New Twist With UPS

I had a package coming via UPS that needed a signature. Rather than sit around and wait, I found my UPS driver and flagged him down. He said that, yes, my package would be delivered today but that their Uber driver was going to deliver it. Uber driver? Yup, he gave me the address of the driver, went there and found an entire garage full of UPS packages that they were going to deliver. Signed for mine and picked it up. Anyone else heard of this happening this year?

I saw a guy in a Nissan Altima pull up to a house. He got out and had a UPS vest on. Delivered the box and left. I never thought it might be an Uber driver though.

The driver for the small town where my office is hauls a trailer up to the truckstop by the interstate every morning, drops it out back, then does his deliveries. A crew of other UPS employees shows up in their private vehicles and delivers everything out of the trailer, then he grabs it on his way back to the depot at the end of the day. Drive past any UPS depot this time of year and you'll see a fleet of U-Haul/Ryder/Penske rental trucks. Their normally part-time box-kickers go full time around the holidays and make deliveries, and they bring in temps to load the trucks.

I have seen Amazon, UPS and FedEx all deliver in "non standard" vehicles.

USPS has always been in USPS vehicles.

I don't know why anyone would find this strange, there's hardly a business out there that doesn't relay on "temps" of some sort or other to help out during busy times. The alternative is to raise prices do they can afford full-timers to sit on their asses for all but two weeks of the year !!

Agreed. But for as long as I can remember (at least around here) UPS would hire temps to ride in the trucks and basically do nothing but shuttle packages from the trucks to the destinations. This is more like a subcontractor than a temp. But that's just my opinion.

About a week or so ago, an old beater car stopped in front of our house, some guy wearing a brown UPS coat got out and delivered a package to our house. Around here, UPS must not be as concerned about their image, like they used to be.

The package was delivered when expected and was undamaged. UPS usually just drops the packages off and leaves, so if we had not seen the guy get out of the beater car, we would not have know the difference. I got the parts I needed, so how ever it was delivered, I guess it is OK. The delivery is what I paid for, not the method that it was delivered with. Gene

Yep, happening here too, and I feel the same way; business is business. However they get it done is good...as long as it's getting done.

amazon kid drops off at my office daily in a old beat up Impala

They rent u haul trucks to deliver around me. I could care less what they are using for transportation as long as my package gets to me(on time).

Pulled a "temp" UPS drive out of my ditch last week - poor young lady 2nd day on the job completely missed my driveway.

During peak shipping season (October through December), UPS uses things like employee's cars and rented U-Haul trucks to get the packages delivered. If you've ever been in a UPS center the end of December it's insane! They are committed to getting the job DONE! Years ago I was a Saturday air and fill in driver. They called me after I was home on Christmas Eve, had me come to the center, get a U-Haul and take a SINGLE package to a small town 60 miles away.

Back in 94 when I first opened my welding shop, my shop was right next to our local UPS hub. Even back then Oct -Dec was crazy, can't imagine what the place is like these days! They are indeed committed to getting the packages out for Christmas if there is any way possible.