Most of the the western world has adopted a common work schedule based around an early morning to early evening time frame: the so-called 9 to 5 workday. Resulting phenomena such as so-called rush hour traffic reflects this with people trying to arrive to and leave from their jobs around these times.
In cities like Seattle it is not uncommon to see bumper to bumper traffic at a standstill on I-5 or the 520 bridge consisting of car after car containing a single occupant during rush hours. While corporations such as Microsoft promote and reward carpooling and busing for commuters, these options don’t appeal to many who insist on having a more flexible mode of transportation that doesn’t rely on the cooperation of others.
That it is expected most people will not be home during the course of a normal workday, some businesses don’t seem to recognize the importance of this scheduling. Take UPS, for example, though the same is likely true of FedEx and DHL as well. (Cable service providers are notorious for their “between the hours of x and y” arrivals that often equate to half a workday.)
Businesses such as UPS will not guarantee a narrow time frame for the delivery of their services. As for weekends when most people would be at home, delivery is often not an available option. Even the U.S. Postal Service is considering dropping Saturday deliveries because of decreased profits and is removing many public mailboxes from around town as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in January. Delivery services are also notorious for leaving packages on doorsteps in even the most crime-infested neighborhoods.
With Seattle’s unemployment rate having hit 7.1 percent in December, and the fact many out of work would leap at the opportunity to work part time during odd hours and weekends, wouldn’t it make sense to provide jobs during these times to help ease the stress our economies are facing?
As a specific example, I’ll use a UPS delivery that was scheduled to be made to me on a Friday. I knew in advance I would not be home from 11:30am to almost 2:00pm and called UPS to attempt to arrange delivery be made later in the day as I wouldn’t be available the following week. Unfortunately, nothing could be done until the driver left a note on the door of my building informing me and anyone else that read it that I wasn’t home for delivery…which was about 10 minutes before I arrived back home. Only at that point could I call to make arrangements to pick up the package at their south Seattle warehouse during their narrow one hour window between 7 and 8pm.
