Think Twice Before Helping a Courier Strap Down your Outgoing Freight
It’s a familiar scenario for many businesses, not least the many wholesalers and retailers who ship bulky goods daily out from their premises. The courier rushes in with his open 1-tonne ute or a larger truck. It’s 3pm, he’s apparently had a rough day. Hoping to make life a bit easier for him on his last leg, you, the obliging business owner, wave him in as close as space permits to the outgoing consignment, and then proceed to load up the heavy boxes. The driver doesn’t complain, instead springing up onto the tray of the ute, proceeds to stack the outgoing delivery neatly against the front of the tray. It’s a large consignment, almost 2 full pallets, but the goods aren’t actually stacked on a pallet. All the more reason to give the poor guy a hand, it’s not unheard of for a transport company to on-charge any demurrage resulting from an excessive hand load or hand unload. And few people would question the ethics of this either, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere between the incide...