Life in the Courier fast Lane

Beam Me Up Courier Services - By: Norman Dulwich



Just about everybody working in the courier business has, at some time or another, had to suppress the urge to say to a client “you’ve just GOT to be joking”.

It’s a strange world

It usually happens around the time the client tells you that they need ‘it’ to arrive at the destination point shortly before they’ll actually have ‘it’ ready for collection from their premises.
Of course, being professionals in the courier business, we normally manage to avoid being too pointed in our observations regarding basic geography and the laws of physics. We try, via a mixture of humour and a pretence that it’s us that somehow just can’t ‘get it’, to get the client to think laterally and thereby grasp the fact that we’re not magicians. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we don’t.

In those latter cases, one of three things often happens:

• The potential client goes elsewhere, in a huff, to try and find a courier that can actually do the impossible
• You do the job anyway - with the client, to save face, pretending they think you’ll do it to their timescale, then staying quiet when you don’t
• As per above, except you get pilloried by your client when you do exactly what you said you’d do – i.e. fail to achieve the impossible.

It’s an even stranger world

This may be part and parcel (sorry, bad pun) of your daily life as a courier but if you think it’s sometimes a bit surreal now – “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet”! In the past, we’ve always been able to appeal to people’s reason, even if they didn’t always listen. It was always possible to show a distance between two points and also the average speed of a bike or motor vehicle and say “you tell us how that can be done in the time you want”.

Well, did you know that experiments conducted by Professor Anton Zeilinger in Austria some years ago, managed to successfully transport tiny particles instantly between two points? At this stage, you can probably see where this is going! There have also been other theories and some, disputed, experiments that appear to show results before the effect was actually triggered. Yep, you guessed it – time travel!

Now it’s all currently very experimental and theoretical but the average client can read just as well as a courier and are just as likely to sometimes add 2+2 and get 4.5. So, be warned, the dialogue’s about to change!

New asks

So, with that in mind and imagining the jobs of the future, as a professional courier you’d probably like to be prepared in advance for possible customer issues. So here are a few, hopefully helpful, predictions of some of the client requests you may be facing a bit sooner than you think.

• We’d like this delivered a week ago last Monday please….
• What do you mean ‘no’? If the Austrians can do it, why can’t you?
• Can’t you revise your estimated delivery date by using a quantum entanglement delivery system?
• Yes, I know I gave you the wrong delivery address but if you send the driver back to see me yesterday at 3, that time I’ll get it right
• We’ve our own transport machine but we also like escorted courier services. Would your driver mind if we disintegrated and then re-assembled him instantly at the delivery point?
• Due to a transmission mix-up, your driver now seems to exist at both the collection and delivery points at the same time. He’s apparently moaning and asking for double time.
• Your driver was travelling as a stream of sub-atomic particles in another dimension and time reality – how is it that he’s still blaming the M25 for delays?

Having identified some of these new world courier questions, it’s a lot harder to come up with the snappy one-line answers. That’s your job! You probably have a little time yet to think about t! Oh yes, if you’re a courier and don’t like this article, then please let me know three weeks ago and I won’t bother writing it!

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The Courier and Haute Couture - By: Norman Dulwich



Some jobs just ooze opportunity to flaunt yourself and show off your latest togs but sadly that’s rarely the case for the courier.

Showcasing

OK, not everybody’s made the same, either physically or psychologically. Even so, some jobs give the opportunity to ‘strut your stuff’ and look good in clothes that also proudly proclaim your profession. Let’s take a couple of obvious examples. Think about, say, Tom Cruise in Top Gun or Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman. People in the military often wear the uniforms as a mark of pride in their occupation but also as a bit of a fashion statement. The old joke about all the girls love a uniform may not be entirely untrue, and quite a few men admit to liking women in uniform too.

Then there are other outfits that proclaim both utility and sexiness coupled with style. Think about the surgeons shown on TV strolling around in their theatre kit or the doctors in their long white coats. Then there are all the other badges of office – the chef’s white overalls, the judge’s robes, the pilot’s uniform and so on. All these occupations have the chance to wear clothes that communicate a purpose but also are maybe a mixture of style in some cases plus perhaps prestige or ‘street-cred’ in others. But what about the courier? Is there a courier street style?

Workaday clothing

You may say that this is a tiny percentage of the workforce. In reality, most people don’t wear uniforms as such when they’re on the shop floor or in an office etc. Well, maybe or maybe not.

If you see a mechanic or engineer dressed in their overalls, perhaps covered in oil as evidence of their trade, sometimes it’s hard not to see it as a recognisable badge of profession and one that’s pretty street-cred. In many offices, the latest suits, shirts, blouses and skirts are on display and there’s an opportunity to ‘dress-up’ to show a combination of your personal style and maybe even level of success.

The humble courier

For us, it’s all so different of course. Take the motorcycle courier for example. Waddling into an office submerged under 27 layers of protective clothing and leathers designed to keep the cold out rather than style, while sporting a full-face helmet, just isn’t going to have the same effect on members of the opposite sex that Richard Gere’s entry to the shop floor had in the above mentioned film. Sorry, but that’s a fact! When the courier first made the transition to pedal power, initially it looked like there may be some hope as spandex, lycra and sunglasses started to seem like they may become marks of profession. But not so much now. Even when you do still see it, people struggling to ‘pull themselves some slack’ around the saddle area after they’ve dismounted, is just never going to look either glamorous or much of a statement of status (other than, maybe, “I’m sore”). Nowadays comfortable and practical clothing is more the norm and the helmet just isn’t going to cut it as a fashion statement.

Finally there’s the four-wheeled courier. Some of the bigger carriers may have uniforms but few would argue that they’re even close to being symbols of prestige or fashion. Why, oh why, do so many of them look like they had their design origin in Thunderbirds programmes of the 1960s? Once again, the norm remains a tatty pair of jeans and a practical heavy-duty jacket just in case that breakdown maroons us somewhere inhospitable in the depths of miserable weather. Exciting it isn’t.

What’s the solution?

Stating the problem is easy – finding an answer is often more of a challenge. Perhaps some of the courier industry associations should all chip in a few pounds to hire some PR consultants and a fashion designer. Maybe they could come up with some sort of recognisable garb that would instantly proclaim to everyone that you’re a courier and proud of it. If that could also be fairly stylish and practical at the same time – then so much the better. Mmmm. Not looking likely just yet, but we’ll be sure to keep you posted and report any courier fashion developments we discover.


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Great Courier Receptions - By: Norman Dulwich


Many at the ‘sharp-end’ of the courier business have seen it. In fact, sometimes it’s more of a sixth-sense than anything else. It’s that sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you arrive somewhere to make a delivery and you just KNOW it’s all going to go pear-shaped.

The warning signs

One of the best indicators that a courier job may go wrong is when you arrive at destination only to spot some immediately visible worries, including such gems as:

• Gates being padlocked;
• A security guard sitting at a desk in reception not trying too hard to hide the fact that he or she is playing a computer game;
• A completely empty car park;
• The ‘Closed’ sign hanging in the front window.

OK, so you don’t have to be a great detective to realise that any of these things may be a pretty powerful indicator that you’re probably going to have trouble making that delivery. There are, though, a few more subtle signposts the courier experiences from time to time.

Body language

In this category, things may initially look promising. Maybe the building’s open and buzzing with life, the sun’s shining and everything looks good. Don’t get too carried away with the ‘joie de vivre’ though, because those courier warning bells might start to ring again very shortly.

That’s when:

• The person on reception looks at you as though you’re clearly deranged when you say you’re a courier trying to make a delivery;
• Your mention of the recipient’s name results in a baffled look, followed by the receptionist starting to thumb half-heartedly through their internal directory to find the person concerned (this one is often accompanied by loud sighs and a sad shaking of the head from side-to-side as they try and find the name);
• The receptionist is “calling up” to try and find out what’s going on and all you can hear is one side of the conversation, consisting of one or more of: “no, I’ve never heard of them either”; “wasn’t that the guy that left 6 weeks ago?”; “aren’t they based in our other office up north?”; “I’m not telling him – you come down and tell him”;“that’s not my responsibility, so if you won’t sign for it then I’m not”;
• As the phone is put down, even if you haven’t heard anything along the lines of the above, you suddenly find the receptionist is unable to look you in the eye and starts fidgeting in their chair – that’s often accompanied by those immortal words “someone will be down to sort you out in a few minutes” (the expression ‘sort you out’ is almost ALWAYS a bad sign – be warned!);
• You sit down in reception patiently waiting for the ‘sorter-outer’ to arrive and then spot the receptionist whispering conspiratorially to a colleague and pointing in your direction.

Of course, none of these things necessarily mean doom and gloom for the courier but…….

Done and dusted

Let’s assume that in spite of all of this, the delivery has somehow managed to take place and you’re in the process of leaving. Job done. Mission accomplished. It’s time to take that mental lap of honour and on to the next courier job. Or is it?

If you’re an experienced courier, you’re probably worldly-wise enough to know that once you’ve got that signature, then you need to get out of there like greased lightning. That’s to avoid any remote possibility of the sudden “hang on – I’m not taking responsibility for this!” call and re-think on the part of the consignee. So, your feet are really motoring towards that exit door, then the alarm bells ring again as you hear the person signing for it saying to the receptionist one or more of:

• “I thought these were only shipped in lead-lined containers”
• “I’m surprised he agreed to deliver it like that given what’s inside”
• “I’m not touching it without a bio-hazard suit”
• “Oh no! It’s leaking out of the bottom!”
• “Get the safety tongs and I’ll carry it downstairs”.

That’s when you have to decide whether to continue letting your courier instincts drive your feet out of there as fast as possible or whether you turn back and say “er, excuse me…”. Tricky call! But don’t worry, we’re pretty sure this one will never happen, but you have been warned!


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Life in the Courier fast Lane - By: Norman Dulwich



Working in the courier industry can be great fun – hard work for sure, but also pretty rewarding.
If you like seeing different parts of the world, long-distance and overseas work can be great.
OK, even with SATNAV it’s not always easy to find delivery addresses located in the obscure back streets of Brussels, Lille, or Paris but it’s certainly fun trying! It can be even more fun if you have to stop and keep asking for directions – that’s when you realise that English isn’t quite as widely spoken as you’d read.

Then there is the courier client contact. Nobody’s going to pretend that sometimes that isn’t a bit stressful. If a client’s paying a premium price for fast and secure delivery then they can, quite rightly, be demanding about the service they receive. They’ll also quite understandably be inclined to let you know if they think you’ve failed to deliver (literally and metaphorically).

Yet sometimes, it’s the customer who can cause the courier a few issues now and then. Take the time a motorcycle was despatched to pick up a package described as being “10 x 10 x 6” only to discover upon arrival that the measurements related to feet rather than inches or centimetres! That would have taken some explaining to police as you wobbled along with it on your bike.

Then there was the occasion when one motorcyclist courier arrived to collect a parcel estimated at “about a kilo or so” but which was, in reality, so heavy that it took two men to lift it!
Then there are those than provide incorrect delivery addresses but can’t understand why you couldn’t deliver it anyway. One company actually fast couriered and correctly delivered, a parcel to the Paris office of their client only to find that the client had meant to send it to an address in Hull. Hull, Paris – they sound similar so it’s an easy mistake to make – right?

Perhaps one of the funniest stories going around was the request to courier a package from one London company to another, and it was only the driver that upon collection, pointed out that the destination office was diagonally opposite the sending company and certainly less than 1 minute’s walk away. Perhaps it was raining and they didn’t want to get wet!

Just about every courier company has lots of amusing stories and some of them have become the stuff of legends including; the parcel where the contents desperately started trying to dig themselves out of the wrapping (actually a small robot that had erroneously activated and started to try and push its arm through the box); and another parcel that started to sing (a recording in a player managed to switch itself on).

However, the reality of life is that working in the courier industry isn’t a continual bout of horsing around and hilarious laughter. The vast majority of people in the industry are hard working and dedicated to providing a good service. They know that their customer’s very business may depend upon them doing the best job possible and they’ll do their utmost to achieve that.

Weather, strikes, traffic, roadworks, volcanoes – all these things sometimes seem as if they’re conspiring to stop us getting things from A to B; but the dedicated courier will keep fighting to get through. As a courier, do we deserve applause or are we just doing what we should be expected to do as part of our normal job responsibilities? Only you the reader can decide but perhaps many of us deep down inside, secretly wouldn’t mind a bit of spontaneous applause from time-to-time!



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Strange Laws A Courier Should Know - By: Norman Dulwich



For a courier engaged in delivery work within the UK, the rules of the road are clear-cut. Drivers know the rules they have to follow, and (for the most part) conform to them. Couriers can focus on finding their way to an unfamiliar destination, or on taking extra care when loading or unloading goods. Familiarity with local traffic laws is undoubtedly a huge boon to a courier’s work, but some ‘rules of the road’ from around the globe might leave a driver scratching their heads in bemusement. Here are the strangest traffic laws we’ve seen around the world.

Germany

As 2010 began, Germany implemented a law that every car entering Berlin, Munich, Cologne, and ten other cities in the country had to display an environmental sticker. If you’re a courier driving to Germany from outside the country, failing to display the sticker could lead to a fine.

Canada

In Montreal, Canada, a courier might find themselves stymied when it comes to parking. It’s illegal to park in such a manner as to block your own driveway, and it is against the law to wash a car parked on the street. Finally, cars parked in public places, by law, must have their windows down to a width less than a hand. Couriers may not want to leave their vehicle if it’s raining!

The USA

One Southern American state, Georgia, has a law prohibiting the act of spitting from a car or a bus. However, good news for a courier whose choice of vehicle is a truck – spitting from the windows of a truck is perfectly fine. Other states have differing laws that must make being a courier in the USA interesting – in Illinois, trucks may only park inside closed garages. In Virginia, you cannot shoot any animal from a moving car... any animal other than a whale. In Florida, if you keep an animal such as an alligator or elephant next to a parking meter, you must put money into the meter as if you’d parked a car there. A useful clarification for those couriers delivering animals to the circus!

The UK

There are some famously strange laws in the UK that could make for interesting delivery work. It is illegal for a cab in London to carry rabid dogs or corpses. However, as this law only applied to cabs, it should pose no problem for a truck or car-driving courier. Additionally, all those ‘livestock-herding’ jobs can be made a lot easier in London; ‘Freemen’ of the city are allowed to take a flock of sheep across London Bridge without being charged a toll. It must have been a useful law for the medieval courier. Another holdover from medieval times would have been very relevant to seafaring deliveries. Any Royal Navy ships that entered the Port of London were by law required to provide a barrel full of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London.

Interestingly, the ancient ‘London Hackney Carriage Laws’ still cause disputes amongst modern-day taxis, and might be a law to recognize for a courier as well. The law states that carriages must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats. Some firms have manufactured tiny bales of hay to be kept in a glove compartment, so that drivers can still remain within the law.



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Audio Books for a Courier - By: Norman Dulwich



For a courier on a long-distance job, it can be hard to keep alert and focused. While there are various methods of keeping yourself stimulated during a long drive, there is one that can not only help you pass the time, but will help you impress people with your literary knowledge at the same time. The answer? Listening to audio books. You don’t even need to bring along a stack of delicate CD’s – these days, audio books can be downloaded as an MP3 file, or directly to an IPod. Whatever your taste in stories, there’s an audio book for you. And next time that tricky question about a novel comes up in a pub quiz, you’ll be prepared. Here are a few of our top selections for audio books a courier can enjoy on the road.

Dramatic

For a courier who wants to be gripped by thrilling tales, there are plenty of audio books with fascinating stories and subjects. Sebastian Faulks’ ‘Birdsong’ follows the character of Stephen Wraysford through World War One, and has received acclaim for its retelling of the Battle of the Somme and life in the trenches. There’s also John Grisham’s ‘The Broker’, a tale of suspense that made number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. It features a high-stakes story centred around the world’s most powerful satellite surveillance system – which may give couriers a new view on their GPS systems!

Mystery

There’s nothing like a good mystery to keep a driver puzzling out all the twists and turns like a professional detective. Ian Rankin’s ‘Exit Music’ features his famous detective Inspector Rebus as he searches for the killer of an exiled Russian poet, three days before his retirement. Since the Rebus novels are famous for their Edinburgh location and gritty depiction of Scotland, a courier might prefer a more exotic story – Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency’ is a vibrant story of a female detective in Botswana, and includes musings on the country’s culture and traditions as well as its dangers, such as the snakes and crocodiles that play a large part in the audio book.

Classics

For every modern audio book, there’s a classic updated into the new format, and a courier can have ample time to dip into the world of classic literature and discover a few old gems. And it doesn’t get more classic than Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. With their books ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’, as well as many more besides, a courier can discover books they may not have expected.

True Life

Not every audio book is fictional, and a courier can get real enjoyment out of discovering a few facts they might not know about. Andrew Marr’s ‘A History of Modern Britain’ began not as a book, but as a television documentary, looking at the major events in Britain from 1945 to the present. Another historical ‘documentary’ is Ben Macintyre’s ‘Agent ZigZag’, presenting the incredible story of a double-agent in World War 2. It’s enough to keep any courier wondering about the real-life Eddie Chapman featured in the audio book.


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A Brief History of Courier Services - By: Norman Dulwich



Now before you panic, this isn’t going to be some huge academic analysis by an eminent historian of courier services and/or technology! It’s a light-hearted and affectionate stroll through the early technology that arrived in the transport and related industries back in the 1960s and 70s. If you’re above about 45 years of age this may bring back some happy (?) memories, if you’re not, it may all be very hard to believe.

Pre-history

OK, technology didn’t start with the 60s and 70s. Even going way back, transport and courier companies had things such as telegrams and the telephone to help them communicate. To those that think computers began with Bill Gates, be prepared for a shock. Computers were being used in the business when Mr Gates was still in his pram. However, it’s probably fair to say that before the later 1960s, technology was pretty much restricted to the telephone (often only available to the directors and perhaps heads of department) and a massive mainframe computer churning out the accounts. Contact with a courier driver? You had to hope they could find a public call box and had change. Trying to contact overseas? You had to ask the operator to connect you and sometimes even had to book the call, as all lines were busy.

Groovy systems

By the late 1960s and early 70s, most courier and transport companies were starting to see technological changes. Photocopiers (often huge things) were starting to appear in special ‘print rooms’ in many offices. These were often partnered up with a much-dreaded device called the Banda printer – something that looked as if it had just time-travelled from Victorian Britain. The idea was that you could type a form and then print it many times over using the Banda – what happened in reality was that you and your papers got covered in ink and various forms of other fluids it used to go about its terrifying work.

Then there was the telex. A revolution in its day, it allowed you to type lengthy documents (e.g. manifests, collection notes, carnets etc) and convert them all to punched-tape. When complete, you just dialled out over the telephone lines to another telex elsewhere in the world, fed your punched tape through and hey presto! Your document was printed off at the other end. In a way, it was a sort of pre-cursor to the fax and worked fine, er, except when it didn’t! Tape jams and breakages were commonplace and physical fights erupted in some offices when an hour’s tape production and typing were lost because someone trod on or spilled coffee over your tape before you’d had a chance to send it.

Oh yes, this period also saw the arrival of the first electronic calculators. Prior to that, the courier simply had to be very good at arithmetic, use a slide-rule or one of those phenomenal manual desk calculators that work by cranking a handle in the side. So, the arrival of the electronic calculator should have been good news and it was, except for the fact that they were expensive and many companies could only afford one. No prizes for guessing the early ones were often locked away in the manager’s desk as a perk and you had to ask their permission to use it (and stay in his or her good books).

The lady’s not for turning

During the 70s and into the early 1980s, things steadily improved, got smaller, more reliable and less messy. They also got cheaper and that meant most people started to get access to things like calculators, photocopiers and even started getting their own telephone handset on their desk. The very early office computers and PCs started to arrive, typewriters gave way to word processors and then PCs and by the early mid-80s the average office didn’t look massively different to the office today. There was one exception though – the courier or driver.

Not much had changed in 20 years. Many offices still resounded to the cry “I don’t know where he is!” or “why hasn’t he called?” The biggest difference to, say, the early 1970s was that by the 1980s, more of the public phone boxes weren’t in working order making it even harder to contact anyone ‘on the road’. Then, in the mid 1980s, the first mobile phones arrived. OK, they were laughably large and heavy by today’s standards but they simply transformed the transport world.

For the first time ever, excluding a relatively minor amount of radio use beforehand, the courier drivers and the offices were able to speak to each other. Gone, well almost, were the “I don’t know what’s happening” cries of dispatchers and offices. Suddenly, in the office you could get regular updates from your driver about the stationary traffic on the M6 around Birmingham.

A revolution

Of course, it didn’t stop there and things like SATNAV, barcodes and auto-picking systems have all had a major impact but perhaps none have had quite the same revolutionary effect that the 80s had in finally connecting drivers to their offices. Of course, some individual couriers or drivers may lament the loss of freedom of the old days and those “we didn’t have any change” excuses given after the event – you may think that but we couldn’t possibly comment!


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