FEDEX and UPS using Penske Trucks

[Kavik]

The past couple deliveries I've had, the UPS (and maybe FEDEX) guy rolled up in a white Penske truck. All I could find was a couple Reddit posts saying this just means the UPS trucks are in the shop and they've rented replacements in the meantime. Has anyone else seen this?

[fohat.digs]

I have worked for a couple of (small-ish) companies with trucks, and renting trucks was common.

Even getting a brake job or a set of tires puts a truck out of circulation for half a day, and if business is good you can't have a truck down for that long.

[tp4tissue]

corruption of the Highst Ordr.

[fohat.digs]

corruption

After a few delivery disputes, we started requiring our drivers to take photos of their deliveries in place on the customer's driveway/yard/porch/doorstep/wherever.

At some point a few years ago there was a viral Youtube video of a driver setting a package down by a front door, snapping a photo, then picking it up and carrying it back to his truck.

[Leslieann]

They've done this for years during high load times, typically Christmas.
Right now, like everyone else, they can't get new trucks and replacement parts to keep older ones running. Same with rental car companies. All these companies were running lean, expecting suppliers to keep inventory, they ran lean expecting manufacturers to have inventory, manufacturers expected up stream and down stream suppliers to keep inventory. Meaning no one had any spare inventory.

There's a show Amazing Engineering or something that a while back was touring a BMW factory and they were bragging how they had seat and engine deliveries 15 minutes before install into the car. The entire production line ran this way. One slip and it would all crumble and yet they thought it was fantastic because they had nothing sitting around waiting on shelves. This is how companies were running pre-covid.

This is why shippers need rental trucks and why tourists are using moving vans instead of rental cars. Trying to save that last penny to earn that corporate bonus.

[fohat.digs]

to earn that corporate bonus.

All this "lean" **** and "just in time" delivery is the quintessential Republican wet dream.

The cascading collapse of worldwide physical and emotional infrastructure over the past year and a half is a stark demonstration of how resiliency and preparedness revolve around redundancy and backup. (aka "waste" in the Trumpian universe)

Stripping every system to the bone, worldwide, has been increasing in earnest at a frightening pace since the rise of the anti-democratic concept of "the government is not the solution, the government is the problem" started being championed by Reagan and his acolytes 4 decades ago.

[tp4tissue]

Watching IceRoad 2021, 

It's about trucks, you don't think it's gonna be exciting but it's actually pretty kewl.