WEBVTT - Lab 039: Add to Cart 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:03.880 Well, today's a holiday that we don't really acknowledge. I'll 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.760 just say happy hang out with your family and friends day. 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.559 And tomorrow is the most American of holidays. This is 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:13.240 a celebration of consumerism, yes, aka Black Friday. But some 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.720 of y'all are going to be in for quite the surprise. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:20.040 Do you know just how many packages are going to 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.279 be in the mix with everybody ordering stuff online? 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.840 I don't even want to try and conceptualize it because 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.600 I know that I can't because Black Friday, when we 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:30.800 were younger, it was just, you know, one day there 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:31.640 was all these sales. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.040 Now it extends. 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.640 Where it's like you got Black Friday, but the Black 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.920 Friday deals start on Wednesday and Cyber Monday. There's Cyber Monday. 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.839 So it's really a full calendar week of hurry. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:44.680 Up and buy all this stuff. 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.040 But the real gag is if you didn't place your 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.960 order in July, it won't be here by Christmas. We'll 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:50.640 tell you why. 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.880 The whole shipping from purchasing to getting the product at 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.040 your door is a very complex system that I feel. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.000 Like none of us know much about. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.200 I know, I don't understand how I'm placing an order 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:06.840 and it's here within sixteen hours. 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.160 Honestly, And I feel like as technology advances, and some 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.120 of this technology that we know nothing about advances, we're 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.840 expecting things to show up sooner and sooner and sooner. 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.720 But with every great thing, you know that there's some 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.240 not so great things happening behind the scenes. 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.240 Yes, the dark side of shipping. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.600 Yes, I'm TT and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify. This 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:56.200 is Dope Labs. Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.320 that mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy dose 0:01:59.320 --> 0:01:59.880 of friendship. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.040 This week, we're diving into the world of commerce, supply chains, 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.480 and transportation. Specifically, we want to know how a product 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.760 goes from click to ship, away from the factory and 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:10.720 to your front door. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:19.040 All right, let's get into the recitation. What do we know, TT, Well, 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.079 we know that shipping is usually really really fast, and 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.720 there have been some shipping delays. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:31.959 There's so many industries involved in getting products to your door, manufacturing, routing, weather, economics, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.520 and today we're focusing on shipping more specifically, how issues 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.840 in the trucking industry are affecting shipping logistics and the 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.400 shipping delays don't make sense to me. It's specific things 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.040 missing from the grocery store. There's no bug spray like 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.000 the chemical killer bug spray, only essential old buck spray 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:49.160 at my grocery store. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:50.720 That's not good enough for my friend. Let me tell you. 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.239 Lemon grass everywhere, okay, citronella everywhere. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.000 Anybody's citronella. And I'm like, that does not work for me. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:03.320 And the sindos will come. And what we also know 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.520 is that demand for delivery is increasing across the board, 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.959 like delivery of the past, where it's just like, oh, 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.000 you know, you might get a TV delivered, you might 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.600 get a computer delivered. Now we're like, okay, I need 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:18.120 my vitamins delivered, I need my groceries delivered. Everything is 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.519 being delivered at this point, and I feel like that 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.120 was enhanced because we were all working from home or 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.600 staying at home because of the pandemic. 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:32.160 Also, that demand for delivery and shipping things across this 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:36.160 country has been exacerbated by the trucker shortage. You know, 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:37.960 I saw some signs. I don't know if it was 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.240 a bad sheet or whatever. I was going down eighty 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.600 five and it said trucker strike and it had a date, 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.080 and I said I don't want to cross the line. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:46.920 I don't even know what it means, because I mean, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.480 I don't drive on the highway too with them. I mean, 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:51.360 I want to know what's going on. I've been seeing 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:52.320 this happen in the. 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.200 UK, but it's also happening here too, Right, we did 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.520 see that the UK was having petro shortages and other 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:04.520 things that. So there's something happening that we don't understand. Yes, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.760 so what do we want to know considering all that stuff. 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.720 I know it's somehow tied together, but how what are 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.960 the specifics? And I want to understand the trucker shortage. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:16.479 I didn't even know what was going on. My friend 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.440 should be hitting the road and so she told me 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.640 what she saw, and I had no idea what is 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:23.400 going on with this trucker shortage? 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.280 And then how does the gig economy play into this? 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.839 You know, now you can send a package across town 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.279 with Uber and also just the use of all these 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.400 like subcontracting services to get things from point A to 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.880 point B. How does that work into the big picture 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:37.560 of shipping? 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:39.840 Yeah, and then for me, I want to know what 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:45.200 we can do as consumers to like alleviate or to 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.040 get rid of some of the problems that are cropping 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.599 up because of this increased shipping world that we're in. 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:53.680 Let's jump into the dissection. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:05:04.800 Dissect Sean dissect Sean. Our guest for today's lab is 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:05.800 Christopher Mems. 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.360 My name is Christopher Mems, and I am a technology 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:09.800 columnist at the Wall Street Journal. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.880 Christopher is talking to us about his new book Arriving Today, 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.520 which is about how products get from the factory to 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.680 our front door. So first we wanted to know how 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.680 and where things are produced before they're sold. We know 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.120 that most things we buy today are not produced in 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:26.279 the US, and that's. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:27.320 Because of globalization. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.640 Globalization allows people to buy goods cheaply from all over 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:31.040 the world. 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.800 But how is this possible logistically? 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.000 According to Christopher, we can trace the history of globalization 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.040 back to the shipping container and the Vietnam War. 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.640 What happened during the Vietnam War was the American military 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.560 machine needed so much material that they needed a new 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:49.880 way to move goods into the country. 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.840 And this is where American businessman Malcolm MacLean steps in, 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.200 who since the nineteen fifties had been developing the world's 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.240 first modern shipping container. 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.240 And the shipping container is really critical. It's this intermodal 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.840 part of globalization that means it's going from a ship 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.560 to a truck to a train, and so those dimensions 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.839 have to be the same in every place, basically making 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:12.760 it universal. 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.479 The shipping contator was a classic chicken and egg problem 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.200 because you needed everybody to agree on the dimensions and 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:23.039 the specifications for a shipping container so that all the 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.839 ships could carry all the shipping containers, and also the 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.200 trains could accommodate them and trucks. 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.600 So how big are these shipping containers? 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:36.080 Well, ISO, which is the International Organization for Standardization, has 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.560 determined that a standard container is eight feet wide about 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.520 eight and a half feet high, and then they can 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.400 either be twenty feet long or forty feet long. So 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.200 big big, And so when you think about that, I 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.440 don't know about you, but once we started moving into 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:52.320 cubic feet, I'm out of there. 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:52.880 Right. 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.000 I had you at eight feet wide, Okay, I had 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.039 you at eight feet tall, but then twenty feet I 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:00.800 was like a right. 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.440 So if you think about a twenty foot container, m hmm, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.000 that's enough room for almost one hundred washing machines or so, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.560 and some of these containers can be refrigerated or insulated. 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:12.520 Some of them have an open top. You ever see 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.920 those trains that have the shipping containers on them and 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:16.040 you can see the stuff on the top. 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:16.560 Mm hmm. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:18.400 Isn't that stuff gonna blow out? Don't they need to 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:19.080 cover over there? 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.080 I guess they've thought about what to do. 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.360 And so the American military saw this idea and said, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.760 all right, we're gonna break the log jam. Malcolm McLean, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.920 we like your idea, we like your specifications, and they 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.560 created such a large demand on their own. 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.240 The demand for shipping containers was so high from the 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:42.560 Department of Defense that Malcolm McLean's design became the international standard. 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.000 And very soon after you had bigger and bigger ships 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.080 to carry all of these shipping containers, and that meant 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.000 bigger cranes and ports to accommodate them. And it was 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.920 just billions and billions of dollars of investment, and that 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:58.320 created the global infrastructure which allowed globalization to happen and 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.600 is the reason that we can buy goods from everywhere. 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.760 So basically, the shipping container was a game changer. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.280 Once the shipping container arrived, this basically made it so 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.800 that the idea of really having a global economy was 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.680 right in front of us, like it became possible, and 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:17.600 there was a need for a whole new level of 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:22.280 worker productivity. And that's when we get into scientific management. 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.160 So what is scientific management? 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.800 Any place you have software or an algorithm that can 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.440 watch how people work and then dictate to them the 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.800 pace and the manner of that work. That's scientific management, 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:34.440 even though we don't call it by that name. 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.520 The concept of scientific management was invented by Frederick Taylor, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.600 and he published a book that was titled The Principles 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.040 of Scientific Management in nineteen oh nine. And it was 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.079 around this time that Henry Ford, you know like the car, 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.160 invented the assembly line, which reduced the time it took 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.480 to build an automobile from twelve hours to one hour 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:54.840 and thirty three minutes. 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:56.800 That's crazy gains. 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.680 It was just this notion that if you could measure 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.480 the amount of time that it took for a worker 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.400 to complete every single action, if they were working in 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.199 a factory, which remember we're still kind of new at 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.600 the time, or if they were working on an assembly line, 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.880 which at the time was brand new, then you could 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.800 use these techniques to manage people scientifically and speed up work. 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.160 So in order to employ scientific management, you really need 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.240 some method of surveillance or tracking. And before the age 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.880 of digital surveillance, there were stop watches. 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.559 So what Frederick Taylor was doing was that he would 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:32.600 go into a factory, you say, who's the best worker here, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:34.680 and they would point to that person, and then he 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.280 would say, work as hard as you can, and I'm 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.000 going to time you using this stopwatch. And then he 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.440 was able to determine the productivity of the most productive person, 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.760 and based off of that information, they were able to 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.959 simplify and optimize jobs so that workers could be as 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:51.240 productive as possible. 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:55.160 This doesn't really sound like a fulfilling or satisfying work environment. 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.440 Now, this sounds awful. 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.760 It ended up being this way that workers were pushed 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:03.120 to their limits and beyond. Of course, the irony is 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.720 that scientific management is how work, especially work in factories 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.520 and warehouses and ports many other places call centers fast food. 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.559 This is how all of work is organized. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:13.520 That's so true. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.520 I think a lot of us can think about our 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.320 jobs and listening to what scientific management is, see how 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.199 some of those things are in all of our workspaces, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.280 and scientific management isn't only happening in the workplace now. 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.400 There's a lot of tools that can be used to 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.960 monitor employees' productivity when they're working from home, which a 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:34.160 lot of us are right now. 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.920 With the advent of remote work, more and more companies 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:42.080 are surveilling their employees when they're working at home right 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.960 because they don't have FaceTime. You know, managers can't manage 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.400 by walking around anymore. Companies will give you a company 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.240 issue laptop or mobile device, and then they're watching the 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.560 hours that you're actually doing your work. 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.000 This reminds me of that TikTok where the girl has 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.719 a fan and it's like an oscillating fan and it's 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.720 to something and it's moving the mouse around, so it 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.000 seems like she's working genius. 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.199 Genius. She was like, scientific management, I'll. 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:13.199 Do I'll manage you. But you know what's also really interesting, 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.160 it's not always the manager imposing this type of system 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.840 on the workers. Sometimes workers elect to use different productivity 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.960 tools to help improve their own output and their own focus. 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:27.680 I know, I do, so do I I use one note, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:29.800 we use airtable slack. 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:31.360 Lots of folks are using slack. 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.840 All types of stuff I used to use ASNA to 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.360 improve our productivity or make us more efficient, work faster, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.440 get more done in a shorter amount of time. So 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:44.480 we are enforcing these scientific management concepts on ourselves. 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:48.200 Staff punking ourselves right on into the nine to five. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.319 So these tools can be good. You know, we use 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.920 airtable that helps us stay on track with our episodes, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.560 know what's happening. It also can help us move projects forward. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.959 We can collaborate better with our team. 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.840 But that said, all of that can be a slippery 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.120 slope and we're going to get into that right after 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.160 the break. 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:24.280 All right, we're back. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.400 Yes, And as we're talking about all of the shipping 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.280 and everything like that, it really makes me think about 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.319 how we're going to be purchasing. Everybody's going to be 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.400 online shopping from their phones mostly. I think I think 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.280 everybody shops on their phones these days. 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.360 And watching the notifications from my banking. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.760 Gap saying girl, what is you doing? 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:43.079 Dot do transaction. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.280 But there's so many apps out there, and our next 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.679 lab is going to be all about fintech. So these 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.960 are apps that help you organize your finances and get 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:55.000 financially healthy. 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.960 Yes, and I'm excited about it because our guest is 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.200 Natalia Razinski, the head of strategy at Klarna. Oh yes, 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.160 this is the perfect person to talk to about helping us. 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.560 All right, let's get back to today's lab. We're talking 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:10.600 to Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Mims about his new book, 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:11.640 arriving today. 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.080 In the first half of the dissection, we focus mostly 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.000 on how goods and products are being made using tools 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.920 like scientific management to produce things efficiently for the global market. 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.480 But Christopher's book also focuses on the transport of those items. 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.439 And before you even click add tokar, that product has 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.520 already been on a very long journey, a journey that 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:31.840 starts at the factory. 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.840 Generally, the way a lot of finished goods, and especially 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.600 consumer electronics get to us is you know, they are 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.960 first made increasingly in Southeast Asia. A lot of things 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.400 we think are made in China are actually made Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:45.240 places like that. 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.439 From the factory, it goes to a small port, put 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:48.520 into a shipping container. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:49.760 Shout out to Malcolm maclain. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.520 Then the shipping container gets put onto a barge where 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.280 it gets taken to a much larger. 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.000 Port where it stays for a couple of days after 0:13:57.080 --> 0:13:59.560 being lifted off by a giant crane. Then that big 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.000 crane puts it onto a really big ship. 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.560 And we mean big. Some of these cargo ships are 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.160 as big as the Empire State Building being laid on 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.199 its side. We're talking the length of three football fields. 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:12.280 This is not the boat that Megan thee Stallion was 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:13.200 talking about driving. 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:15.640 You can't drive that vote. 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:16.000 No. 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:20.400 Each container ship can hold up to ten thousand forty 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.960 foot containers or about sixty thousand pounds of goods, and 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:25.200 then it. 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.240 Can travel all the way across the Pacific Ocean, and 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.760 that's going to take weeks because it's actually moving kind 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:31.600 of slow in order to save on fuel. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.840 Finally, the ship arrives Stateside, most often at the ports 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.800 of la and Long Beach, and that's where about forty 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.680 to fifty percent of all goods from Asia arrive in 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:41.200 the US. 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.320 Then those containers get put onto a truck for the 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.160 first time, and that's called drayage, and the container gets 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.560 taken to a warehouse in the Inland Empire. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.040 That's a region in southern California. 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:52.880 All the goods are emptied out of the container put 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.360 onto a long haul truck. It might drive halfway across 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.960 the country. Then all of those cardboard boxes full of 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.640 goods go into what's known as a fulfillment if you're 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.040 talking about Amazon, and human beings have to open up 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.280 every single one of those boxes, take every item out, 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.680 scan it, put it into a bin. The bin goes 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.360 onto a conveyor, which goes to another human being which 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.720 takes all the goods stows it on a robot shelf, 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.040 which then scoots away like R two D two. 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.080 Oh my goodness, this is a lot. I am exhausted. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:20.920 And that's just. 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.880 The first part of the product's journey. 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.520 Okay, So now that the item is on the shelf 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:29.000 waiting for someone to buy it, what happens next? 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:31.840 And then when you order that good which has been 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.640 on a fourteen thousand mile two month minimum journey, when 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.000 you order it for delivery the next day, within forty 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.320 five minutes, someone has picked that item off of the 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.960 robot's shelf, goes into a bin. The bin is carried 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.520 on a conveyor down to the pack station. A person 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:48.760 puts the items in a box, tapes up the box. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.720 Box goes down another conveyor into the back of a truck, 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.840 which goes to another warehouse where it's sorted, and then 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.360 the final warehouse, which is called the delivery station, where 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.600 all the boxes get stacked up about like you know, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.760 two three in the morning for delivery on a truck 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:05.960 to your home the next day, you know it's next 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:07.120 day or two day delivery. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.280 Most people are not thinking about all of this when 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.360 they add to cart, especially with things like two day delivery, 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.640 one click ordering overnight shipping. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.760 Yes, I am ordering my goods by the light of 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:21.840 the moon. Most likely I'm in my bed and I'm 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:23.920 just like click, everything just starts getting ship. 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:25.760 I don't even think about it. I just keep swiping. 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.840 This just also feels like so many steps for me 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.640 to get the few little things that I'm adding to cart. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:33.280 This is kind of changing things for. 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.600 Me, honestly, because you think about every single step and 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:41.600 all the ships and shipping containers and cranes and people 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.520 and trucks. This is a lot for me to be saying, Okay, 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.560 I just need this new cell phone case that I 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.600 found on this website that's six ninety nine. 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:52.880 That's a lot exactly it. Every time I get ready 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:54.880 to order something online, now I'm gonna say, am I 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.040 ready to turn on the crane to pick up my items, 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.080 you know, like it might not be worth it. 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:01.600 It might not be worth the crane movement. 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.920 And there's all this automation, but then there's all this 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.119 on the ground stuff too, And one of them that 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.080 we really should zero in on is the truck. 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.840 Even though the trucker shortage has reached crisis levels this 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.720 year and been on the front page of Labor News, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.879 the trucker shortage isn't really new. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.000 Trucks are an essential part of the global economy. In 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.399 the United States, seventy percent of all freight is transported 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.480 by trucks. And it may feel like a cliche, but 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.760 America really does run on trucks, not duncan. Yeah you 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.120 thought it was duncan, but it's actually trucks. So when 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.520 we don't have enough people to drive those trucks, it 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.920 can cause some pretty big problems for the economy. 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.280 It's affecting everything from what appears on stores at the 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:54.160 grocery store, to getting school's school lunches, to people talking 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.080 about why they can't get their couch delivered. 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.720 And with so many items being shipped to people and 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.679 they're being a trucker shortage that can lead to trucker 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:07.959 burnout for the truckers that are now left to carry 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.760 the load. We wanted to know what's really driving this shortage. 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.720 Why don't we have enough truckers to handle the shipping demand. 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.960 There was this amazing piece in the New York Times 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.280 in twenty seventeen, and there was this heartbreaking quote in 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.679 it where this trucker said, you know, we feel like 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:28.200 throw away people. There's all these small injustices in the industry, 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.560 which the net effect is that, you know, there's about 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.000 three and a half million truckers in America, there's ten 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.080 million people who have a commercial driver's license. Those are 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.439 all the people who went into the industry and burned 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:39.879 out and are just like, I'm not going to be 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:41.000 a truck driver anymore. 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.280 Those numbers are staggering, honestly, and it makes sense when 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.800 you understand the experiences that a lot of truckers have. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.520 The challenge in trucking is that even as rates go 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.679 up and wages go up, the quality of life is low. 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.879 So the average truck driver is on the road twenty 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.600 one days out of every month. They're working fourteen hours 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:01.960 a day. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.080 Let me tell you something I can't do anything for 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:09.159 that long and that many consecutive days, maybe sleep, maybe sleep, 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:11.680 and even then, you know, you get tired. 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:13.720 You still get tired of sleeping. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.800 And so I can't imagine having to be alert at 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:21.080 the wheel of this huge machine that's carrying all these goods. 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.600 And it's not always like a perfect sunny day out 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:28.240 in the rain, in the snow and a hurricane. We're 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.879 still expecting our packages. So they can't call out, they 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:33.960 can't say, oh no, there's a storm, I'm not coming. 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.280 They have to hit the road. And when you really 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.800 look at it, there's also the issue of stagnating wages. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.160 So if you look at what the average trucker made 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.520