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I was trying to get a Nintendo Switch on Black Friday for a family Christmas present, and it seems everyone in the country was doing the same. Sold out everywhere. I ordered one from a 3rd party seller on Amazon who, infuriatingly, seem to be based abroad. No idea whether it's going to get here in time for Christmas.

I am seeing this year that it appears the delivery companies are contracting deliveries in our area.

For the last week my deliveries from Fed-Ex have all been done from a mid 2000s Dodge Caravan with a Fed-Ex sticker slapped on the back window. The guy was in a Fed-Ex hat but no uniform.

My deliveries over the last week from UPS have been done in a U-Haul rental van by a girl without a uniform at all.

It has been odd to see for sure as usually its just the normal trucks that drop everything off

IronWarLeg wrote:
I am seeing this year that it appears the delivery companies are contracting deliveries in our area.

For the last week my deliveries from Fed-Ex have all been done from a mid 2000s Dodge Caravan with a Fed-Ex sticker slapped on the back window. The guy was in a Fed-Ex hat but no uniform.

My deliveries over the last week from UPS have been done in a U-Haul rental van by a girl without a uniform at all.

It has been odd to see for sure as usually its just the normal trucks that drop everything off

I don't know about the USA, but up here in Canada it's relatively common for temps or seasonal helpers to be driving rental vehicles to deliver parcels. I work for Canada Post and spent the holidays last year driving U-hauls and Dodge caravans to get the packages out. There might be even more of this happening now with covid being what it is.

I live within 10 minutes of a fairly large transport hub for FedEx and 15 of UPS+USPS.

Around six or seven years ago? We ceased seeing FedEx trucks unless it was something that was overnighted. It's always U-Hauls or tendered over to USPS to actually deliver. FedEx cut a huuuuuuuuge part of their fleet and much like Amazon foisted a lot of their transportation costs onto the USPS.

Holiday season is the only time we reliably see FedEx trucks. This year though, it's been people in actual just personal vehicles in their uniforms.

Huh, I didnt realize it was such a common thing. At the same time though, when we aren't in the middle of a pandemic, I normally work in the office so maybe its been this way for a bit and I just haven't seen the delivery vehicles

In the end, it feels like the big carriers under-promised but managed to deliver as expected.

Good work to them.

 Easy E wrote:
In the end, it feels like the big carriers under-promised but managed to deliver as expected.

Good work to them.

Or they lucked out in getting people hired on as drivers and USPS workers thumbing their nose at an attempt that was aimed at doing everything it could to feth over everyone.

We had mail deliveries three or four times a day in November and December. We were still getting deliveries at times up until 10 or 11.

Well yeah, there was no doubt that those last mile delivery drivers (typically USPS) went to herculean efforts to make deliveries happen!

The thanks the USPS will get is the voters the delivered to trying to gut them as an agency.

I am living in Alaska and waiting for a package is a big challenge for me