Louis Rizzo

After losing his job at a convenience store in 1978, he found temporary work at United Parcel Service (UPS) during the holiday rush. The 52-year-old Massachusetts native has been driving for UPS for 29 years.

I started at UPS in October, 1978, in Weymouth, 15 miles south of Boston, as a temporary worker for the Christmas season. I knew I was going to be laid off on Dec. 31, but it was a foot in the door. The supervisor said, "Let's take a road test." I'd never driven a truck, but I knew how to drive a standard [transmission]. I passed, but I was a nervous wreck. I had three days of orientation, drove for a day with a supervisor, and that was my training. I drove 10 to 12 hours a day until Dec. 31. I was laid off, but then was called back on Feb. 15. Before, I had been making $4.20 an hour at a convenience store, and I was the manager. UPS started me at $8.35 an hour, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

In '78 I drove a 1956 International Harvester [delivery van]. The trucks in those days had wooden shelves, and that was a problem. You'd reach for a package and get a splinter. We had loaders who came in at 3:30 in the morning to load all of the trucks, but occasionally they'd make a mistake, and at the end of the day you'd realize you had a package for somebody else's route. If a package got on your truck, you delivered it, no matter how late that kept you out. Now UPS uses computers that tell you the best way to run your route. We use our [handheld electronic] diads to scan all of the packages as we deliver them, and the diad will beep if you forgot to give a customer one of the packages they were supposed to get.

When I started out, we used paper and pens and clipboards and we had a piece of carbon paper we'd stick between the pages. If we had a Nor'easter, you had to find ways to keep the clipboard and all of the printouts for your route dry. I'd find a plastic bag to keep them in so the paperwork didn't get soaked. In the 1980s we went from paper to the diad. That was probably the biggest thing that changed our jobs. Suddenly we could communicate with the supervisors back at the terminal, and they could communicate with us. In all the years I've been here, I'm still amazed at what we can do. When I started, it took five days for us to go coast to coast, or you could pay extra and get your order in two days. Now I'll be at a delivery stop at 9:30 a.m., and the customer will say, "I ordered that from California at 7:30 last night." I can see the day when we'll be able to deliver packages the same day in big cities like New York. That would take UPS back to its roots. UPS started out as a messenger service in Seattle, making deliveries from one customer to another.