I now hate Fedex more than I hate the post office!

Gary Ward said:
The USPS carrier I went to school with, so he puts our packages on the back porch under a awning. The UPS driver does so most of the time also.
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A lot of people don't realize that you can make a request of location and it will show up on the driver's scanner. If you don't do this, I'm going to make my best guess about where you would want it (ie. Tires are going by the garage, while food goes to the front door, etc.)

Sluggo63 said:
It's not that way anymore. It changed about a year ago (maybe more).
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I'm our area, the three "companies" have their respective terminals in different cities, so for us anyway, it's still that way. I definitely like the fact that maybe they are doing away with that tho.
 
Sluggo63 said:
The biggest problem FedEx is having right now is a labor shortage. In the Memphis hub we are bussing workers 2 hours from central Mississippi to Memphis and back in order to try and have enough workers to run the midnight sort. FedEx can't get enough workers in the Memphis area to come to work. For some reason, the Pacific NW is also a huge trouble spot. Portland, OR was specifically used as an example in the latest earnings call of where labor shortages are really impacting the service. FedEx is having to route packages to the PNW through other outstations in order to have some sort of service reliability in that region.

Coupled with the fact that FedEx has been running "peak" volumes for the last two years due to Covid, I'm really curious how this holiday season is going to go. My only hope is that we can be somewhat close to our competitors when it comes to OTD during peak.
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That's not just a FedEx problem. I was visiting a customer DC in middle-of-nowhere IL a few weeks ago and they said the same thing - they're bussing/flying people in to get shipments out the door. Was talking to some colleagues on the Ops side of Logistics/Distribution industry and the annual burdened labor rate for off-the-street zero experience forklift operators has eclipsed 6-figures in a lot of markets - and they STILL can't get people to show up consistently. I dread when this all comes to a head and I fear this Christmas season may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
 
CJones said:
That's not just a FedEx problem. I was visiting a customer DC in middle-of-nowhere IL a few weeks ago and they said the same thing - they're bussing/flying people in to get shipments out the door. Was talking to some colleagues on the Ops side of Logistics/Distribution industry and the annual burdened labor rate for off-the-street zero experience forklift operators has eclipsed 6-figures in a lot of markets - and they STILL can't get people to show up consistently. I dread when this all comes to a head and I fear this Christmas season may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
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I agree. I don't know if UPS/Amazon are facing quite the same issues FedEx is having, or at least not as bad. I know that I've seen more FedEx "come work for us" commercials/social media posts in the last few weeks than I have ever seen before. Hopefully it works. I don't know if it's still the case, but the ramp workers in Memphis were getting $20/hour and full benefits for a part time job (in the middle of the night at least). That used to be enough to entice people to come do the sort, it doesn't seem to be that way anymore. FedEx is going to have to open it's purse strings a little wider this holiday season I think.
 
Michael Cutler said:
I'm our area, the three "companies" have their respective terminals in different cities, so for us anyway, it's still that way. I definitely like the fact that maybe they are doing away with that tho.
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I just drive the bus, so I'm not sure of the inner workings, but I think how it's supposed to be working now is that if there's a package in the Express system that has to be delivered in/near the city (in your example) where the Ground terminal is, the Express package will end up there instead of the Express terminal in the city farther away, where in the past that was never the case. Don't quote me on that, though. It's just my understanding from what I've seen. You probably have a better grip on the inner workings of the whole system than I do.
 
Sluggo63 said:
I agree. I don't know if UPS/Amazon are facing quite the same issues FedEx is having, or at least not as bad. I know that I've seen more FedEx "come work for us" commercials/social media posts in the last few weeks than I have ever seen before. Hopefully it works. I don't know if it's still the case, but the ramp workers in Memphis were getting $20/hour and full benefits for a part time job (in the middle of the night at least). That used to be enough to entice people to come do the sort, it doesn't seem to be that way anymore. FedEx is going to have to open it's purse strings a little wider this holiday season I think.
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It must be pretty bad for Amazon because they are dropping marijuana from their drug screening in order to get workers. Apparently popping for cannabis greatly depletes your job applicant pool.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3d7kx/companies-employers-drug-tests-labour-shortage
 
Great, that’s all we need Amazon workers that are high on weed. It’s already bad enough that when I order a box of printer cartridges or something of similar size, they ship it in a box the size of a refrigerator. :eek:
 
azblackbird said:
Great, that’s all we need Amazon workers that are high on weed. It’s already bad enough that when I order a box of printer cartridges or something of similar size, they ship it in a box the size of a refrigerator. :eek:
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Rushie said:
It must be pretty bad for Amazon because they are dropping marijuana from their drug screening in order to get workers. Apparently popping for cannabis greatly depletes your job applicant pool.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3d7kx/companies-employers-drug-tests-labour-shortage
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I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to the drivers/delivery people
"the second-biggest global employer based out of the U.S., announced that it would no longer test for marijuana in its pre-employment drug testing screening for jobs not regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation."
Emphasis mine.
 
Sluggo63 said:
The biggest problem FedEx is having right now is a labor shortage. In the Memphis hub we are bussing workers 2 hours from central Mississippi to Memphis and back in order to try and have enough workers to run the midnight sort. FedEx can't get enough workers in the Memphis area to come to work. For some reason, the Pacific NW is also a huge trouble spot. Portland, OR was specifically used as an example in the latest earnings call of where labor shortages are really impacting the service. FedEx is having to route packages to the PNW through other outstations in order to have some sort of service reliability in that region.
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One of the great mysteries of our time is just how we managed to run out of warehouse workers. I can understand if there is a shortage of CDL drivers or forklift operators with the right OSHA paperwork. I don't get how we can run low on people who can move packages from a belt to a truck.
 
weilke said:
One of the great mysteries of our time is just how we managed to run out of warehouse workers. I can understand if there is a shortage of CDL drivers or forklift operators with the right OSHA paperwork. I don't get how we can run low on people who can move packages from a belt to a truck.
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There are plenty of people. Just not people willing to work.
 
I knew a guy who got hired on as a pilot at Amazon Prime and got arrested a few days later for child porn. What a waste of an opportunity…then again, I don’t know if he was ever fired.
 
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weilke said:
I don't get how we can run low on people who can move packages from a belt to a truck.
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Maybe because minimum wage earners now think they deserve polotician like salaries with no training or education.??
 
Tarheelpilot said:
There are plenty of people. Just not people willing to work.
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I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked a line once. I made it 2 weeks, 12 hour shifts, $12/hour and this was decades ago. I couldn’t last because the efficiency meant busy enough to not think but bored enough to hate what you are doing. Now, increase the pay about 0.5% annualized, the exceptional efficiency and metrics of Amazon, and you’ve got a recipe for a lack of interested candidates. There are many jobs I will try my hand at before going back to the line. And even then, selling for peanuts on Etsy, or some local collab thing, odd jobbing will put food on the table before I’d go back.
 
Velocity173 said:
I knew a guy who got hired on as a pilot at Amazon Prime and got arrested a few days later for child porn. What a waste of an opportunity…then again, I don’t know if he was ever fired.
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Hey. I did two assignments w/ an O-4 who got 3 years in the AK state pen for that. Saw it on the front page of the AF Times when he was arrested back in 2012. Convicted and dismissed from the service in 2015.

Story below:

https://www.adn.com/crime-justice/a...-three-years-child-porn-posession/2015/01/03/
 
TCABM said:
Hey. I did two assignments w/ an O-4 who got 3 years in the AK state pen for that. Saw it on the front page of the AF Times when he was arrested back in 2012. Convicted and dismissed from the service in 2015.

Story below:

https://www.adn.com/crime-justice/a...-three-years-child-porn-posession/2015/01/03/
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Yeah it’s hard to comprehend why they’d put their careers at risk for that. I try to look at it as a sickness and that they can move on but I don’t know. I wonder, should my former friend still be able to work as a pilot, or should he be banned for life based on one arrest? He deleted his FB and LinkedIn so I don’t know how it’s affected his professional life. Strange conundrum.
 
azblackbird said:
I run through various parts of NE at least twice a week and yet I see "help wanted" signs posted in virtually every town I roll through... go figure.:dunno:
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Yep, only 20,000 looking for work in the whole state, out of about 2 million, and 50,000 jobs. I can't find the reference, but I read there's only about 400 people looking for work in all of Lancaster county, which includes the city of Lincoln. Those are the number of people claiming unemployment benefits.
 
FedEx Ground is now frequently optimistic 1-3 days in their delivery estimate in my area. Multiple companies are warning of planned revenue misses because transportation is not working well. Costco just rented three cargo ships to try to fix their own logistics.
 
Zeldman said:
Maybe because minimum wage earners now think they deserve polotician like salaries with no training or education.??
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Minimum wage ? I am in economically depressed Appalachia and companies can't fill $20/hr (+OT) positions to assemble things in a factory.
 
masloki said:
FedEx Ground is now frequently optimistic 1-3 days in their delivery estimate in my area. Multiple companies are warning of planned revenue misses because transportation is not working well. Costco just rented three cargo ships to try to fix their own logistics.
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Good luck on that. There are many ships that have been waiting to dock for over a month now.
 
Zeldman said:
Maybe because minimum wage earners now think they deserve polotician like salaries with no training or education.??
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Considering the decisions politicians make (pretty much all of them), I don't think a minimum-wage earner with no training or education can do any worse. The politicians certainly act like they have no education or training.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
What does that have to do with shipping within the USA? No ships involved with sending things within the lower 48.
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I was referring to Costco renting their own ships. Most of the ports here in the US have at least a month or more backlog before the ships can be unloaded, then there’s the issue of trucking the products to distribution centers which could take another month because of the shortage of drivers.
 
azblackbird said:
I was referring to Costco renting their own ships. Most of the ports here in the US have at least a month or more backlog before the ships can be unloaded, then there’s the issue of trucking the products to distribution centers which could take another month because of the shortage of drivers.
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Yes, I did (eventually) note the reference to the ships and Costco, and that is why I deleted my post. I apologize for the confusion.
 
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