Live data from Hacker News

FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

braunconsulting.com

41–50 of 84 posts

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#41
post #19
post #2

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but the article seems to slant in favor of FedEx using contractors. And then you look at the pros and cons. FedEx Ground Cons: - No benefits, no overtime pay, no sick time, no insurance - Drivers pay for vehicle, gas, supplies, insurance, and everything else - No company retirement, seemingly less stable environment - No Teamsters contract or collective bargaining - Drivers have only one…

FedEx => Uber => FedUbX Delivery

Fuber.

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#42

There's some incorrect information in the article regarding UPS driver salaries. Drivers can make more than $100k/year if they work overtime. Some drivers make more than managers for similar amounts of work due to their being hourly. This is all hearsay from the UPS driver that worked the route while I was clerking in a warehouse. He also seemed much happier than the FedEx drivers, both of which were pretty grumpy. H…

The article is a from 2005, so the salary information is probably out of date.

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this. I receive about 5-20 packages per day froma variety of vendors and origin countries and I can say that UPS is superior to Fedex in many subtle ways. This has been my experience across the spectrum of offerings: ground, rush air, and freight.

Perhaps I'm comparing apples to oranges but my USPS guy who is the same nice man for at least the last 10 years, has been much more reliable than either the FedEx or UPS delivery staff. He even collected the strewn around mail from our mailbox the other day and visited us to let us know that someone has likely been stealing our mail and that we should check our credit cards. I'll miss him when he retires soon.

Frustratingly, my USPS people alternate, and one lays on each side of the line. One is amazing, always careful, etc. The other...left a cardboard box directly under a gutter spout in a rainstorm today.

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#44
I have a few vendors that use FedEx Ground. Absolute worst. They almost never deliver on time. One sick driver means days of delays. You cannot pick up the package at the local FedEx depot that evening if you miss it; it goes to some central place miles away with no pick up policy. I have banned my vendors from using this, and dropped vendors who won't ship by "real" FedEx, UPS or heck even USPS.

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#46
post #19
post #2

Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but the article seems to slant in favor of FedEx using contractors. And then you look at the pros and cons. FedEx Ground Cons: - No benefits, no overtime pay, no sick time, no insurance - Drivers pay for vehicle, gas, supplies, insurance, and everything else - No company retirement, seemingly less stable environment - No Teamsters contract or collective bargaining - Drivers have only one…

FedEx => Uber => FedUbX Delivery

FUBAR Delivery.

If it's not f*cked it's free!

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a story posted here not long ago "To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/upshot/to-understand-risi... HN Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161445

I fully support upward mobility but it's a tough argument to make that it was culturally good for an organization to promote people in part because of seniority. Kodak is dead. In no small part because they lost their ability innovate.

Yet Fujifilm survived while seniority-itis is stronger at Japanese companies than anywhere else

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#48
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kodak innovated just too late. They wanted to milk the profits from their film market as long as they could. That certainly wasn't a worker's decision.

Kodak innovated too early, too. They had the first digital cameras. They were producing digital cameras through the 1990s and the 2000s. Their problem was that they were fundamentally a chemicals company. They weren't as good as consumer electronics as the Japanese consumer electronics companies, and they weren't as good at the web as Silicon Valley web companies. And, ultimately, they wanted to milk the chemical fil…

Kodak was a chemicals company that thought it was a camera/photo company. Fujifilm embraced being a chemical company and diversified into medical, cosmetics, materials etc and survive to this day.

Re: FedEx vs. UPS: opposing models in the delivery business raise questions (2004)

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a story posted here not long ago "To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/upshot/to-understand-risi... HN Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161445

I fully support upward mobility but it's a tough argument to make that it was culturally good for an organization to promote people in part because of seniority. Kodak is dead. In no small part because they lost their ability innovate.

I think it's kinda interesting that the HN takeaway is that Eastman was killed by its unions: if it had just treated its employees as disposable it'd still be the juggernaut today that it was in the 20th century.

In fact our economy is littered with the detritus of collapsed or dying technology giants. To name just a few there's SGI, Sun, Thinking Machines, DEC and Yahoo.

With the possible exception of DEC none of these companies had any appreciable union penetration. In fact, some failed giants (Zynga and Groupon come to mind) were notorious for being vicious to their employees.

All of these companies are flashes in the pan compared to Eastman, which stayed at the top of the innovation game for generations.

If the salient difference between those companies and Eastman was Eastman's unions, that makes the unions look pretty darn good.

Post reply on HN