All of the trivial nonsense I’ve spent years retaining could be worth multi millions of dollars.Just typing that gave me a semi.
More about that (the nonsense, not the semi) after you answer this: what change did UPS make in 2004 involving their delivery trucks in New York City that helped them decrease their carbon emissions by 30%?
Don’t read past this paragraph if you want to try to answer it on your own. In the meantime, I’ll scroll back: my friend Greg heard about a new game show debuting on ABC this summer called “Six Minds,” in which six friends work as a team to answer very intricate questions for a chance at big money. I was part of Greg’s team, and the UPS question was one of many we were asked as we auditioned for the show over the weekend.
What’s nice about the show is that there are no douchey tasks to perform – just really tough questions, and you really have to work as a team to answer them. One of the guys with us just happened to have read an article recently that gave him the answer to the above question, which happens to be this: the right turn theory. UPS rearranged all of their drivers’ routes so that they only made right turns, thus eliminating a third of the time, gas and emissions taken up by waiting to make left turns. It was a pretty brilliant suggestion made by one of their employees.
By the way, I looked it up, and UPS is now implementing this plan in many more cities across the country, saving them over $600 million per year. And it's not a bad idea for us civilians to do the same at horrendous intersections wherever we live. (I'm talking about you, Sunset and Beverly Glen.)
If you answered the question correctly on your own, take a few seconds to high five the people around you. If no one is there, high-five yourself. Well played.
