Do you know your UPS driver’s name? Here’s why it matters.

This weekend a UPS driver named Mitch became an unlikely celebrity. It happened when Glen Powell, the latest guest host of NBC TV’s long-running comedy program Saturday Night Live (SNL), dedicated fully half of his five-plus-minute opening monologue to him.

Apparently Mitch was on hand when Powell was first notified – four years earlier – that he’d landed the SNL hosting gig. In the excitement of that moment, Powell’s family gathered around Mitch and snapped a celebratory selfie with him in front of his brown package car. Now, four years later, Powell announces that he’s flown Mitch out to New York for the show and another selfie.

Glen Powell isn’t known as a comedic actor, so it wasn’t surprising that his tribute to Mitch is less funny than heartwarming. It’s a good-natured bit that casts a rising star as ‘regular folk’ by his association with other ‘regular folk’ — and who is more ‘regular folk’ than your UPS driver?

I’ve written about some of the reasons why we love seeing our UPS driver. I described how, before I had my own route, I was used to being greeted by customers who knew their route driver by name. Now that I myself am a route driver – on both my own route and on the route that I ‘foster’ – I too get to enjoy being recognized and greeted by name.

I have to believe that many (most?) people love being on a first-name basis with their UPS driver – something that just isn’t as true with the drivers of other delivery companies.

Imagine if it’d been FedEx or Amazon that showed up when Powell took that phone call. I could be wrong, but I highly doubt he’d have bothered to take a selfie with that driver, let alone build a monologue around him (or her) on national television. Not because drivers for those companies are any less ‘regular folks’ than UPS drivers, but because they’re less visible.

They’re less visible because they’re more interchangeable.

Companies like FedEx and Amazon depend on a lower-paid, mostly contracted, faceless army of drivers delivering for them. From their perspective, one driver is as good as another, because what they sell is convenience. People want their stuff, they want it now, and they don’t care who gets it to them. Individuals don’t really matter, as long as the job gets done.

By contrast, what UPS sells is consistency. The company depends on a corps of better-paid unionized drivers to provide a superior quality of service in recurring encounters over the long term. Individuals matter, because by working a dedicated route – a route they opted into by bidding on it – drivers learn who the customers are and what they need and want.

For example, I covered a route for several months that included a business that got dozens of next-day air shipments every day without exception. Once I learned that the people there couldn’t begin their day’s work until I arrived, I made it my very first stop each morning, regardless of how far down it appeared on my manifest. The timing of my delivery had a direct and meaningful impact on this local business.

Timing is a big concern – workers and workplaces shape their own routines around my deliveries and pickups – but it isn’t the only one. Over the years I’ve learned to accommodate all kinds of customer preferences: not just when to arrive or return, but also where to park, which entrance or elevator to use, where to leave deliveries, whom to make sure to check in with. Et cetera, ad infinitum.

What may seem like insignificant details to a delivery driver can be very significant to the customer. And those customers can be very appreciative of a driver who learns those details and respects them. I used to be the go-to cover driver on the route I’d trained on. The people at one business in particular were always happy to see me because, in their words, ‘we’re tired of training new drivers!’

And in the process of being ‘trained’ by my customers, I’ve learned most of their names, especially those I deliver to daily or frequently. It stands to reason that they’d want to know my name in return. My work brings me into a close physical proximity that might feel uncomfortable if I were a complete stranger. Their knowing my name balances the dynamic and builds trust.

A big result of this mutuality – at least in my own case – is a form of genuine care. Once I know my customers and they know me by name, I’m more invested, both personally and professionally, in serving them well. I’m more inclined to see these people as my people, people I feel personally responsible for and want to do right by. I’m the face of United Parcel Service to my customers. I feel very visible; there’s no place for me to hide.

It could just be me, but over time I come to care about these people as people, not just as customers. And once we’re on a first-name basis, light chitchat can turn more serious.

With some people it’s not long before I’m hearing who’s getting married or divorced, who’s having children or grandchildren, who’s getting sick or dying, who’s in recovery or relapsed, who’s quitting or getting promoted or fired. Or whatever it is that’s on people’s minds.

To these customers I’m not just the face of UPS, I’m a friendly face. And a safe face too, because I don’t have any way to spread the gossip people share with me. I’m like an itinerant priest taking confessions as I go.

So no, I’m not at all surprised that Glen Powell shared his news with Mitch his UPS driver and wanted a family photo with him. Nor am I surprised that Powell had to enlist his sisters’ help in tracking Mitch down four years later.

The fact that they were on a first-name basis didn’t mean they were close – or even friends at all. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t care about each other. It could all have been just a publicity stunt, or it could have been more besides.