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Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

bloomberg.com

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Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#321

Post by slezakattack »

panzagl wrote: post #314
jonlucc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's another problem with this. I recently was rear-ended while I was stopped at an intersection, and the second question my insurance company asked me is if the car was being used for commercial (ride-sharing) services then or at any time. I wasn't, but I assume this kind of delivery would be commercial use, and the cost to add this to your insurance would be way too expensive to make it worth it for the…

Most pizza delivery is done using an employee's car, so I imagine this is a well-trod path legally.

There are significantly more ride-sharing drivers on the road than pizza delivery cars.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#322

Post by Chaebixi »

briandear wrote: post #266
Chaebixi wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article says the app finds possible deliveries that are on the employee's route home, so no extra out of the way driving is to be done... only a 30 second stop to get out and carry the package up to the front door. Seems very efficient to me. Dude, you're engaging in fantasy. Walmart is going to want to use this for more people than just those who live on busy commuter roads that happen to be used by a Walmart…

Any evidence to support your claims?

> Any evidence to support your claims?

Evidence that it would typically take more than 30 seconds to drop off a package to an unfamiliar house, even on a route you know? Or that Walmart is motivated to ship to people who aren't directly on its employee's commutes, and it likely will use this to do so if it goes forward with this idea?

My evidence is common sense. If you'd like a time-motion study, or a recording from Walmart's boardroom conversations, you're out of luck. Anyway, the stronger claims are those I was disputing, which don't pass the smell test.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#323

Post by baby_wipe »

rectang wrote: post #285
gozur88 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

> I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. The difference between the two parties is information asymmetry, not intelligence. Walmart is organized and concentrated and can bring to bear entire departments of lawyers and analysts. It gets to repeat the transaction N times and amortize its costs across all the transactions. The individual workers do not have such resources and are not uni…

If Walmart really is taking advantage of its workers, then why doesn't another company come in and offer better terms? Are you claiming Walmart has monopsony power over low-wage workers?

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#324

Post by bluGill »

gknoy wrote: post #280
bluGill wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food goes up a little bit, and your room is more crowded. Everything else is the same. Go look at the size of a log cabin, they were about the size of a single bedroom today and large families lived in them.

> [if you have a family] Food goes up a little bit, and your room is more crowded. Everything else is the same. The amount of money and extra time that we spent on just one baby was astounding - clothes, doctor visits, food. Many more trips to the store/pharmacy/doctor, etc, than normal. The USDA's child cost estimator [0] says that raising a child in the midwest costs about an extra $12000 a year, on average. Not al…

My wife is great at scrounging: kids didn't add much to my costs unless we are eating out. You can get last years styles all over for cheap. My kids can have a few stains - they will be putting their own on anyway.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#325

Post by vkou »

notfromhere wrote: post #302
ythn wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't understand why businesses don't like unions, you've never owned a business. Also, historically, unions in the USA for whatever reason a lot of times end up becoming mafioso (not sure if it's the same in other countries).

businesses don't like unions because with a union they cant treat their employees like expendable cogs. The Union/Mafia problems stems from unions getting suppressed by corporate-hired goons, forcing unions get their own goons to fight back. said goons tended to be the local mafioso

Also, construction (Which is notorios for the presence of 'mafiosos') is a business where... A lot of organized crime is involved, regardless of whether or not the work is unionized.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#326

Post by heyheyhey »

mikeash wrote: post #155
pyre wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just stating that the real question about how good this will be or not will be what happens in practice. If not enough employees are volunteering for this, then entire program could end in failure. Will there be pressure to make this work from upper management? The opt-in nature of this from existing employees is what makes this suspect. The question is will Walmart use their current employment relationship with…

This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this? Would you be happier if they just forced their employees to do it? Most job descriptions include a phrase like "and any other duties as required" and as long as they paid the employees and followed the relevant regulations it would b…

> This again seems pointless to say. Of course it'll depend on how it works out in practice. That's true of every action by every company. So why are so many people complaining about this?

Agreed.

At any job I've worked at, doing the bare minimum for awhile will probably get you fired; if you want to stand out or get a promotion, you're expected to do more than you're asked.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#327

Post by CamperBob2 »

dlubarov wrote: post #312
rsync wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven ..." I thought just the opposite, in terms of efficiency and miles driven, etc. My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, U…

> My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, UPS truck routes almost never include a left turn). Apparently UPS trucks get around 10 mpg [1]. Not many consumer vehicles are that inefficient. I'd be surprised if UPS's ORION is better at route optimization than a consumer app l…

The no-left-turns rule isn't crude, it's an incredibly valuable (and incredibly obvious) optimization. A mapping service that tells me to turn left in downtown San Francisco at rush hour is literally worse than useless. In many cases, if I follow its directions blindly, not only will I be delayed, I'll delay the traffic around me.

It's mind-boggling that Google, Apple, and other consumer-grade routing providers haven't gotten that particular clue yet. Seems clear that none of them have the vaguest concept of cost functions other than input from the local DOT traffic cameras.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#328

Post by sokoloff »

jlarocco wrote: post #317
gozur88 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These additional costs make the deal worse for employees and better for Walmart in ways which are hard for the workers to understand. That's pretty patronizing. I wouldn't assume people are stupid just because they work for Walmart. This could be a great deal for people who need extra money. If I'm driving down a street anyway, it's not much of an imposition to drop off a package and not much wear and tear on the ca…

I'm not sure the OP was being patronizing. One alternative to this program would be to buy each store a Fedex style van (or a few) and have a few dedicated drivers make deliveries all day. Once you think about that for a few minutes, you start to see all of the costs that they're offloading to employees. Not just insurance, but also vehicle maintenance, gas, etc. I'm sure Walmart has done a ton of cost/benefit analys…

If the delivery is on the employee's typical route home, this could be a win for both the employee and for Walmart (and a minuscule reduction in overall traffic and miles driven). That's not at all the case of Walmart buying a Sprinter van and driving it around all day on routes that weren't naturally being covered.

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#329

Post by obmelvin »

slezakattack wrote: post #321
panzagl wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most pizza delivery is done using an employee's car, so I imagine this is a well-trod path legally.

There are significantly more ride-sharing drivers on the road than pizza delivery cars.

Yes, but from a legal precedent standpoint pizza delivery cars are more relevant

Re: Wal-Mart will pay employees to deliver packages on their way home

#330

Post by obmelvin »

dlubarov wrote: post #312
rsync wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The headline makes it sound coercive but that actually sounds like an efficient use of time and energy (less big trucks on the road, less miles driven ..." I thought just the opposite, in terms of efficiency and miles driven, etc. My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, U…

> My understanding is that Fedex and especially UPS trucks are very highly optimized for their work and for fuel efficiency and that their routes are also extremely optimized (for example, UPS truck routes almost never include a left turn). Apparently UPS trucks get around 10 mpg [1]. Not many consumer vehicles are that inefficient. I'd be surprised if UPS's ORION is better at route optimization than a consumer app l…

UPS truck also carries a hell of a lot more than your average employee is going to put in his car and on delivery-dense routes MPG isn't a great signal for efficiency
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