what they think that is).
It generally requires a union to get paid closer to the value you generate.
Fucking truth, especially for software engineers. I spent most of today debating whether to use
npmorpnpmfor some project that's probably just going to get mothballed anyway.I mean I know my worth, but I definitely don't work even 1/23rd as hard as even the laziest delivery driver imaginable. Even pretending to be a delivery driver is more work than my actual job.
I'm starting to think people should be forced to have at least 1 year of experience in a, so called, blue-collar job before they are allowed to have an office job.
As a tech worker in rhe U.S. we are definitely not being exploited. I'm all for unions but we're doing just fine.
Narrator, as Elon dances over Twitter headquarters with strobe lights and Google charges employees $99 per night to stay at their own hotel:
"They were being exploited."
Let's just say that some tech workers in the US are being exploited more than others. A lot more
I hear what you're saying: we're very well compensated. But think of the profit your team helps generate for your employer. It is a lot more than the combined salaries of the people who actually make the product / service.
As one of the tech workers: fuck yeah, good for them for negotiating well, and getting what they're owed.
This is also why most jobs should be unionized
Maybe. I know shipping things via UPS is about to get a lot more expensive, and maybe it should be.
Yeah, if shipping gets more expensive that means that shipping was cheap because of exploitation of people. I don't know about anyone else, I personally wouldn't want that.
Exactly. This logic can also be applied to fast food, hard labor, etc...
I have worked as a driver helper in the past. This pay makes sense. It's a demanding job mentally and physically. With the pay being good it also means people work really hard to get that job and really hard to keep it. Congratulations to them.
Wow good for UPS workers. As a tech worker I can say I'm genuinely happy for them. They have a hard ass job. A win for labor is a win for labor, regardless of which type.
And it's not like their win is our loss. Why would we fight amongst ourselves? It's the ultra-rich we should be sizing up.
If we divide, we'll be conquered. That wisom is at least two thousand years old by now. Better to unite and defy.
Exactly. This shouldn’t give anyone any feelings besides, “wow, I need to organize workers in my field too.” Full stop.
These people are no different than the ones who were pissed that “burger flippers” were trying to make $15/hr minimum. Like…mind your own business—and by that I mean, right your business because you’re underpaid too.
Pushing tens of pounds around in the heat everyday is hard, expecially inside a van without AC.
Let's just hope tech workers will be smart enough to unionize and organize like the UPS Chads did.
It's a good objective, but it would take a lot to make it happen. It's significantly more challenging for tech workers to effectively unionize en masse for several reasons:
Tech isn't monopsonistic, or even close to it; there isn't a single large employer... even the biggest tech companies employ only a relatively small fraction of the tech workforce. That means separate unionization efforts at thousands of big companies, not at one.
Tech job functions are much more widely varied than "delivery driver"; job responsibilities differ greatly, complexity and education requirements differ greatly, workplace expectations differ greatly ... think of the difference between help desk, front end dev, network security engineering, data science and DBA. Collective bargaining is harder the more varied the needs of the collective are.
Job mobility is really high in the tech sector ... in other words, tech employees (by and large) have access to many prospective employers (especially with the prevalence of remote work), and tech employers to a wide geographic pool of talent. That means if your San Francisco office seems on the path to unionization, you can shift work to your Chennai office.
It also means that, when the working conditions at a tech company suck, a lot of tech workers can easily jump ship. It's hard to get a union going when your voters can easily quit and go work someplace nicer, rather than take the more difficult path of staying and trying to force your employer to improve.
Again, I think highly of unions and would really like to see more effective unionization efforts in tech -- I just want folks to go into it eyes wide open and intelligently, vs throwing up their hands and saying, "Why don't tech workers unionize?"
Yea i understand, for reference my father works and worked his whole life in IT, my grandma worked as union rep and I'm interested in both worlds, I get that the struggle is real, the sector is young. Even just 30 years ago there was no IT market, for reference the transport industry is as old as time and yet this historic contract was won in 2023 AD, we just gotta push and organize.
I see we are trying to sow some tension between working class people here eh?
As a tech worker, I do almost jack shit and make deep into the six figures. Honestly, I'd be fine if UPS drivers made more than me, good on them.
Frankly, in terms of total compensation, pay them more.
Whenever I see a delivery driver or pole worker or whatever, especially on a shitty day, from the window of my cozy home office, the same thought crosses my mind
I have a pro-driver pro-union UPS placard in my window and a "Unionize Amazon" sticker on my hoodie. I'm happy for UPS workers. They fought and won a much better contract. It's genuinely exciting that there's so much positive union activity in the USA right now.
It's because people are realizing it works. Like airline attendants are on the picket line with the actors and the writers now. A win for any of them is a win for all of us. Power to the people baby
We had decades of low union activity that gave corporations the chance to show how well they would take care of us on their own.
And they super fucked entire generations of workers.
Now people must unionize, or their dirt salaries will lose them their rented homes and starve their kids. So we're seeing a blossoming of union activity in many sectors.
It's time for workers to have a tiny slice of those mega-profits corporations have been earning off our backs.
Unionize America!
This isn't fucking news! Enough of this dumb ragebait bullshit.
Omg you wouldn't believe, someone on the internet was an asshole!
It's a tactic to pit us against each other rather then the proper people running to the bank.
Well shit, if you look at the top comments in this thread it's absolutely working
Come on, business insider and "some tech workers"...
The idea is that unions can secure higher wages to show you it can be done. Now both union and non-union drivers can reference UPS for a salary "that reflects increasing industry averages".
Software techbros, if you think you're worth more than UPS drivers, tell your boss. If you think your boss is gonna dismiss you, then get all your co-workers who think you're worth more than 170k then get your boss to hear you out as a group. Did I hear, "you nyan eyes"?
I mean techbro pay is often way past that. Total yearly comp in the 400+. It's just all in RSU.

We all do better when we all do better.
As someone who has only worked freight in an air-conditioned warehouse, moving boxes is not easy work and not many people will be able to do it their whole careers. I'm personally glad I argue with computers for my job now and I have much respect for those lifting things in the elements.
"A rising tide lifts all boats" is something Republicans say is impossible because God wouldn't let the liberal commie boats rise with the patriot boats.
A UPS driving job is a hell of a lot more difficult and tiring than most tech jobs. It might take less skill, but tech workers don't have to be out in the heat or freezing cold all day carrying heavy loads and dealing with angry people who blame them for a late package or, worse, get shot at for the crime of being in the neighborhood while black.
This is true. Hence why garbage men are paid quite a lot. Low skill but a very difficult job.
The context is all wrong. It is less money for CEOs, not less for tech workers. Good job teamsters.
My UPS guy deserves every penny of it.
My housing development is a confusing maze of twisty streets. The street I live on takes multiple turns where another street starts when my street should have gone straight on. My UPS person deserves every penny just for being able to figure out which house is which.
Can we react more about trust fund managers and CxO salaries instead?
Interestingly, we sort of can't. Someone would have to write an article about it and no large, for-profit media company would publish it.
They earn every dollar because I would nope the fuck out of there so fast
yep
I’ll take my lower salary to sit in my home office with central air
I wouldn’t last a day as a driver with their expectations and the need to move/lift heavy packages in the heat
Complaining about this is dumb. Someone else’s gain isn’t your loss. Everyone outside the top tier earners should be paid more. Period. I’m happy a union had the national stage representing UPS workers and showed why unions are important.
As someone in tech who also has a friend that works for UPS, this is amazing for them! Anything that can improve their lives is a win. UPS people who incredibly hard (regardless of how much shit I give my friend when UPS does something silly with my deliveries)
TLDR article prob funded by big corporations wants general public to get triggered by unionized organizations.
“Business insider”…yea. With quotes from the CEO about how unfair things are.
Business Insider is such a garbage publication.
I don't really think so, it's a magazine geared toward management employees writing to suit its audience
I've spent about 20 years in management and I still disagree.
I work in tech and have enjoyed good salaries, I wish everyone was so fortunate.
As for myself, it would actually be a huge relief to know that there are many career options for me that paid just as well, because sometimes I really want to do something else. If wages had grown fairly, then a lot more people would be making 100,000+.
Tech workers have no right to be angry. Unionize or shut up. (Excluding all the supportive tech workers, including those in the comments.) Source: am a tech worker
I've never understood the idea of being mad about what another industry is making. They make more money than you? Great go put in an application. Don't want to work in that industry? Then maybe they deserve the better pay. If you truly think you are that superior to the other industry then use their pay to bargain at your own job.
If you're a nurse who's working long hours at a job that requires an education and you're getting paid the same as a McDonald's cook, don't be mad at the cook, be mad at your employer. Go to them and demand a raise, and say I could work there for the same pay, spend more time with my family and not be responsible for keeping people alive. Pay me or I'm going to peace out.
I doubt any tech workers are angry. The article is click-bait to enrage non-tech workers.
I'm a tech executive... good for UPS workers. That's what unions are for, to balance out investors' demands and get people paid fairly.
As a tech worker for over 25 years, I say good for them.
Hell, if my back, knees and neck weren't already fucked, I'd be damned tempted to start driving for UPS.
I'm already kind of nearing a point where a move away from tech is appealing, but even if I accept the idea of some reduction in pay, I'm at a loss for what I can do that wouldn't see me losing half my income which would just be more than I'd like to bear.
I know someone in his 20s who makes $41 and some change per hour plus $150 per diem...
7 days on and 7 days off...
"Unskilled" coal mine work.
It's pretty damn insulting to be honest as someone who's been in the technology industry for over 25 years when I have to deal with companies and recruiters thinking that my labor is somehow worth less than that.
Hell, I made more than that 18 years ago (and I still do as an hourly without the per diem) but now I get dipshit recruiters emailing and calling me constantly thinking I should be willing to work for $25 an hour or even sometimes less.
It's like I'm living in fucking crazy world.
Not sure why that is but energy jobs pay a lot. Had a friend who worked on an oil rig and made about 400k
Seems pretty crazy really...
I would still try to fight for more than you make. It will be tough, don't get me wrong, but I think most industries are in this position one way or another. Everything is going up, and everyone has to eat. Why can't everyone make more, so less people suffer? The costs for everyone have certainly increased. A lot of these "record profits" should really be finding their way to employees, but they rarely do anymore.
With the "unskilled coal mine work" example specifically, I believe a big reason for their pay rate is the numerous immediate and long term health risks that are associated with it. Historically, mining has been a pretty fatal/dangerous job. They miners will probably need that money down the road if they get any of those bad conditions. It's certainly not a job that I would feel safe doing, nor is it one I would ever do for cheap. You should look into all of the associated lung diseases and ths effects that certain mined materials can have on the human body, especially with prolonged exposure. PPE can only do so much sometimes.
When I see people making more than me with less skill, I think "damn, I should be making that too". Why can't both jobs have good pay rates? Both would be nice. What a world we live in.
If you can, unionizing might help. It takes the company perspective from "we'll lose one great guy" to "holy shit, everything will crash and burn if we don't meet their demands!". I would also look into the laws in your area. Where I live, unions can protect you well before you actually create a contract. That knowledge was very useful to my coworkers and I a couple of years ago, because we previously thought that they could just fire us for trying to join a union (jobs are at-will here).
If you get a good union, the pros can outweigh the fees easily. They can cut right through a LOT of corporate bs, and they will usually provide lawyers for you if your company tries to screw you over. The lawyers mine provides are pretty top-tier.
I don't disagree with anything you said.
Did anyone read this article? The summary and title make it sound like a bad YouTube video in article form… “Tech workers react…”
Is there anything actually interesting inside?
It’s businessinsider. The answer is always “no”
They found a post on an anonymous forum complaining and made an article about it because it fits their narrative that workers are being paid too much
They even misspelled “job” in the middle of the article they spent so little time proofreading or fact checking
Edit: The only interesting lines in the article
Thanks, I figured as much. BI gonna BI…
the inside or substance doesn't matter; what matters is that it gets attention (like it is here) and makes other mad enough that drivers are getting paid so much more than they are that they support politicians and laws capping/crippling pay transparency.
This reminds me of what happened at my last job towards the end of the lockdown. Previously, you started at a certain wage and increased a specific amount every 500ish hours, up to a limit. The last "raise" was only like 4 cents, but you still had to work the extra 500ish hours to get it.
Well, the company decided that they weren't paying enough to be competitive, so they suddenly raised everyone to the top rate. This put people who just started their very first job at the same pay rate as the people who had been there for multiple years. Their "solution" was to give the long term employees a one off, taxed, check for $200. To say that people were angry would be an understatement.
Personally, I think they should have just increased everyone across the board, especially after previously bragging about making record profits multiple years in a row.
IMO, when someone else makes more, it gives me room to also argue for more. Otherwise, why not go to another company that will pay it? Getting angry at the guy with the raise won't give you one. Inflation will still happen.
Who are these tech workers getting mad?
As a tech worker, fuck yeah! You earned it. Delivery people deal with so much shit. And I'm rooting for your success.
I've been in tech for 3 decades now...and I have nothing but applause for UPS drivers landing this package.
Why would tech workers have a problem with this? From my perspective, that's just one more industry I can consider hopping to if my employer doesn't start getting their shit together when it comes to compensation packages. The more choices available to tech workers, then less beholden they are to their own employers, so this is a win for tech workers also.
UPS drivers getting this deal is better for everyone, in every industry.
Seems to me there's a concentrated effort to convince the public that there's outrage.
There totally is. The American worker is starting to realize the worth of their labor.
If we went on strike (I'm a driver btw) it literally would have stopped the economy. We move 6% of the countries GDP. We all won with our contract. It's way past time for every industry to unionize if an employer is treating them unfairly.
Manufactured consent at work
Why don't they go work for UPS then?
Yea. Theres assholes with shitty opinions in all fields of life.
As a Tech worker I think my job is more sophisticated, but much easier and less stressful than of an UPS driver, and I'm happy they can get a decent wage.
That's the point of a union -- people in skilled and sophisticated work can benefit from it too, but the folks whose jobs are extremely demanding but basically fungible really need a union.
They don't...and if you aren't in that range with 2-5 years of experience, you should be exploring opportunities.
The other thing, it looks like their TOC is 170k, not their base pay. So that includes their health, time off, retirement, etc...
Any halfway competent engineer should be making that TOC.
Finally...good for them. If you're bitching about them making too much, I'm pretty sure they're hiring.
I think I share the sentiment with a majority of the responses from my fellow tech workers: fuck yeah, they deserve it. Those people are out in the elements (mind you during record breaking heat waves).
They deserve every dollar of that 170k and more as I sit in an air conditioned room pushing pixels
No anger at the UPS drivers, just my employer. But I can’t exactly stop working without risking my life collapsing around me so 🙃
Why does this article exist? Who cares what tech workers think about someone else's pay rate?
is there to make people mad that the drivers are getting paid more and make you more predisposed to hate unions.
Why would I hate unions if they are capable of getting me 170k salary? Sounds like I need to be in a union. My last thought is hating them.
A majority have crabs-in-a-bucket mentality and this "news story" is meant for them
Yeah but have you sat in a UPS truck even it's parked? It just beeps non stop.
Points from the article:
could get $170,000 in pay and benefits in five years' time in a new contract.
"This is disappointing, how is possible that a driver makes much more than average Engineer in R&D?""This is disappointing, how is possible that an average Engineer in R&D makes much less than a driver?"It is important to note that the $170,000 figure represents the entire value of the UPS package, including benefits and does not represent the base salary.
Despite some tech workers' resentment, many workers pointed out UPS drivers work under difficult conditions.
"I'd love for you to meet my dad who has delivered for UPS for over 35 years, hauls 100s of packages in the 105+ degree Texas heat, is literally Santa Claus in Dec, and does it for 9+ hours a day at 67 yo,"
My FIL recently retired after 25+ years with UPS. He made pretty good money, but he worked a ton of overtime. IIRC their top pay rate was somewhere between $30-35/hour. That puts base pay at about $75k/year. I wonder how UPS calculated the extra $100k/year in benefits or if they're assuming their average driver works some quantity of overtime. I'm betting it's the second, which would drive the numbers up. However, to make that kind of money you're going to be working 50+ hours a week and most holidays.
There are guys at my hub that make 150k take home, but never see their families because all they do is work. Sorry. That's not for me. I like my wife and kids way too much to sacrifice what little time we get on this earth. I do my 40-50 hours a week and go the fuck home for weekends and take my vacations.
The way this reads to me: “Some tech workers [who have never had a hard, physical job but also want their packages delivered in one day] questioned…”
Hmmm Dev bros, what we do now?
Unionize
Talk about an NP-hard problem.
Grind leetcode!
Keep doing our jobs. We get paid well enough to afford the price increase in shipping things via UPS.
Hopefully, the mixture is 1% anger to 99% admiration. And that they are inspired to demand more for their labor as well.
As a union electrician that's not $170k on the check. They still making like $95k a year but have benifits paid into the package. Medical, pension, 401k, etc.
Oh... Cool... We get it - So you're saying fuck the bosses, right?
I was in that blind post and it was dumb. Why complain that someone else is getting more money. It's not a competition. Everyone deserves a good life
What’s even more dumb is business insider making a story about it.
UPS drivers currently make an average of about $95,000 a year with an additional $50,000 in benefits. - That is news to me.
Headline should read "Corporate Magazine Attempts to Stoke Up Some Of That Old Anti-Labour Heat From The 80s."
Worked in Ed-Tech making less than teachers while at the same time seeing that when the network went down so did the majority of teachers' ability to teach. Didn't make me mad that the person with a Masters made more than the person with an A+. Also spoke to a former tech who, in six years, went from making less than I did in the same position to making over $300k a year.
If you want it, it's out there. You want UPS driver pay? You want to put yourself in one of the more dangerous jobs and do physical labor? You want CISO pay? You want to forego intimate relationships and free time? You want Ed-Tech Technician pay? You want to sit in an air conditioned office, answer printer and smart board tickets and goof off for half of every day?
High paying tech jobs are out there yeah but you gotta be an SME and own a solution which really involves in my POV knowing programming, some backend, networking and infrastructure. Tech work is so vast people only really master one thing. Tech workers are notoriously lazy as well, soon as people get a "cushy" job it's like pulling teeth trying to get them to learn a new skill. Can't tell you the amount of times I've tried to teach old school network guys some devops stuff and they say something like "I don't want to have to learn programming" and when I tell them it's really not as complicated as they think they have some other excuse locked and loaded
The Tech field does encourage laziness in certain specializations. Networking is notorious for it because once it's up and configured properly you should be able to sit back and relax. For the most part it will run itself when set up correctly. And you pay for that downtime by not getting paid as much.
CyberSecurity is absolutely booming right now, and those dudes are making a mint. Why? Cause they're going to run around like beheaded chickens more times than not with the pace that attacks are happening. What's that do for their salary? Shoots it through the roof.
Just because your job is business critical doesn't mean you deserve as much as someone else who's doing business critical work. How much work are you doing to maintain the business is the real question, and like I said above, proper Networks should not require tons of intervention. Security solutions, however, do.
Well I only work on new stuff/deployments for data centers. Once it's deployed it goes to ops for support. I don't know if you have a lot of experience in large networks but there is a lot of break/fix work with failing hardware components and physical issues ..but that's not the side of the house you want to be in because operational stuff like NOCs are always high turnover fast-paced jobs where everything is your fault. If you're going to work networking you gotta transition to the "money-making" side of the house for better quality of life. Right now the "sexy" stuff is devops/automation and that's where a lot of gripe comes from with the old school CLI guys because they don't want to learn anything new.
Job before this was at a university with a small team of infrastructure engineers and you would think their job was to stifle progress. Their whole team and millions of dollars in expensive networking equipment could get replaced by a private cell tower.
Cyber security field is a bit different, companies know now they have to spend money on it now so the faucet is open. Most of the real preventative methods for security happen at the network. Security guys that are paid deep into six figures know networking, Linux, programming and other things.
Being an SME and earning the big bucks, in my opinion, is about knowing quite a bit about many things
The port workers in Vancouver BC also just landed a good deal after striking for a little bit.
I can imagine that UPS drivers would have a lot of leverage since UPS would suffer massively if they couldn't deliver packages.
Westjet union also struck a new deal recently. I think it was something like 30% increase, captains making in neighbourhood of 300k.
I'm definitely very interested in joining a labour union for my next job. Tech workers should be looking to unionize.
I'm not sure tech workers could do UPS jobs or UPS workers could do tech jobs. Different types of people. I think some of the frustration could come from the fact that one requires advanced education. Ideally we're all paid 'enough' and then some are paid more/less depending on skill. Tech workers on average might be better, but it's still not enough in high COLAs to live in comfortable apartment and raise a family without stressing about money.
BS