The Christmas season is referred to as peak season within FedEx. It, Valentine's day and Mother's day are the biggest seasonal times for the company. It's become traditional at Christmas for some employees in the corporate offices to work nights at the Memphis hub to help out. Bringing a little computing back into the topic, it was company policy that no production software systems could be modified or updated during peak season without special VP level approval. Of course, if you were working on experimental projects, you had a little more leeway. BLS

Fedex: 1) 20? years ago, they were inordinately proud of how few packages were late. Unfortunately, to achieve that goal, they had an unacceptable algorithm. Instead of a FIFO buffer, . . . if a package were late, it went to the BACK of the queue! Therefore, they had one package 2 days late, instead of 2 packages 1 day late. At that time, UPS had a FIFO buffer, and therefore had more late packages, but each late one was substantially less late than Fedex's late one. 2) A few years ago, I was expecting a package. Somehow, I missed the first two deliveries. Not sure HOW, since I was anxiously awaiting it. So, I took a entire day off of work for the third attempt, and spent the day sitting on my front porch. At 2:00, the online tracking changed from "out for delivery" to "failed delivery attempt"!