Well, here's a little backup for what BradSD has to say. The following is a cut-and-paste of a reply a former UPS employee made to a [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3963245/anchors_3963245/mpage_1/key_/anchor/tm.htm#3963245]thread[/link] I started in the Clubhouse forum a while back:

[quote][/I used to work for UPS, don't really miss those days too much. I do have to admit the pay was good, the benefits were great, and they payed for all of my college. The dowside is that my back got messed up. I may have stayed there after graduation if it wasn't such a long wait for a full time job. I was kind of glad I left when I did. The guy that replaced me was electrocuted due to a wiring error.

The reason for the footprint is that boxes are used as ladders quite often. When the wall (of boxes) in the truck is built, some loaders can't reach the top. They use the boxes as a stepping stools to get to the top. The correct way is to use a little plastic stool. Some don't use the stool because it gets in the way and slows you down. Numbers are everything to the employees. Boxes are loaded all the way to the top, so your model could be on the bottom. The more you write fragile on the box, the worse it gets treated. Infact there is no time to decide which boxes go on top and which on the bottom. There is not time to sort them by fragility and it will get loaded almost in the order it comes down the belt. The loader has to read the label on the box, make sure that it is on the correct truck, scan it, then load it. All of that needs to happen quickly. Not much time to see if the box says fragile. Many of the boxes on the bottom do have a lot of weight on them for the entire trip.

There is also a fast method of unloading the truck. They use a conveyor that extends into the truck and sometimes the unloader will tip the wall of boxes onto the belt. Some boxes fall a good 6 feet. The Supers would just turn and look the other way a lot of times. I know that because I was one. Numbers were your friend. At the end of each month supers would be rated on the numbers and there were rewards given out.

The boxes also get jammed and will back up 1000 feet on a conveyor, crushing those at the front of the jam. Also sometimes the boxes just get in the way. When you are backed up in that fast paced environment, it is faster to over the boxes rather than around them.

I once shipped a transmitter back to be serviced. It was in a radio case inside a box. I got it back in a different box. The radio case was crushed with broken hignes. I could jump on that radio case and not cause that much damage. I just couldn't believe that the service department did not contact UPS after receiving such a damaged package and had it replaced. I couldn't do anything about it because I wasn't the recipient of the damaged shipment and the damaged box was thrown away. UPS also lost a package of mine, must have been sucked into that black hole.

At my last job we shipped expensive and fragile medical equipment. Fed Ex air turned out to be the best. They gave up on UPS after having equipment damaged. UPS wanted them to double box everything which would have doubled shipping costs. That is a no go with a lot of international shipments. The only problem with Fed Ex was when that plane caught fire. We had a box on that plane.

BTW, one reason for the postal office being cheaper is that there is a little bit of governmental price fixing going on. Also, how often do you see a UPS or Fed Ex truck getting a parking ticket? Those companies fork out millions a year when the good old USPS is exempt.

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