Yes. I often wonder how I can still be hopeful that there is someone helpful or even logical (I'd settle for not contradicting oneself in 2 to 3 sentences) in management somewhere above me. I always seem to forget that lesson. Though only briefly.

You must be new here

I can relate to the OP somewhat. The main hurdle for me was to sacrifice the pay to get to 1500 hours. I drive trucks also but not for UPS. I do LTL and put in same amount of hours as you do. Best option is CFI if you have one and/or. Banner towing depending on where you live.
If you could somehow survive a temporary paycut, I highly recommend doing 1-2 season of aerial survey. You will have your hours by than. Survey season is typically from oct-may which means summer months you are off. You can always go drive trucks or banner tow.

Can you ask UPS to give you a leave of absence?

I disagree. I believe that being a former UPSer could help you a TON -> • IF • <- you leave on good terms..
If you don't, well, they'd probably never hire you as every single mistake you've ever made ends up in their ultra-secret file.
There's the official 'exception reports' file which you may view and then there's the no-s@&$t, real $&¥@-up file which stays with you for all eternity and then some.

Did you ever watch the movie "Snowden"? That's exactly what happens. NSA rejects end up in Russia ..or at 'brown records' where they give them code names like "Tara" or "Zulu Time." If you're sharp they'll name you "Bulletin" and you'll end up doing some very important but also secretive stuff.

On a more serious note, yes, they hire former UPSers and I know a few who were hired this way. However, they all had lots of experience as they flew for regionals and low-cost airlines for quite a few years before they came back.

I seriously doubt they'd hire someone with 1,500 of flight time. Unless you decide to become a burp. If so, get some KingAir time and you should be good to go.

So if you choose to leave remember that it'll probably take more than a few years for you to come back and also that you might or might not get hired here after all.

Wish you the best!!

StartUp161WanaB Banner tow is a no go here. OKC. I think Iv seen one once... and yes the trick will most certainly be figuring out how to get by with a family of 5 on little. And I drive package cars, no CDL for me. I do have my CFI but haven't really been able to use it yet haven't figured out how to talk people into using me when I can only fly on the weekends, everyone if talked to wanted 2 or more days a week and not back to back. And yes Iv asked about a leave, sabbatical, going back to part time work inside the building so I could CFI during the day and its been no's all around. Speaking of CFIing, anyone have any good resources for CFI. Practical advise, stuff that's not published by FAA...

whalesurfer I do plan to leave on good terms. Iv figured out that id need to for a while, asking on here I wasn't really expecting to find anything new, but asking is really cheap. If the answer doesn't change no loss; if I had found something new that would have been a big gain.

And again, thank you all for sharing what you know.

As I think about it, I know of a Z FO that worked full time for Boeing as an engineer while building time. She'd use weekends to travel to LAS and fly sightseeing trips over the grand canyon. It can be done.

Is that what the terms of the internship is? THere's nothing published on what and how much you do with Ameriflight and how long your tenure has to be before getting to the right seat in big brown.

It's not in the second post's link?

No, the only mention is that there is a gateway program, no other requirements, time in AMF, hours needed or even a ballpark. UPS surely won't take a guy who just hit his thousandth TPIC hour off the AMF line, right?