They forgot about one of their drop boxes and ignored it, continually filling, for a week or so before I caught it. Being right before Christmas, I would imagine there were some late packages as a result.

I really can't say anything snarky about this - I just feel terribly bad for all those people out of work.

Pulling out often results in messy ends.

That being said, they were so awful. I don't understand how they could be making a profit in the US or anywhere else! I think they lost more packages for my company than they delivered!

Doesn't this happen when any large business fails?

I read that title wrong.

@nicemarmot617:

"Pulling out often results in messy ends."

lulz.

That that came up was "I kissed a girl" from some girl?

I'd love to post about all the bad experiences I've had with them, both at home and at work.

But that 60 Minutes bit was one of the saddest I've seen. It's really scary when you see smaller towns that become so dependent upon a single employer (or even a single industry).

@nicemarmot617:

"pulling out often results in messy ends."

... umm... that's what she said?

@KyleOrton: That said, I don't think the people in the video were responsible for its problems. The local drivers were absolutely terrible.

Hopefully some new industry will see that town as a human-resources, low cost boon.

wow. This made me cry.

@sleze69: Yeah, was going to say that. It's sad, but not any different from any number of steel towns in the rust belt, coal towns in West Virginia, etc. etc. etc.

Around 2003 DHL was doing a lot of hiring in my area (NJ), and I was all set to be hired but due to a scheduling conflict couldn't attend their training. (The job was for a late night shift, which I could do, but the training was for two weeks 9-5, which I couldn't). Glad I didn't end up working for them!

That's what she said...

@Ash78: *cough* Wal*Mart *cough*

@mad3air: Awww, that's just terrible >_<

lol

@gamabunta: I assume you're talking about Bentonville. Same deal there, but I don't imagine Walmart is going anywhere soon (at least not quickly). OTOH, DHL has consistently been the worst carrier I've worked with over the past 5-7 years. Surprised it took so long.

Yeah, welcome to small town Ohio everyone. I've lived in it all my life. Only I was lucky enough to get an education at Ohio State. It's not just Wilmington, It's everywhere in this state. Personally, my town is supported by 3 factories, the fourth largest employer is probably the school system, followed by the hospital. Our factories are experiencing layoffs, buyouts of upper level employees, you name it. We're on thin ice right now, if one factory fails then they all fail, and the city dies.

However, my town has been on 60 minutes too. Only it was about our tremendous heroine problem for a town of only 6 or 7 thousand.

Yeah, welcome to small town life.

@OctaviaAmyntor: woosh!

Note to everyone, everywhere: If you work in a town where thousands and thousands of people work for the same company, and there isn't much job opportunity outside of that company, history shows that there is a good chance eventually either the entire company or that factory/plant will fail. Stop being so surprised about this. See Flint, MI, etc.

I genuinely feel bad for these people, but I'm just not sure what they were expecting. Things like this are still happening for people working in dieing industries and not making changes in their career now before that job is eventually lost.

@lannister80: No, you've got a rebound woosh. As the actress said to the bishop.

I live in a small town called Waynesville not very far from Wilimington. The DHL employees are my neighbors and my friends. You cannot drive through my neighborhood without seeing the red Proud ABX Employee signs in the yards. My neighbors both were ABX employees. Its devastating. I agree its happening all over the country and its not just this little town. But it doenst change the fact that very proud and hard working people are losing their jobs and their homes. These are the worker bees who simply do their jobs as best they can in the hopes that those above them can figure out how to do things right.

My are of ohio is not any different then other areas of the country but for me it has faces and names and hits home. We lost DHL, the GM truck and Bus Group shout down the Moraine plant just before Christmas for good. There is talk of NCR potentially moving operations else where. The company I work for is doing a body swap for offshore resources. We are taking it in the teeth here and all over the country. What makes it even harder is that even the potential of moving for another job is not even a reality as its almost impossible to sell a house here.

Its just a really sad situation and for those of us fortunate enough to still be employed through all this I am sure we will if we are not already begin to have some level of survivors guilt as this trundles on.

I always wondered what happened to Airborne Express. They were so good. Mystery solved. Now, what happened to OK cola?

Geez... Dont post a video clip if it isnt availble any longer!

I'll never understand why these people have so many kids and no contingency plan for situations such as this. Once things get better I doubt they'll change spending habits and go back to whatever it was that got them in such bad shape as to be living check to check.

Don't get me wrong, I feel very bad for the family; but when everyone is working for the same company you need to plan for the day that company won't be there.

@philmin: This reminds me of those people who have a 401K and then buy stock in their own company. So you have your current income, and your future, tied to one company...

Sad story. I feel for the folks at the Hub.

Too bad the drivers were so awful with deliveries. I think that really did them in with the poor rep that developed . Read the old Consumerist thread from last year on DHL and there are hundreds of stories of horrible service (mine included).

@philmin: not making changes in their career now before that job is eventually lost.

While I agree with the spirit of this post the problem is it can be very difficult to make changes to a different career when there simply isnt much happening out there. In addition depending on age and education the understanding of what to retrain in may be difficult to identify. I ask you if you were these people rather then say you should have planned better why not help them understand where to go? Assume you were one of the DHL line workers what would you have told them 3 years ago to help them identify where to place their hopes?

Its very easy to say to someone you should have seen the writing on the wall and planned accordingly and many of us will be that savy in the future but for those who are not what would you do to help them?

Where would you be planning to move to job wise right now that would preserve the your income for your family shoudl you find out tomorrow that you dont have a job? What roll is isnulated from the current ecconmonic conditions? I am sure there are lots of us who would like to hear it :)

I thank my lucky stars everyday I come into my small office that I never took a large with a large corporation. We're a small industrial distributor (30 people) and we've survived some pretty bad times before. We're also able to change fairly quickly depending on market conditions and that's helped us a lot.

I worked for Kodak for a year when I was young and it's a miracle that they've survived for as long as they have. Talk about a company run by a bunch of fucktards. They're a classic example.

@jumpo64: I am guessing that your town didn't have a problem with "a woman possessing heroic qualities or a woman who has performed heroic deeds" but rather a heroin problem.

@I_have_something_to_say: Are you in Rochester?

@Ash78: Even though Caterpillar remains generally robust and seems to have good strategies in place for coping with the downturn, just the slowdown in their production is hitting Peoria hard ... and a lot of their layoffs won't even come in Peoria plants. Less work for, say, IT contractors, less work for trucking companies, layoffs in corporate and manufacturing ...

Peoria isn't as Cat-dependent as it was in the 80s, I'm told (3 hospitals, only Level-I trauma center outside Chicago & St. Louis metro in IL, etc.), but it's still kinda scary here right now. It's very different than previous slowdowns I've been through where the local economy was more diverse. I don't like it.

@gamabunta: I think these people have so many kids and no contingency plan is because thats the way they were raised. One family in particular in the video said that they never went to college but were putting their son through school when they had the money. They were trying to change their situation, like most people do, but were unable to do so due to economic factors. This happens a lot and the cycle is continued. It's very tragic.

There's something I don't understand: DHL doesn't service the US any more, right? If that's the case, why do Newegg orders that ultimately get delivered through the Postal Service go through some DHL-branded system first?

Worse yet, I've noticed that whenever this happens it always seems to take much longer to get processed through DHL than it would if I'd used UPS.

@nicemarmot617:

Feh. They were at least 10 times better than UPS in Canada. At least they didn't try to double the price of the item via brokerage fees!

this is my brother's company. luckily, he's found other work.

on a side note though - why the assumption that everyone SHOULD go to college? All that does is make a college degree worth LESS. Look at numbers in Europe. Why are we making the college degree the big deal for everyone when in fact it ISN'T for everyone? Why not support people who just do technical jobs (not tech like computers but tech like vo-tech jobs)?

@yso: I agree with you about the college thing. However, I remember being told I needed to start preparing for college in middle-school. Not going to college was never presented as an option for me. That being said I think people in technical jobs are supported. There are plenty of jobs that one can work making a decent living that don't require a college degree.

So... what can areas like this do to avoid being hit by this again? Because, you know, by the 1980s, a lot of towns had already been hard-hit by losing their major employers, and yet obviously more such places have sprung up again since. What can small towns actually do to break this cycle? These employers look like godsends when they show up, so how do you convince people to turn them down in the interest of a more stable local economy?

@KyleOrton: I echo yes that the drivers were pretty poor. I shipped about 12 boxes of camping equipment from NJ to TN during the summer of 2006. The stuff tracked as arrived (though one box never tracked but did arrive with the rest) but calls to the local office/hub were fruitless. After about a week the boxes finally showed up on a Saturday. The ultra nice driver basically said he was the low man down and got to "clean up" shipments that other drivers did not want to handle. I helped the driver unload the boxes and carry them up to a second floor storage box on his dolly. I gave him a $10 tip for his trouble. I was glad that the shipment wasn't time sensitive. That was the last time I used them.

@yso: Part of that problem would be employers who list a college degree as a requirement for positions that could be done by someone without a degree, but with relevant experience.

I've been turned down for engineering and programming jobs that I had the required experience for, but didn't have a BSCS or BSEE.

Well...when my father worked at his place of business and he got laid off, we had to do the exact same thing. However, they had contingency plans upon contingency plans ready in case anything went wrong and my father couldn't earn pay. They didn't pay out a cent anywhere, toward anything, if it wasn't absolutely nessessary. My father was making a high six figure salary in the early 80's but we lived like he made a fraction of that much. I wonder about people who have 3, 4, 5 kids and don't have any "emergency plan" whatsoever to take care of them--any sort of nest egg to tide the family over for six months at least. I know plenty of parents who make sure that their kids have the latest game platform, Hanna Montana toys, etc but don't have anything set in place should Mom and Dad lose their jobs. I feel sorry for them, I really do and I hope they get back on their feet...

I wonder what the people who are getting laid off think when they read all the stories of bad service on sites like consumerist. Even the news story above mentioned that customers left. If your business provides bad service, it's not going to be around for long.

@yso: Double dipping...
"why the assumption that everyone SHOULD go to college? " Because getting a HS diploma doesn't mean crap with No Child Left Behind, so it's now up to a college BS or BA to be the new "High School Diploma".

@yso: A college degree provides necessary education for adapting to new industries and technological change. That is why it is valuable. You use general concepts and teach students to apply those concepts to a wide range of topics.

When technology or the economic climate changes, someone with a college education adapts. The reason we see so many skilled workers unemployed is that the market no longer requires their skills (due to cheaper machinery, production processes, etc.) and at this point, their economic value is zero. At this point you could retrain the workers, but as an employer what would you do:

Hire someone that can adapt to changes and realize their economic value? Or would you pay to constantly retrain a costly workforce?

People pursue a college degree because it provides value and the tools to remain employed. It's as simple as that.

Why on earth do these people ask for a bailout? We have two other "well-run" major shipping companies. If DHL dies, what is the downside other than cleaning up the industry and repositioning the resources that were allocated to a third inefficient shipper.

Should we reward the company that entered an already crowded market and in a failed attempt to gain market share, tried to undercut its competitors? This is a perfect example on how not to run a business and it shouldn't be rewarded.

This is why its not always the greatest thing to be bought out by a outside company, outside the US. It's sad, but I hope its a lesson to be learned that you can't build towns around 1 company or 1 type of business . Just look at detroit and michigan with the auto business.

jeez, that was an awful video. I feel bad for these folks but a person in a situation like this needs to "see the writing on the wall".

I know college isnt for everyone, but you need a SKILL that sets you apart from the average joe. The one woman in the piece who was a supervisor and had been with them for 18 years, i bet she did shift scheduling, pushed some paperwork, etc for a group of x amount of employees. Anyone can do that, she offers no special skill. Now she is probably used to a higher than normal salary for being a supervisor and will have an ego that wont let her accept a lower position somewhere else.

Go to college, go to vocational, go get a skill people, thats the only way to survive. Make yourself indispensable

These employers look like godsends when they show up

Do they really? When DHL took over (with the help of John McCain and his lobbyists) the community -- in the form of the state of Ohio and the local governments -- provided $400 million dollars for road and facility upgrades for DHL for a net gain of about 1,000 jobs. That's $400,000 per job. Just giving $400,000 to a thousand people would've done the same thing (or better) and they now wouldn't care that they're out of a job.

This sort of giveaway is common; the question is why do these massive giveaways to private companies look good to anyone who isn't skimming money off the deal?

@Eyebrows McGee: My husband is from Peoria. As soon as he could, he left and went to college and now we live in Chicago. But some people that he knows (younger than him even) all they saw/planned was "a job a Cat": finish HS and straight to Cat. You think that their parents told them or show them how bad was in the 80s and how you can't depend in those types of jobs...

@Ben_Q2: Katy Perry.

@Ben_Q2:
Or Jill Sobule, if you want the better song. =)