Four practical ways to thank your delivery drivers this holiday season

Thanksgiving two years ago I shared my thoughts about what I was thankful for as a new package car driver for United Parcel Service.

Then last year I observed Thanksgiving with a reflection on how the supply chain is really a global chain of human (inter)activity bringing our purchases all the way to our front door.

This year’s Thanksgiving post is a few days late. So to mark Cyber Monday, the unofficial start to the online holiday shopping season, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for how each of us can show our gratitude for the more-than-million-and-a-half delivery drivers across the US.

None of my suggestions involve the transfer of cash or gifts, both of which are perfectly fine ways to say thank you. So too are prepackaged snacks and drinks and homemade baked goods like chocolate chip cookies. A simple, spoken or written ‘thank you’ is never a bad thing. If it’s truly heartfelt then you really can’t go wrong, whatever you’re thinking.

But this isn’t your blog now, is it? It’s my blog, and here’s what I’m thinking:

1. See your delivery through your driver’s eyes. You don’t have to do my job for me, though I always appreciate when you help make things go smoothly: make sure I can get to, and then from, your residence safely and quickly. Especially after dark and in bad weather. This means, at minimum, a clearly marked address; a clear path to your doorstep; and a clear understanding of what I need from you to be able to make your delivery a success. Every extra step, every hazard adds both time and risk to my work.
   
   
2. Stand with workers. Okay, so this one is a little more meta. But to me it means that you shop – and ship – wisely, justly, and charitably. There’s no such thing as ‘free shipping.’ Making your stuff and then bringing it to you is labor-intensive and –expensive, and all workers deserve fair pay, among other things. As more and more of us are organizing to make our voices heard, you may be forced to choose between convenience and solidarity. Choose solidarity.
   
   It bears repeating: choose solidarity. Do right by workers despite it costing you more in terms of time, money, or both. Use whatever degree of purchasing power you enjoy to reward those companies doing right by their workers, and to punish those companies who know better and could easily afford to do better.
   
   
3. Think before you click. An ironic thing has happened: the internet has made possible seemingly infinite retail choices, and yet most of us ignore most of those choices most of the time. We come back to Amazon again and again, even when what we’re buying there isn’t coming from Amazon at all, but from a third-party vendor who pays Amazon a hefty cut of its sales to host its online storefront.
   
   Amazon has tried to make online shopping as ‘frictionless’ as possible, but I fear that what that’s produced is too often ‘mindless’ shopping. Now, I’m not advocating a boycott of Amazon or of online shopping. I’m just asking that we shop mindfully, not mindlessly.
   
   Do I really want this purchase? Do I really need it? Must it come from Amazon? Can I make a comparable purchase at the vendor’s own website – or in my own community, either in-store or online? Am I willing to pay more, in time, money, or both, to support independent and/or local businesses?
   
   I’m proud to be a delivery driver and I’m grateful for the work, but the thoughtless impulse-buying of meaningless, useless, worthless crap feels disrespectful and it makes my job even harder than it already is.
   
   4. Ask your driver directly. A great way to thank me would be by doing something to support the local community – patronizing local businesses and arts organizations, subscribing to our excellent local newspaper, or donating to/volunteering for a local nonprofit; or by reading (and sharing!) my blog. But that’s just me. We’re all different. I have no idea how your driver wants to be thanked this holiday season – if they even want to be thanked at all. You should just ask them.
   

So these are just a few thoughts on a Sunday evening before I start what appears to be a punishing, six-day, snow-covered workweek ahead. I’ve got drafts of several other posts I’d like to publish before 2023, but we shall see!