Delivery Services

Big Mac is boning up for a home delivery attack. So are Kentucky Fried Chicken, Subway and El Pollo Loco. As fast as you can phone or fax your request, these familiar fast-food names are starting to deliver--to the home or the office. Pizza parlors that long reigned as kings of home delivery are suddenly competing with the big names in burgers and chicken. For now, most of the big chains are watching closely while their franchisees experiment with delivery.

Once upon a time, an entry-level job in the mailroom of a large company might serve as the launching pad for a great career in corporate America. But mailrooms -- nerve centers for big businesses -- are being reinvented and in some cases closed completely as companies look to cut costs through outsourcing and using new technology. Big companies are cutting mailroom employees by adopting software that converts letters and faxes into electronic files and then automatically sorts them.

The U.S. Postal Service is confronting a technological assault that as never before threatens its cherished monopoly over the delivery of letters, even as its mail volume this year is expected to rise to a record 177 billion pieces. And how is it responding? Critics say the agency has an instinct to answer competition with brute force that is one of the clearest signs that it mistrusts--rather than values--its customers.

Living in Los Angeles creates in nearly every one of its residents a risk analyst who weighs effort versus outcome. We wonder: Is the pleasure of a massage, a manicure or a meal worth the punishment of the traffic en route? Are we so time-starved that we'll gladly pay someone else to suffer and bring the experience to us? The answer to the latter question is often yes. Venturing outside our homes means having to overcome any variety of logistical, financial and emotional hurdles.

United Parcel Service is checking how it shipped a live 5-foot alligator overnight to New York City. Workers investigating a leaking box on a company truck Thursday found the alligator, its snout and feet bound with duct tape. "He was not very happy," UPS spokesman Norman Black said. New York animal control officials seized the 40-pound alligator, which was not injured. Atlanta-based UPS prohibits the shipment of live animals. Black declined to say where the box originated or how it was labeled.

United Parcel Service of America Inc., the world's top package-delivery company, said it will raise rates about 2.5% next year, the smallest increase in 11 years, helped by the lowest oil prices in more than a decade. Separately, UPS said it will test a hybrid gasoline-electric truck starting early next year as it seeks to lower automobile emissions and fuel costs. The trucks to be tested in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Johnson City, N.Y.

In a delivery glitch that could hurt receipts for what is expected to be the highest-grossing film this weekend, prints of the Steven Spielberg film "Saving Private Ryan" didn't make it to hundreds of theaters in time for the first showings on Friday. The problem appeared to be most severe in California and Arizona. Many moviegoers in the Los Angeles area hoping to be among the first to see the highly anticipated DreamWorks film starring Tom Hanks were disappointed Friday afternoon.

In addition to drivers in brown trucks, United Parcel Service will soon begin using the Internet to deliver documents. UPS, which has been in the ground-delivery business for 90 years, is counting on its name and reputation for reliability to propel it into electronic delivery. Wednesday, the company announced UPS Document Exchange, a service that delivers without truck, plane or other vehicle.

Federal Express, the world's largest air cargo company, is prepared to become a ground carrier if pilots strike, Chief Executive Ted Weise said. In a letter to the company's 3,500 pilots, Weise wrote that labor troubles at the company have already prompted several major clients to shift business from FedEx. "In the event of a strike, we can keep traffic moving with a limited air network and a greatly expanded ground network," he wrote in the letter dated Oct. 30.