5 simple reasons why I love my job

A while back I shared about some of the things I’d had to let go of, amidst the professional and personal losses of the past few years. In some very real ways my life is harder now than it had been before.

But I didn’t share out of any sense of bitterness, disappointment, frustration, or unhappiness. My career took an unexpected turn, to be sure, but life is still good.

Very good, in fact. I’m still the luckiest person I know. I feel like I’m living a country song played Backwards.

People like to ask me how I feel about my new(-ish) job of driving for United Parcel Service. I always tell them that I love it. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

1. I love being part of a team. I’m an equal member of the corps of UPS drivers. Not any more, nor any less, than any other driver in my building or around the world. Regardless of seniority, wearing the brown uniform puts us all on the same level as union brothers and sisters. This is very different from the many role and status differences I had to navigate in my previous career in academia.
2. I love being part of something big and important. When the scores of package cars all leave the building each morning, the buzz of energy is palpable. We’re like a brown army being deployed all across our service area each day. In a very real sense we’re the circulatory system for our economy. People are counting on us to deliver, both literally and figuratively. This sense of purpose persists throughout my entire shift: whether on the roads, in parking lots, in offices, or in neighborhoods, I enjoy widespread recognition as someone with urgent business to attend to.
3. I love having a singular focus. No less than any other venture, United Parcel Service is ruthless in its pursuit of profit on behalf of its shareholders (of which I am one, full disclosure). I like to think of the company as the horrifying creature from the movie Alien: a ‘perfect organism’ whose ‘structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.’ Every day my job is to complete my deliveries and pickups as quickly and efficiently – albeit safely and professionally – as possible. That’s all, nothing else. ‘I admire its purity. A survivor unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.’ I get that. I respect that.
4. I love having my limits challenged. When I first started this job I sorely (ha!) underestimated how much it took to be a UPS driver. Of course it’s physically demanding, but it’s just as demanding mentally – perhaps even more so. Not everyone can do what I do. In fact, many of the people hired as personal vehicle drivers (‘PVDs’) for the holidays either quit or are fired. I don’t think I myself would have been able to do this work earlier on in my career; I just wouldn’t have had the patience or endurance.
5. I love having a tangible sense of accomplishment every single day. I usually come home from work exhausted yet gratified because I know exactly how much I got done on my shift. Often this is communicated to me visually, in the form of a package car that’s full at the beginning and empty at the end. I receive audible validations even more frequently than that: every time I scan a package or press the ‘Stop Complete’ button on my handheld DIAD it makes a confirmatory series of cheerful beeps. There’s never any question or confusion about my productivity; it’s always quantifiable in terms of stops completed, pieces delivered (or picked up), miles driven, and hours worked.

These aren’t the only things I love about my job. I could have written about the wonderful people I’ve met, the lovely places I’ve encountered, the amazing wildlife I’ve enjoyed. I could have mentioned a newfound understanding of, and appreciation for, time, space, the material world, constant motion, and the global web of human interconnectedness.

I’m sure that not every UPS driver feels the way I do about the work. And I’m also sure that people can find these same things in different jobs besides this one. These two facts further convince me that while every job has meaning, it’s up to each of us individually to decide what that meaning is. Each of our jobs is an empty vessel for whatever meaning – good or bad, majestic or mundane – we choose to pour into it.