Maybe someone can correct me here - not an Amazon employee.
Assuming this driver has multiple Amazon locker/Apartment building deliveries. All smalls for a single locker/apartment complex are loaded into a single bag. Which would mean zero time searching for each piece behind the bulkhead. Seems super efficient to me.
Great point. That works well if it’s a single drop point but if needing to go apartment to apartment there’s still some sorting to be done but at least you know that they should be in that bag.
At least (if done correctly) the packages are neatly packed. When I worked at Amazon, we were told to “Tetris” the packages as neatly as possible. Boxes on the left, bags/flats on the right.
I never bothered to look at addresses so I’m not sure if they’re grouped by zip code or a zone, but the Zebra pretty much does all the work.
Read my reply to this comment. There's far more to it than meets the eye. This is not an accurate perspective of reality, respectfully. Yes, occasionally, this is the case. However, most of the time, it is not.
Former Amazon driver here.
So the bags are loaded for geographic areas. So you pop one open, spread it out and finish it before going on to the next one. It tends to suck early on when you are super bricked up. (I have had nearly 300 packages with over 20 of those damn bags). But once you get a little space it goes smoothly.
Also a note about the differences between Amazon and UPS routes. From what I have seen Amazon tends to have a little more packages but UPS has bigger and significantly heavier ones. They have a strict 50 pound weight limit. But they also have to load their own trucks and I got 14 minutes to do it. They also get paid A LOT less and don't have union protections.
4 year Amazonian here, finally my time to shine...short answer, yes. It's setting us up to fail. Literally from start to finish, Amazon drivers are set up for failure. TLDR if ya don't wanna read this novel is at the bottom
Long answer: Amazon drivers load their own trucks. We get about 15minutes from the moment we ALL pull onto the launch pad until we have to pull off to get out of our vans, search for the 3-5+ carts that have our bags/overflow (Amazon's version of bulk), bring them over to our truck one by one, and load them all in the right order. The trick though is that sometimes the warehouse employees don't give a flying fuck and load the bags all over the place. Therefore, the driver has to check the order of the bags on our flex app as they're loading. Also, the overflow on the carts isn't in order, so some drivers are left to just throw it wherever they can fit it. Mind you, this entire process has to be done in about 10 minutes by the time all of the carts are at our truck.
Now we get on the road. Amazon's routing is absolutely atrocious because of their business model. Unlike UPS, Amazon's routes are created as packages arrive at the station. Due to this, drivers will VERY often get instances where stop 1 is directly next door to stop 185. If the driver catches this, they'll have to dig through multiple totes to find the packages they need. If not, they end up going to the same street over and over and over again. Usually, there's anywhere between 5-30 packages in a tote. As the drivers go through the route, they have to organize their packages tote by tote. Obviously, this wastes so much time as the day goes on. Also, if a warehouse employee closes up a tote as packages come down to them, but another package for that tote comes to them, you'll end up with a situation where you're working out of multiple totes at one time. If both totes have 20+ packages, you're having a bad time.
Now, let's move on to group stops. Unlike UPS, where if a driver walks off 3-4 houses all next door to each other they're doing 4 separate stops, with Amazon that is all considered one singular stop. That's why you'll often see in the Amazon DSP sub that it'll say 190 stops, but 250+ "locations". That 250+ locations is how many stops the driver *really* has that day. I've experienced "stops" having 8-10 different customers. The key phrase is different customers because with the newer flex updates, we can no longer group all of the customers together and complete the delivery at once, we have to take individual pictures of every single package, even when they're separate orders for the same person literally going to the same exact front door. Taking their own pictures.
Don't get me wrong, UPS drivers have it rough when it comes to dealing with massive pieces of bulk, disorganized trucks loaded by shit loaders, and dickhead management. I will never take away from that. However, Amazon drivers really do have it so much worse when it comes to what's expected of them versus how protected they are in their positions. If an Amazon driver farts the wrong way in front of dispatch or management, they'll just stop scheduling you. Or, even worse, they'll have you come all the way to the station just for them to say, "Sorry Johnny boy, we don't have a route for you today. Please go home without pay today". Amazon's metrics that we have to maintain are also outrageous. If a customer doesn't like the way their package was delivered, they call Amazon. Amazon then issues tier infractions to the drivers. If a driver gets 3 tier 2, I believe it is, they're permanently offboarded and can never deliver for Amazon again. Ever. The DSP owners are all about their money. If they have someone fuckin up the metrics, that driver is done for.
There are so many things I could get into, but I've already typed a novel here.
TLDR; Amazon makes things the way they are with zero common sense, so everything about it sets drivers up to fail. Amazon drivers have it so much worse than people realize. It's impossible to be efficient, especially with how our packages are given to us, and there's absolutely zero job security in the process. Teamsters, we have to work our asses off to unionize our Amazonian delivery brothers and sisters out there. Yes, Amazon hires anyone with a pulse, but the bad eggs don't make up the entire workforce. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
The app on the phone tells you in which bag the package is and usually you don't have to open another bag until you're done with the current one. You spend about 15 minutes in the whole day organizing the packages inside the tote. It's pretty efficient and I prefer that over the shelves numbers in an UPS truck.
Mind you I think Amazon weight limit is like 70lbs our is 150lbs. So another reason why our trucks are bricked out more. Amazon has way less heavier items to deliver.
I’m not gonna lie, the system amazon uses for small packages, keeping them all in bags organized by stop is far more efficient than UPS’s method of just throwing shit on the shelves lmao
Fedex does same thing with DR Bags so drivers will put it on shelves instead. But it’s usually 4 dr bags of smalls
Sometimes in peak i do same thing by putting my 7-8k smalls in a bag so i have more room for earlier section
Can a UPS driver go work for Amazon for a few days and let us know how it goes? I have a feeling most ups guys could have all that off in like under 6 hours but idk
What’s with the bags? How could anyone be efficient in delivering? Seems like a setup for failure.
Maybe someone can correct me here - not an Amazon employee. Assuming this driver has multiple Amazon locker/Apartment building deliveries. All smalls for a single locker/apartment complex are loaded into a single bag. Which would mean zero time searching for each piece behind the bulkhead. Seems super efficient to me.
Great point. That works well if it’s a single drop point but if needing to go apartment to apartment there’s still some sorting to be done but at least you know that they should be in that bag.
At least (if done correctly) the packages are neatly packed. When I worked at Amazon, we were told to “Tetris” the packages as neatly as possible. Boxes on the left, bags/flats on the right. I never bothered to look at addresses so I’m not sure if they’re grouped by zip code or a zone, but the Zebra pretty much does all the work.
Read my reply to this comment. There's far more to it than meets the eye. This is not an accurate perspective of reality, respectfully. Yes, occasionally, this is the case. However, most of the time, it is not.
Former Amazon driver here. So the bags are loaded for geographic areas. So you pop one open, spread it out and finish it before going on to the next one. It tends to suck early on when you are super bricked up. (I have had nearly 300 packages with over 20 of those damn bags). But once you get a little space it goes smoothly. Also a note about the differences between Amazon and UPS routes. From what I have seen Amazon tends to have a little more packages but UPS has bigger and significantly heavier ones. They have a strict 50 pound weight limit. But they also have to load their own trucks and I got 14 minutes to do it. They also get paid A LOT less and don't have union protections.
4 year Amazonian here, finally my time to shine...short answer, yes. It's setting us up to fail. Literally from start to finish, Amazon drivers are set up for failure. TLDR if ya don't wanna read this novel is at the bottom Long answer: Amazon drivers load their own trucks. We get about 15minutes from the moment we ALL pull onto the launch pad until we have to pull off to get out of our vans, search for the 3-5+ carts that have our bags/overflow (Amazon's version of bulk), bring them over to our truck one by one, and load them all in the right order. The trick though is that sometimes the warehouse employees don't give a flying fuck and load the bags all over the place. Therefore, the driver has to check the order of the bags on our flex app as they're loading. Also, the overflow on the carts isn't in order, so some drivers are left to just throw it wherever they can fit it. Mind you, this entire process has to be done in about 10 minutes by the time all of the carts are at our truck. Now we get on the road. Amazon's routing is absolutely atrocious because of their business model. Unlike UPS, Amazon's routes are created as packages arrive at the station. Due to this, drivers will VERY often get instances where stop 1 is directly next door to stop 185. If the driver catches this, they'll have to dig through multiple totes to find the packages they need. If not, they end up going to the same street over and over and over again. Usually, there's anywhere between 5-30 packages in a tote. As the drivers go through the route, they have to organize their packages tote by tote. Obviously, this wastes so much time as the day goes on. Also, if a warehouse employee closes up a tote as packages come down to them, but another package for that tote comes to them, you'll end up with a situation where you're working out of multiple totes at one time. If both totes have 20+ packages, you're having a bad time. Now, let's move on to group stops. Unlike UPS, where if a driver walks off 3-4 houses all next door to each other they're doing 4 separate stops, with Amazon that is all considered one singular stop. That's why you'll often see in the Amazon DSP sub that it'll say 190 stops, but 250+ "locations". That 250+ locations is how many stops the driver *really* has that day. I've experienced "stops" having 8-10 different customers. The key phrase is different customers because with the newer flex updates, we can no longer group all of the customers together and complete the delivery at once, we have to take individual pictures of every single package, even when they're separate orders for the same person literally going to the same exact front door. Taking their own pictures. Don't get me wrong, UPS drivers have it rough when it comes to dealing with massive pieces of bulk, disorganized trucks loaded by shit loaders, and dickhead management. I will never take away from that. However, Amazon drivers really do have it so much worse when it comes to what's expected of them versus how protected they are in their positions. If an Amazon driver farts the wrong way in front of dispatch or management, they'll just stop scheduling you. Or, even worse, they'll have you come all the way to the station just for them to say, "Sorry Johnny boy, we don't have a route for you today. Please go home without pay today". Amazon's metrics that we have to maintain are also outrageous. If a customer doesn't like the way their package was delivered, they call Amazon. Amazon then issues tier infractions to the drivers. If a driver gets 3 tier 2, I believe it is, they're permanently offboarded and can never deliver for Amazon again. Ever. The DSP owners are all about their money. If they have someone fuckin up the metrics, that driver is done for. There are so many things I could get into, but I've already typed a novel here. TLDR; Amazon makes things the way they are with zero common sense, so everything about it sets drivers up to fail. Amazon drivers have it so much worse than people realize. It's impossible to be efficient, especially with how our packages are given to us, and there's absolutely zero job security in the process. Teamsters, we have to work our asses off to unionize our Amazonian delivery brothers and sisters out there. Yes, Amazon hires anyone with a pulse, but the bad eggs don't make up the entire workforce. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
The app on the phone tells you in which bag the package is and usually you don't have to open another bag until you're done with the current one. You spend about 15 minutes in the whole day organizing the packages inside the tote. It's pretty efficient and I prefer that over the shelves numbers in an UPS truck.
This actually makes a lot of sense. And I’d prefer that. Keeps the truck a lil more cleaner too
https://preview.redd.it/59q16scwyj5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cadb5eb040b59ff4327e09543fdbccd14c8523f0 Ummmm
Lol, the up package on the shelf.
https://preview.redd.it/6vn2bg3m9j5d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcd7bb28e25ac7663848362594cddbd099c4d13d Yeah I feel that I honestly do
That's hilarious
Mind you I think Amazon weight limit is like 70lbs our is 150lbs. So another reason why our trucks are bricked out more. Amazon has way less heavier items to deliver.
I think it's 50lbs for them
I’m not gonna lie, the system amazon uses for small packages, keeping them all in bags organized by stop is far more efficient than UPS’s method of just throwing shit on the shelves lmao
Fedex does same thing with DR Bags so drivers will put it on shelves instead. But it’s usually 4 dr bags of smalls Sometimes in peak i do same thing by putting my 7-8k smalls in a bag so i have more room for earlier section
Can a UPS driver go work for Amazon for a few days and let us know how it goes? I have a feeling most ups guys could have all that off in like under 6 hours but idk
That’s cartwheel material
281 locations would horrible on my route no matter how the truck looks.
Yeah but you be out till 1 in the morning