[PLUG-TALK] Fed Ex fail

[Paul Heinlein]

On Sun, 22 Sep 2019, Rigel Hope wrote:

> usually, high season for freight is the summer. because it takes a 
> while to get all those heaters and road salt and tire chains out to 
> the warehouses they will be distributed from.
> 
> last winter, there was a period where i got about 5 shifts per month 
> before it picked up again.
> 
> things really started slowing down around november or so.
> 
> this year, things started slowing down around the beginning of 
> august.

Back in the 80s, I worked as a teamster for the shipping arm of Sears, 
so we were all freight, no packages. The seasonal variations you 
describe were more or less my experience as well. From Spring through 
mid-Autumn, we moved a lot of freight, mostly back-to-school and then 
Christmas stuff. By November, we were moving a small percentage of the 
tonnage we'd moved in July and shifts were harder to come by.

A slowdown in August does seem odd, though I'd also suspect "the 
current set of trade policies" as you do.

We moved a lot of freight (Sears was still pretty big back then), 
though I'm sure we were small potatoes compared to a major FedEx hub. 
Even in our operation, however, there are so many things that need to 
go right for a package to get to its destination. The labeling needs 
to be correct and legible. Boxes that are shrink-wrapped together on a 
pallet need to consolidated correctly. The internal routing system at 
the cartage dock, moving freight from one trailer to another, needs to 
be flawless. All along the way, a single distracted worker can 
misroute a package. (We didn't have RFID or scanner technology, so I 
can't comment on how they impact the process.)

My point is that mistakes happen. New employees get onboarded, 
experienced ones go on vacation, a forklift breaks down, an employee 
is distracted by $LIFE issues, the power goes out, a computer fails to 
boot -- so many things can go wrong. My experience is that they're 
fairly rare and that overall stuff gets from Point A to Point B as it 
should.

Which isn't to say that it isn't inconvenient. :-) (So many negations 
in that phrase!)

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°38' N, 122°6' W