The Daily - The Human Toll of Instant Delivery

With the rise of online retailers like Amazon, consumers’ expectations about the speed of delivery have been transformed. A New York Times investigation examines the cost of that transformation. Guests: Jessica Silver-Greenberg, a business reporter for The Times; Tasha Murrell, a warehouse employee who shared her experience. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. This episode includes disturbing language.

Duration: 31m
Broadcast on: 26 Nov 2018
Audio Format: other

This episode includes disturbing language.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply, see CapitalOne.com/BankGuy, Capital One NA. Member FDIC. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Warburkel. This is The Daily. Today, with the rise of online retailers like Amazon, consumers' expectations around the speed of delivery have been transformed. A Times investigation examines the cost of that transformation. It's Monday, November 26th. I told her the 17th, 2017 was a horrible day for me. Come to work, started working and everything, and all of a sudden I started seeing co-workers running, screaming, crying, and I rushed to one of my co-workers. I'm like, "What's wrong? What's going on?" And they were like, "Ms. Linda just fell over there in Big Box. Ms. Linda just fell." They told me that Ms. Linda was talking to the supervisor telling him that she wasn't feeling well that day, and she needed to go home. The supervisor stated to her, "You can go home with a point, but I'm not going to authorize for you to go home." And two to three minutes later, Ms. Linda fell. As she fell, she hit her head on the rail. When she hit her head on the rail, she collapsed. She was just laying there on the floor. And the other co-workers got down on their knees and wanted to give her CPR. The supervisor instructed them, "No one better not touch her. Leave her, allow, let her be, do not touch her." And they did not touch her, and she died on their floor. And the supervisor confirmed, "Yes, she's dead." And they were asked that she's still over there. She was like, "Yes, she's still over there on the floor, but people die."

All well, people die, but we still got to get this workout. The customer still wants their phones. We had to continue as normal, and Ms. Linda was still on that floor, deceased. Our employees are the most important people in our business. Everybody else exists to make them as effective as they can be. From our PIT operators, to our material handlers, to our team leads, they all play an important role in the success of XPO. XPO is one of the biggest companies that most people have never heard of. Jessica Silver-Greenberg is a business reporter at the Times. They work behind the scenes with huge retailers like Nike, Disney, and Verizon to help those retailers get packages and orders that have been placed online to customer stores as quickly as possible. So, XPO handles the messy business of shipping, packaging, and trucking. At every step in the life of an internet order, XPO is there. And how big is XPO? XPO is a very large company. XPO logistics, one of the largest great transportation and logistics providers in the United States. It is a $12 billion company. Wow. XPO logistics. But this doctor has been totally one-fire of late. It employs about 98,000 people. Here's a company that just started a few years ago, and now it's the fastest growing company on the Fortune 500. It has warehouses and operations in dozens of countries. And it's all resulted in gangbusters growth. It's gotten bigger in a very short amount of time. Why? Why is it gotten so much bigger? Who would have guessed that one of the hottest stocks of all time would be a bookstore? That's right, books. That's because we didn't predict the revolution led by 35-year-old Jeff Bezos, who almost overnight has become one of the richest men in the world. Starting around the early 2000s, out of nowhere, this behemoth that no one really understood how much this company would change things. You have the rise of Amazon. He calls his company Amazon.com, Earth's biggest bookstore.

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