What Really Goes on Inside UPS
UPS employees have a term called “building a wall” to describe how packages should be loaded into trailers for transport between hubs. The first image we show you is of a good, quality wall. Notice how the larger packages are on the bottom, smaller ones on top and how there is no space between them to allow movement. But like most things at UPS, they aren’t always done the way they should be. After the first image, we give you a glimpse of what some walls look like in the real world. Needless to say, if you are a UPS package, its a dangerous world out there.
A Good Wall:
Building walls is an art, as any of the many employees who post in our forums will tell you. It also seems to be a skill few posses. Below is an example of what a good wall looks like. Notice how the larger packages are on the bottom and smaller packages are on top. Also take note of how thre is almost no space between rows of packages or packages themselves. When the trailer is closed up, this solid mass wont be able to move an inch. There is a good chance these packages will survive their encounter with UPS, unless the truck gets into an accident.
Other Walls:
Then there are “other” walls. Sometimes, good walls go bad due to careless construction or crazy driving. And other times… well, they were never really that great to start with. The specimens below are probably a combination of all of the above factors working in unison. The chances of the packages below surviving their encounter with UPS has just been greatly diminished.
Chaos at the Terminals:
If a parcel lives until it reaches the terminal that will actually deliver it, it certainly is not out of the woods yet. There is still the sort line and various conveyors and package movers to survive. As these images show, some packages take the last UPS truck west right here. In the first picture, be sure to look towards the back of the image, at the employee climbing over the package jam. Sometimes, a few packages must be sacrificed for the greater good, so that many packages can make it to their destinations intact.
Faster, Faster, FASTER!
UPS employees are taught a technique called “Hand to Surface”. It means that a package should never be in free flight (thrown), but rather your hand should come into contact with the package before it leaves the surface it is sitting on and contact the destination surface before your hand leaves it. But sometimes, that just isn’t possible. Especially when management wants fewer and fewer employees delivering more production, more volume and faster sorting.
The Last UPS Truck West:
People have all kinds of ways of expressing the act of dying. For instance, we might say “he kicked the bucket” or “she bought the farm” or they “caught the last train for the coast”. Other expressions include “making the big deadline”, “taking the eternal off site assignment” and “the place where time stops”. Those truly interested in this type of morbid humor may want to check out Death Slang for hundreds more. For a package that has been consigned to UPS for delivery, time may very well stop on one of the little brown UPS trucks. Its safe to say that at least one package bought the farm in each of these pics.
Do You Know of Something That Belongs Here?
Have you or a loved one received a package that would fit well on this page? Perhaps one of your customers has e-mailed you a picture of a purchase from your company and it just didn’t look quite the same as it did when it was boxed up and sent. Click the “Contact” link at the top of this page to submit your pictures and they might be used here or on our homepage. A picture is worth 1,000 words.