u/Proper-Swim-502

I worked my last Saturday today after deciding I was done doing it. Today did not disappoint as being one of the most exhausting shifts I have ever worked.

The morning was super slow, we were just chilling out, talking, eating, occasionally a customer came in. Felt like a normal Saturday… until it wasn’t.

Around 1pm this guy calls about trying to stop a package that he dropped off at our store because he got scammed like 3 days ago. I tried to help him out because I know customer service sucks. I was unable to help him myself and just gave him the number. Around 3:30 he comes back in to get my help with it. I try signing him up for ups my choice but it’s getting overly complicated and I don’t want to get blamed for signing him up for a monthly subscription so I tell him to contact customer service and tell them exactly what he wants them to do. This conversation took like 45 minutes while the store is flooded with rando customers.

Meanwhile the trainee takes a customer who is planning on sending about 10 NDA irregular shipping crates of various sizes and weights, the lightest being 35lbs and several reaching over 100lbs. Eventually when I clear out the store of all the customers (which there was a line to the door of), I decide to take over this shipping job since i didnt have much confidence in my coworker since she’s new. All of these shipments took like 1 hour to do and my coworker is trying to deal with all the customers by herself. To this guys credit he was an awesome customer, but it was a real pain in the butt. Eventually we end up finishing that at almost exactly closing (totaled like $10k btw). The store at this point is completely full of customers and my poor coworker who had been trying to keep up had been putting all of the packages incomplete on the table.

Once we clear all the customers out who had been coming in after closing even after we turned off the open sign, it was like 5:10. We spent a good 40 minutes after that trying to finish everything up and close, and had to skip several tasks we needed to do just to get out of there.

Plus, the cherry on top is some idiot put a medical device in a package in the kiosk that beeped like every 10 seconds for all of closing.

We didn’t have to deal with many angry customers, maybe except one, but it was just an incredibly painful 2 hours being stuck alone with the trainee.

I’ve worked almost every saturday, except maybe 4-5 since starting working here back in September 2025. I’m really getting tired of how much work is involved in working Saturday shifts at my store, especially when my boss dumps a trainee on me and it’s even more work than just working alone. I’m just tired of doing it and I’m probably going to ask to be done. I believe I have served my duty and will be retiring so I can have my life back so I can do something on the weekends.

Maybe the one of the least IQ customer interactions I’ve witnessed happened the other day.

My coworker took a customer who was very nice and was shipping a package for somebody she knew. The person who was paying for the shipping had no idea what the cost was gonna be so gave her like $3 or something. My coworker told her that she needed to package it which would be like a $3 polybag and shipping was going to be like $15 for ground.

The lady calls her friend to ask for money and this is where the comically stupid scenario begins.

The lady picks up and sounds like a chain smoker who has just woken up. Her voice is so ridiculous that everyone, including the lady that was shipping for her was having a hard time not laughing. She was completely baffled by the cost of shipping. She explains how she only has like $6 to her name and can’t afford the shipping (I mean that’s real broke). She starts cussing and crashing out. Eventually she declines shipping but she still wants the bag. My coworker explains the bag is $3. She starts cussing him out about not giving her the bag for free since it’s only $3. My coworker even puts a 15% discount on it and she still is crashing out. Eventually the lady shipping who is amused by the situation just hangs up the phone and leaves the store.

Truly an outrageous customer experience. Not so much the stupidity of this lady on the phone, but just how her anger is so muffled by how ridiculous she sounds lol.

Recently the number of people who come or call the store with issues for corporate has been astronomical. Has this been the case for other stores? These people have a problem with a package that wasn’t shipped from or to our store and they decide to call us, sometimes when we aren’t even local to them. What is going on…

Had a customer come in today and start talking to my coworker. My coworker is new so I decided to jump in and find out what the customer was asking for. She was saying she needed to print a label for something that needs to be sent to her from out of state and asked if we could do it for her. I tell her that UPS Stores can’t give that service since we can only handle packages that go through our store location. I tell her she has to go onto UPS.com and create a label. She quickly says,

”I thought it would be better if I talked to a person.”

She said it in a somber and kind of outraged tone, like she was going to cry. Are you okay? she left too quick I couldn’t offer to give her the service number if she needed help with it (God knows we aren’t paid enough to help her with it.)

I know we all like to complain about the bumbling idiots who somehow find their way to the UPS store, even though they don’t seem to have the competence to spell their name or stand in line, but I have a story about a good customer today.

Today we had someone come in with an international going to Bangladesh. He was prepared to pay the actual cost of international and chose one of the options after I gave him the quote. He gave me his details and the address.

The address didn’t include a real street address with a number so I spent some time researching online on what to do and his address was correct. I called my boss to ask about it and he said that we could not guarantee that his package will arrive and we can only send it if he agrees that it is on the customer if the package doesn’t arrive.

The customer was super understanding and he went ahead with it. The rest of the process was super easy because he understood what I was saying and understood the process more than 95% of customers. He paid and went on his way.

These are the customer interactions that I enjoy. I know that internationals can be a tedious process, but I don’t mind if I can do my job uninterrupted by stupidity.

Thank you for being a good customer

Ive been working at TUPSS for over 10 months now, and I am pretty well versed with everything that involves working at the store. This is my first ever job, so I have nothing to compare it to. Is it especially bad working as a TUPSS employee, or is it the same anywhere you go (specifically asking about customer service jobs.) I have always theorized, but don’t know if it’s true, that UPS customers are especially bad because of the introduction of free shipping by many companies, and it trickles down into entitlement and a general unwillingness to pay for anything involved in shipping. Is this accurate?

After reading everything this week to do with the Amazon return rate going down, and UPS opening stores right next to others, I’m already fed up with UPS. But I wanted to tell an outrageously stupid customer service experience I had today.

Today near the beginning of my shift in the early afternoon my coworker picks up the phone, and has a 5-10 minute long conversation with a customer. So I have to hear what this was about afterwards.

My coworker said this guys package that got shipped from Japan arrived at his old condo and he needs to ship it to where he lives now. He said the UPS driver can’t pick it up because it doesn't have a label.

My coworker, despite his better judgement, decides to help this severely incompetent man understand that he needs to send a label to his old apartment complex. The man (who is probably in his 60-70s) does not understand, so my coworker gives him the UPS customer service number so they can explain to him what he needs to do.

3 hours later, this guy calls our store back. He says that the UPS customer service rep was extremely incompetent and he’s “getting increasingly frustrated.” (While I’m thinking about how incompetent he is.) I find out that he lives in freaking Minnesota, while our store is in Washington. I try explaining to him that he needs to create a label on UPS.com and send it to his old apartment complex.

He then explains that the UPS driver needs a return receipt. So again I explain to him he needs to get the label online. He explains that he already tried creating one and only has the tracking number. I ask him if he can see the label, but apparently he doesn’t understand what I’m talking about, because this guy apparently doesn’t know what one looks like. I tell him he needs to go to a local UPS store and they can help him send it to his old apartment complex. (Partly me trying to get rid of this guy, and partly trying to solve the problem because it’s much easier to have an employee solve his problem in person than giving him tech support online, when it’s not my problem.)

After telling him a 3rd time that he needs to get a label emailed to the apartment complex, he goes silent for 15 seconds:

………

Me: Do you understand what I’m saying?

Him: ……. (15 more seconds of silence)

Me: Sir, are you still there?

Him: …… I’m getting increasingly frustrated. *hangs up*

Like what the actual heck just happened. What do I do about these people who call and make problems that are not ours, our problems. I swear if this technologically incompetent old timer figures out how to make a google review at our store, I will literally lose my freaking mind. I wish I had asked him “What do you want me to do sir?” And just let him at it, but I didn’t think of it at the time.

Just thought it would be a fun question. What is the most returns (single lines on a receipt, so an entire happy return counts as one) any of you have ever gotten from a single customer in a single interaction. My record is 43, but I’m sure that’s rookie numbers to some of you UPS veteran warriors.

One time working on a Saturday I had one of the most irritating and mind numbing experiences with a customer. There was this woman that came in with a package and wanted to send it quickly. She chose NDA and left the store. About 15 minutes later she came back in to change it to a 2nd Day Air, so i had to refund her and edit the label and mark it in our records and everything. Then she leaves the store for the second time. Then she came in about a half hour later to change it again to a Ground shipment, so I have to go through the process a second time. After that, SHE COMES BACK ANOTHER TIME AND VOIDS THE SHIPMENT BECAUSE IT WAS TOO EXPENSIVE. It’s truly outrageous to do that much work for a customer that didn’t even end up profiting us at all.

My biggest pet peeve is when Amazombies spend 5-10 minutes waiting in line staring at the wall while it’s completely busy. Then they get to the front of the line and then finally spend 5 minutes pulling their phone out and find the QR code. How does it not possibly cross their “minds” to find it before being helped. The worst thing is when those same people, while it is totally busy, haven’t even began the return. It gets EVEN WORSE when the amazombie doesn’t have any idea how technology works and can’t do the return themselves, so you have to spend 15 minutes helping them while theres a long line.

Occasionally we have people come with Kohls returns, and I decided to try returning something there before out of curiosity. They have a separate line for Amazombies that they help out after all the real customers. Could someone tell UPS corporate to make this a thing?

I’m a store employee and I often get printing jobs or other tasks that require a bunch of labor that we don’t have a real charge for. (ie: Paper cutting, folding, etc.) Do other stores have a common rate they charge for labor, like $25 per hour of work.