Weird and Wonderful Shipping Facts
The job of an international courier may not seem particularly weird or wonderful to you. Couriers spend all their working days transporting boxes, crates and pallets from one point to another by rail, air, road and sea. The industry seems pretty straight forward and the type of work that will always appeal to those who love to travel and see the world. Shipping is actually much more meaningful and important to our everyday existence than what it may first appear.
According to the British journalist and author Rose George approximately 90% of everything we buy arrives by shipping, so immediately it’s clear how vital this industry is to our lives. Rose George was compelled to spend months of her life travelling on huge ships, learning about the industry for her latest book, ‘Ninety Percent of Everything’. On her journey across the oceans she discovered that the ‘invisible industry’ is full of many weird and wonderful things, so let’s take a look at a few of them.
Ships really are Massive!
Now when you think about a cargo ship you probably accept that it’s huge, but when you actually get to see one in person the size will really hit you between the eyes. The largest container ship in the world is the Maersk Triple-E. It’s so huge, 400 meters long; it’s able to comfortably carry 18,000 boxes. This incredible beast of a boat is soon to have its own television show on the Discovery Channel, that’s just how impressive it really is.
Fly Me to the Moon
These monster ships have a lot of travelling to do as they transport a wide variety of goods from country to country. In one year a single container ship travels three quarters to the moon and back as it moves over the oceans. Despite this massive amount of travel, shipping remains the most eco-friendly form of mass transport there is, especially when compared with moving goods by air or road.
Cheeky Requests
The United States Postal Service was forced to outlaw the delivery of materials used in construction. The reason for this action was caused by a gentleman who discovered he could save money sending one brick at a time through the U.S mail. One brick may not have been a big deal, but the gentleman in question was building a house in Alaska and he tried to send every single brick required for the build to save a bit of money. Now no one can send a brick!
Life Imitates Art
You’ve probably seen a cartoon where some cute little critter tries to mail another sweet yet annoying critter by international courier to get them out of their hair. This is a concept that’s been seen in many comedy sketches and cartoons such as Garfield and Friends and Tom and Jerry for example. Well surprisingly the sending of an actual live person has been attempted many times. Often individuals try to ship themselves to other parts of the world via UPS; luckily for the individual, all attempts over the last 103 years have been unsuccessful.
As you can see shipping is a pretty amazing industry, one we can’t do without. If you’re working as an international courier you never quite know what the day will bring.
Catherine Halsey writes about a broad range of topics including business and technology issues
Marty Huggins
