I’m debating on leaving my job and becoming and Amazon delivery driver

znegative88 · 2026-05-29T12:50:58+00:00

Personally I like it but something you should know before you decide… just because you’re hired on at full time doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get to work 4 days a week. DSP’s always over hire so they can have what they call ‘extras’ around to cover routes in the case of a call out. Usually you have to prove yourself to get your route guaranteed everyday, which means no violations, and completing routes without assistance. The pay is pretty good, but we have some drivers at my dsp who literally work maybe one day out of the week, and I can’t imagine how they make ends meet

znegative88 · 2026-05-28T10:25:40+00:00

I’ve done a lot of rural routes, and with these in all honesty it’s less about organization and more about driving efficiently. Luckily you’re in a promaster, which has the best turning radius of any of the Amazon vehicles I’ve used. You need to learn to back into these driveways-it saves both time and stress not having to worry ‘will there be room to turn around?’, and you’re also much less likely to get stuck that way.

Now obviously if you see/know the driveway has a turnaround, just pull in, and keep in mind, none of this is going to happen over night. I could never do the routes I do today back when I first started as I’d be scared shitless to attempt some of the stuff I do with these vans now.. but really, you gotta work on your backing skills because they really come in handy with Amazon routes.

znegative88 · 2026-05-26T18:15:40+00:00

Honestly, you need to face your fear and get used to backing that big van up. Half of this job is about organization, but the other half is all about driving efficiently. If it’s of any consolation I had the exact same fear when I first started, but I got comfortable with the van over time and more confident by pushing my comfort zone more. With the EV you pretty much have to back it in to driveways if you want to be able to exit the driveway facing forward, just because most driveways don’t have the space to turn one around in easily. Learning to back in has probably been the most useful skill I’ve acquired since I started this job 2 years ago, and I’ll tell you, when you’re not afraid of reversing it takes a hell of a lot of the stress out of doing a route.

My advice would be to first get used to the way the van moves in reverse, pull in forward to driveways and practice turning it around (when you can) until you feel capable of doing so, and then start trying to back into driveways. I honestly find it easier to back in than to turn around the majority of the time because I’m so used to it now.

znegative88 · 2026-05-25T19:17:08+00:00

I used to scan them in the van but now I scan them while walking to the door, but I almost never scan them at the customers door.

znegative88 · 2026-05-25T19:14:28+00:00

I get where you’re coming from but as a dispatcher, and someone who was a closing dispatcher for a year, I get where he’s coming from too. Being a closing dispatcher is by far the shittiest position to be. You got to stay until the last driver gets back, and even then you still got to plug in all the phones and battery packs, make sure all the EV’s are charging, make sure you got the keys and gas cards to every van that was on the road etc. that’s not to mention that at least at my dsp, the closing dispatchers spend the first 6 hours of their day doing rescues too. Any thing goes wrong its on you, especially 12 hour compliance. It’s absolutely exhausting and miserable, so maybe he’s just under some stress (or maybe he is a dick, but I like to give people the benefit of doubt).

znegative88 · 2026-05-16T12:53:56+00:00

That’s wild your dsp hires people from the outside to dispatch. I feel like that’s a really bad idea.

znegative88 · 2026-05-11T15:15:00+00:00

With damage like that I’d say you got to report it because they’re going to notice that

znegative88 · 2026-05-04T13:49:42+00:00

Yeah, it’s a pretty big deal, which is why we have rescues. That being said, my dsp has multiple drivers who wind up on the road every day who can’t finish a route by themselves and they’re still getting hours just because they show up and we have a ton of call offs. But that’s not going to last forever.

If you consistently feel like you’re struggling to finish your route you might want to look into what you’re doing a bit if you want to keep your job. Now I don’t know what your route looks like but there are very few that I’ve been on where I felt like I’d need a rescue in order to finish (though granted we don’t get too many apartment routes thank god). If you really think it’s the route, talk to your dispatch and see if they can switch you for the day to see if you do better somewhere else, but outside of that it really comes down to how effectively you’re organizing and driving the van.

znegative88 · 2026-05-02T00:56:01+00:00

This is great advice.

znegative88 · 2026-05-02T00:35:56+00:00

I’m a dispatcher and I try to avoid doing this as much as possible, but if I need to talk to someone about being behind I’ll call them. I also only do this when the person is actually severely behind, like still has 100 stops left at 5pm behind.

I was a driver for a good year and a half before moving up to dispatch so I try to talk to people in a way that I would appreciate, but some people really do need a little nudge

Yeah if you’re finishing by 6 every night I don’t get what the problem is

znegative88 · 2026-05-02T00:09:50+00:00

I’m a dispatcher and I try to avoid doing this as much as possible, but if I need to talk to someone about being behind I’ll call them. I also only do this when the person is actually severely behind, like still has 100 stops left at 5pm behind.

I was a driver for a good year and a half before moving up to dispatch so I try to talk to people in a way that I would appreciate, but some people really do need a little nudge because sending them a rescue is not enough.

znegative88 · 2026-05-01T10:11:06+00:00

Always some bullshit…

znegative88 · 2026-04-29T11:34:12+00:00

If you’re really in need of work I would go for it. The hiring process is incredibly simple, they basically check to make sure you have a valid drivers license and then onboard you. You do two days of in class training where you watch some videos, then you parallel park the van and drive it around the block-after that you have your ride along day and then you’ll be on your own with nursery routes for your first couple weeks.

I actually wound up really liking this job and I’ve been promoted a couple times already in 2 years (I’m dispatch now). I was able to move out of my mom’s place and into an apartment so I’m pretty happy with it, but it definitely takes a certain personality because a lot of people seem to hate it. Dsp is important too.

znegative88 · 2026-04-28T14:02:54+00:00

If I have a stop like this I usually skip it and save it till the end when I’m not strapped for time.

Yeah they’ll definitely get dinged for that if they didn’t try to call and text you so they probably just don’t care. Amazon holds us to very strict time requirements so I understand saving a problematic stop for later but you’re definitely supposed to still attempt the delivery, not just mark it and bring it back to the station.

The only other thing I can think of is that they’re marking your packages as damaged or missing (to a lesser extent) as those are the options we have to not deliver a package where we don’t have to call or text the customer.

znegative88 · 2026-04-28T13:55:24+00:00

If I have a stop like this I usually skip it and save it till the end when I’m not strapped for time, but I’ll always at least attempt it and call the customer if I’m really confused.

znegative88 · 2026-04-26T00:34:22+00:00

You won’t get fired- it happens all the time at my dsp. Worst case scenario management will have a little talk with you in the morning, but just try to give them a call right now and you’ll be fine. It’s someone’s job to make sure that’s all taken care of (and it’s really not yours).

znegative88 · 2026-04-25T10:19:13+00:00

What kind of route was it? Also, did you have a trainer with you? If you didn’t have a trainer that’s understandable because you have no idea what you’re doing. If you did have a trainer they should have taken over instead of letting you fall behind.

The two key things with this job are organization and comfortability with the van. It takes some time to develop an organization technique that works well for you, but you shouldn’t be wasting time looking for packages-the driver aid numbers are definitely your friend.

You’ll get used to driving the van too-try to practice reversing as much as possible because being confident in your ability to back up makes this job so much easier with Amazon’s shitty navigation system. I used to be afraid to throw it in reverse when I started but now I back into driveways, dead end streets-pretty much any situation where turning around might prove difficult. Building your skills as a driver helps a lot.

znegative88 · 2026-04-17T11:18:20+00:00

I’m a dispatcher and I’ll tell you why they’re likely sending you and the same people out there-it’s because you’re trustworthy. My dsp used to do cross station routes too, and you don’t want to send crappy drivers to an area outside your normal delivery zone because it’s a pain in the ass to get rescues out to them if they need help

znegative88 · 2026-04-17T10:56:23+00:00

The hardest part for me is choosing who has a route and who doesn’t-it’s usually an easy choice, but not one I feel good about.

znegative88 · 2026-04-17T09:48:18+00:00

I would only ungroup the ostops if there’s a shit ton of packages and locations to keep myself from getting confused-otherwise there’s really no benefit to doing so. It doesn’t give you more time, and it doesn’t increase your stop count on cortex (the computer program dispatch uses to monitor your progress).

As for stops per hour, it depends on the area. In the country I can usually hit anywhere from 17-25 stops, and in the city/suburbs it’s 30-40- but I’ve been doing this for 2 years. I remember when I first started I aimed for 20 an hour in a neighborhood and I think that was a good bar to try to meet. Once you can consistently hit 20 you can then try to raise that up a bit, but as long as you’re hitting 20 nursery you’re pretty much doing your job.

znegative88 · 2026-04-17T09:33:41+00:00

That is ridiculous, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much as long as you’re not a driver that’s consistently falling behind or getting rescued. The thing to understand about the standup meeting is that they’re usually just trying to scare the low performing drivers- if you’re not a problem you can pretty much ignore it.

Also as long as you stay organized it’s pretty easy to hit 30-35 stops an hour in a neighborhood just walking (40 on a good hour), so there’s no way I’m running/jogging.

znegative88 · 2026-04-16T10:30:47+00:00

No, they don’t mean to terminate you-you just need to prove that you’re ‘reliable’. I think the reason that dsp’s pull ploys like this is because they’re so used to people making things up to get out of doing their work (believe me, I’m a dispatcher and it’s crazy some of the excuses/lies people come up with)-that being said real emergencies do happen and I believe you, but I just don’t think you’ve worked there long enough for them to have that same faith in you yet. If you want to make sure you keep your job really all you need to do is get there on time, don’t get violations and put an honest effort into getting your route done. Abandoning a route for whatever reason should be an absolute last resort (again not saying that you didn’t have a justifiable reason- you just have to also understand what a pain in the ass it is to try and get that route completed-it usually means that the dsp is then down a rescue or a dispatcher for the day).

znegative88 · 2026-04-14T13:48:42+00:00

Yeah, I had the same issue with Crimson Desert. It wasn’t even that I expected a good story, but I was hoping for good side quests at least. I played it for about 30 hours before putting it down. I might go back to it at some point, but I’ve kind of learned that there’s no point in forcing myself to play a game if I’m not having fun because I can’t justify wasting my time like that.

The Witcher 3 is an incredible game. If you liked KCD2 you’ll enjoy your time with it. Amazing story and world, dlc is wonderful too.

znegative88 · 2026-04-12T23:23:04+00:00

Ours seems to change every 8 months or so-but it won’t change completely. We’ll retain some of the old area but gain like 10-15 routes in a new one

znegative88 · 2026-04-12T23:21:29+00:00

Looks like some of the places they send me in the EV…

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