Book Review

Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
Greg Niemann

Tara's brother used to work for UPS part-time, and they gave him benefits while he was working there. I thought this was a little odd at the time. One of the Bishops in the Stake is a driver for UPS, I talked to him about his job a couple of months ago for about a half hour. I had heard they had a new thing where the drivers were directed by their little GPS thing to never take left turns. (He still makes left turns where it makes more sense.)

UPS is a giant company, I didn't know they were started so early in the 20th century. The book talks about how the founder, Jim Casey got his start, and how they started expanding their business, one city at a time until they covered the entire country. It turns out that most of their management is promoted from within. It sounds like they take pretty good care of their employees.

This book has tons of information about the history of UPS that I had never heard before. They have a corporate culture of customer service that goes from top to bottom. They spend tons of money every year trying to innovate, like trying to reduce fuel costs, trying to speed delivery, that sort of thing. I also like how the author didn't try to sugar coat everything. It sounds like one of the problems UPS has had involves the stability of their retirement programs. They also had problems integrating their corporate culture as they branched out internationally.

It makes me wish the package coming tomorrow was UPS, but it's coming FedEx...