A small anecdote about online shopping

R

retiredtraveler

Senior Member
This is just a (true) story involving online shopping that never occurred to me. Like many people, I have steadily increased my online shopping over the past several years.

I see, and talk, to our mail carrier every once in a while. We recently spoke and she stated that she was resigning her carrier position at the end of this month. I was surprised as she is not that old or in poor physical shape or anything, and is quitting after putting in 20 years which means that she will only get a partial pension.

Why? Her job has totally changed in the last decade, the largest changes in the past 5 years. She was a mail carrier. Now, the workload has increased exponentially because she primarily delivers packages rather than mail (which we all know has been in steady decline). She says she routinely has hundreds of packages a day, and around the holidays, was delivering usually in the range of 750 packages a day. She has to deliver large, bulky items (such as cases of TP) as well as large, heavier items, such as foldable mattresses and lug them up stairs. In short, as she stated, the job has changed and it's just too difficult to do this kind of delivery, especially due to the volume. It's not like UPS driving all over to different houses. She has to follow her route with an exponentially larger, physically larger and weightier, load. Even has to make multiple trips back to the post office as the little truck won't handle the volume.
As she stated, "what is it with people that they can't go the store and buy their own toilet paper?".

Never thought of that! :(
 

I do feel for the mail carriers, I am guilty of doing lots and lots of shopping online ( blame it on Amazon). Add in the crazy amount of home building in my area and their jobs are crazy. I have started giving our mail carrier a Christmas gift card to Starbucks and say hi every time I see him.
 
The smaller post offices down here are doing something different, they are loading packages on another truck for delivery and letting the route carrier's do their thing..
 
Wow, talk about stress on your back and stress to get the days deliveries all delivered. Not such an easy job at all.
 
Online shopping has exploded, so all the carriers are having to scramble to keep up. And I must admit I am one of "those people" with many items on auto-ship from Amazon including cases of paper products, cleaning products, and k-cups monthly. :D

I also did almost all of my Christmas shopping online this past year; it was freakin' great. No mall parking for me.
 
Me too. I started doing my Christmas shopping online a number of years ago and I've never looked back. Most of the people I buy gifts for live in other parts of the country, so that makes it even more convenient to buy online.

I don't buy much in the way of paper goods. I haven't used paper towels or disposable napkins in years but I buy all kinds of other things on Amazon auto ship, mostly food items.
 
It is worse than that for USPS deliveries... the "package only" folks can go directly from one drop off to the next; the USPS folks have to follow their postal route and try to remember where a package gets dropped off. I have seen them at times come back a time or two because they didn't drop off a delivery.
 
I'm guilty though most of the items I buy online will fit in the mail box or at least are small and lightweight. I have had a couple of boxes that were large, mainly because amazon used boxes that were twice as large as needed for the items inside.
 
I like to shop at Costco, and for a long time have bought large, bulky items like TP and tissues there. A week or so ago, I decided to try their online site for a huge bundle of TP. It was great! No shipping charges, and it saved me from having to lug that very large bundle out of the store, into my car, out of the car, into the elevator, etc. etc.

I like shopping for food items and other stuff in person, but I think getting large, bulky items online and having them delivered is wonderful. (Maybe this is an interim step, and before too long it will all be done by robots?)
 
I never gave this much thought, but I did hear that deliverers are under a great deal of pressure to meet that 2-day deadline no matter what obstacles may arise.

It's great for the obvious needs of the shoppers; distance, disabilities, weather, etc. But the closing line of Retired Traveler's mail carrier " "what is it with people that they can't go the store and buy their own toilet paper?"." Hit a nerve.
 
RadishRose said:
I never gave this much thought, but I did hear that deliverers are under a great deal of pressure to meet that 2-day deadline no matter what obstacles may arise.

It's great for the obvious needs of the shoppers; distance, disabilities, weather, etc.
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Not too bad here as we have 2 Amazon Centers in the DFW area..DFW is in the running for the new Amazon HQ2!!!!!

There is also a Walmart online center here..
 
Online shopping should be considered a boon to the post office and in fact all the courier services. If business picks up, hire more people!

And as for why not drive to the store to buy toilet paper... well, because I can buy a case at a time for a better price and I don't have to even think about restocking because it is an "auto-delivery" product. And mostly, because I can. :D I also order stuff from Costco.com because it's easier than fighting the crowds at the store and in the parking lot. Delivery is FREE on most stuff so why not.

Oh, and with the flu epidemic this winter, I choose to stay home as much as possible, so online shopping is another plus.
 
retiredtraveler said:
This is just a (true) story involving online shopping that never occurred to me. Like many people, I have steadily increased my online shopping over the past several years.

I see, and talk, to our mail carrier every once in a while. We recently spoke and she stated that she was resigning her carrier position at the end of this month. I was surprised as she is not that old or in poor physical shape or anything, and is quitting after putting in 20 years which means that she will only get a partial pension.

Why? Her job has totally changed in the last decade, the largest changes in the past 5 years. She was a mail carrier. Now, the workload has increased exponentially because she primarily delivers packages rather than mail (which we all know has been in steady decline). She says she routinely has hundreds of packages a day, and around the holidays, was delivering usually in the range of 750 packages a day. She has to deliver large, bulky items (such as cases of TP) as well as large, heavier items, such as foldable mattresses and lug them up stairs. In short, as she stated, the job has changed and it's just too difficult to do this kind of delivery, especially due to the volume. It's not like UPS driving all over to different houses. She has to follow her route with an exponentially larger, physically larger and weightier, load. Even has to make multiple trips back to the post office as the little truck won't handle the volume.
As she stated, "what is it with people that they can't go the store and buy their own toilet paper?".

Never thought of that! :(
Click to expand...

If it was only so simple. Many use online shopping because they physically cannot go to the mall. I doubt most buy toilet paper that way however.
 
I don't buy enormous quantities of anything, let alone toilet paper, mostly because I don't want to take up that much of my limited storage.

Having said that, I'm pretty much the prototypical little old lady. I'm 75, drive a very small car that limits how much I can stuff in it, and I despise shopping. It's physically challenging for me to carry large or heavy packages. Part of how I take care of myself is that I don't put that kind of stress on my joints or muscles. If I want to order heavy or bulky items online, that's my business. If it strains USPS' resources to deliver my packages, they need to rethink how they function.

Not my problem.
 
Many jobs evolve because of automation and people doing things online more and more, such as e-mail, online greeting cards, online bill paying, etc. And, yes, online shopping. There are shipping organizations who would love to take over the business of the Postal Service. I would hate to not have postmen and women deliver my daily mail. That would upset me. I've been thinking that I've been helping save the postal service by ordering stuff online and having the packages delivered to me by them. But then, I've read that the postal service is not charging enough to deliver packages and is thereby losing money. I would agree to pay more to have it survive. But then, we keep paying more for regular mail service, such as increase rates for mailing things. Something is really off balance here.
 
The royal mail postmen and women here in the uk ( mainly men).. only deliver very small packages along with the regular mail... UPS and a host of other parcel carriers deliver the bigger stuff... In my mind, online shopping has created 2 major things..one drawback..and that is a huge explosion of delivery vans on the roads in recent years... Conversely the flip sie of the coin ..is that it's created hundreds of thousands of jobs for delivery drivers and warehouse pickers.. who otherwise they may have been unemployed..

There is absolutely no way any regular postman would be expected to deliver huge items like a Mattress.. to anyone much less up a flight of stairs.....
 
Pappy said:
My son is a mail carrier in Lakeland, WA. He sent this photo which proves exactly what you are saying traveler.

View attachment 47412
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jeez Pappy, that's horrendous... , it would be interesting to see if he could claim compensation if he damaged his back...especially if like the OP's Mail carrier, his contract is from long before online shopping, and doesn't state that he must carry heavy loads
 
retiredtraveler said:
This is just a (true) story involving online shopping that never occurred to me. Like many people, I have steadily increased my online shopping over the past several years.

I see, and talk, to our mail carrier every once in a while. We recently spoke and she stated that she was resigning her carrier position at the end of this month. I was surprised as she is not that old or in poor physical shape or anything, and is quitting after putting in 20 years which means that she will only get a partial pension.

Why? Her job has totally changed in the last decade, the largest changes in the past 5 years. She was a mail carrier. Now, the workload has increased exponentially because she primarily delivers packages rather than mail (which we all know has been in steady decline). She says she routinely has hundreds of packages a day, and around the holidays, was delivering usually in the range of 750 packages a day. She has to deliver large, bulky items (such as cases of TP) as well as large, heavier items, such as foldable mattresses and lug them up stairs. In short, as she stated, the job has changed and it's just too difficult to do this kind of delivery, especially due to the volume. It's not like UPS driving all over to different houses. She has to follow her route with an exponentially larger, physically larger and weightier, load. Even has to make multiple trips back to the post office as the little truck won't handle the volume.
As she stated, "what is it with people that they can't go the store and buy their own toilet paper?".

Never thought of that! :(
Click to expand...

Well, I don't think I'd go as far as to buy toilet paper online, but I recently ordered some household products from an online store called Hollar- dish detergent, cleaning sponges, etc.
Between chaotic bad weather and work overload, at least I don't have to go shopping for those things.
 
Smiling Jane said:
I don't buy enormous quantities of anything, let alone toilet paper, mostly because I don't want to take up that much of my limited storage.

Having said that, I'm pretty much the prototypical little old lady. I'm 75, drive a very small car that limits how much I can stuff in it, and I despise shopping. It's physically challenging for me to carry large or heavy packages. Part of how I take care of myself is that I don't put that kind of stress on my joints or muscles. If I want to order heavy or bulky items online, that's my business. If it strains USPS' resources to deliver my packages, they need to rethink how they function.

Not my problem.
Click to expand...

I realize how this sounds. My mail carrier is a great big muscular guy who looks like he works out all the time, or I would be more concerned.

Even so, I'm surprised that some of the orders I've gotten from Walmart have been so heavy. They seem to want to put everything in one big box rather than breaking the order into less heavy components.
 
I don't know why toilet paper has become the fall guy here. It's just one of the hundreds of items that people can and do buy online. For many, it's just a matter of how much stuff they can cram into their car, or carry themselves. Example: if you were buying a new sofa, would you go to the store and carry it home yourself?

The TP discussion did make me smile, though, for another reason. Where I live, it's kind of a local joke that every time they predict even the lightest sprinkling of snow, everybody runs to the grocery and buys milk, bread, and yes, TP! It's like a generalized panic that we might run out of those items. Of course, heavy snowfalls very rarely happen around here, so all that shopping and stocking up was for nothing.
 
I was sitting outside of Walmart waiting for the wife and did my usual people watching..A lady ran in and came out about 10 minutes later with a 8 pack of toilet paper!! I wondered who was waiting at home for her return!!
 
Sunny said:
I don't know why toilet paper has become the fall guy here. It's just one of the hundreds of items that people can and do buy online. For many, it's just a matter of how much stuff they can cram into their car, or carry themselves. Example: if you were buying a new sofa, would you go to the store and carry it home yourself?

The TP discussion did make me smile, though, for another reason. Where I live, it's kind of a local joke that every time they predict even the lightest sprinkling of snow, everybody runs to the grocery and buys milk, bread, and yes, TP! It's like a generalized panic that we might run out of those items. Of course, heavy snowfalls very rarely happen around here, so all that shopping and stocking up was for nothing.
Click to expand...

My thoughts, exactly. I have plenty of storage space so I don't mind having a month's worth of TP (or anything else that I know we will have need for.) I also buy cases of paper towels.... GASP!! Oh, the humanity.

And I suppose the disaster prep is universal; when we get hurricane warnings everyone rushes for bottled water, toilet paper, and bread. Luckily I have my stash of TP so no need for me to worry. :D
 

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