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The story
Comedian Hitori Gekidan sparked discussion after questioning why home delivery time slots are split into 2-hour windows after noon, yet mornings only offer a single 4-hour window from 8am to noon. The topic split opinion on 5ch over delivery drivers’ actual working conditions and how the time-slot system works. While some argued time slots should become a paid option, or that Hitori — presumably well-off — has no room to complain, a poster claiming to work for a major delivery company explained that drivers can only make one loop through their assigned area in the morning, making finer time slots impossible then. The thread ended up as more than just pile-on grumbling.
Sep 2 (Wed), 4:30 PM
Comedian Hitori Gekidan is making waves after venting frustration over home delivery “time slot” options.
“He took issue with the fact that after noon the windows are split into 2-hour increments, but for some reason the morning slot spans a full 4 hours, from 8am to noon,” said one entertainment reporter.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
(∪^ω^) 🔔♪ Ding-dong, ding-dong~
If they come once and you're not home, sometimes they'll swing by again if they're back in the area. And even with a time slot booked, if they're passing through the neighborhood on another delivery and happen to be able to park, they might just drop it off early.
Delivery work is different from other jobs — without fail, every customer acts entitled. In my own experience, I once got absolutely reamed with customer harassment by an old lady running a restaurant with glowing reviews on Tabelog (Japan's Yelp equivalent). Made me realize: everyone turns into scum the moment nobody's watching.
That's probably part of it, but I think people basically look down on delivery drivers as the bottom of the barrel.
Exactly why I booked noon-2pm on a day I was free, and then the post office told me to pick a different time because they were busy…
Better get used to going without online shopping now, while you still can.
Honestly, it's already pretty risky even now. Delivery these days is a goldmine of people you'd never see doing any other job, thanks to the labor shortage — guys riding sidesaddle and all sorts. A part-timer might still be fine, but there's no way any of the actual drivers are all there.
Exactly! Though in the end, self-driving cars and AI might solve it. By the way, I bet housing prices are going to skyrocket in a few years too — several times what they are now.
It's a 3-minute walk so I figured I'd do that, but now you get routed through some call-center thing first. And then it's like, "you can choose a pickup time starting 3+ hours from now." Man, I miss the days when you could just call the depot directly and grab it (lol).
That'll just mean more missed deliveries and redos.
Doubling the price probably wouldn't be worth it — once people are paying for it, plenty would start complaining over even the slightest delay.
If you don't specify a time, they show up at 8am, but the second you request "morning," they cut it as close to noon as possible.
Someone like Hitori wouldn't even notice if it cost extra.
This guy got famous pretty early on too. Comedians who paid their dues the hard way, like Nishikigoi or Baikingu (comedy duos known for years of struggle before breaking through), would never complain like this (lol). Guys who blew up fast, like Okamura, are always griping about something.
Just live in a condo with a concierge and problem solved.
It's not just on the way back — they jog even while carrying the packages. Must be rough dealing with complainers like Hitori.
That's because it attracts a lot of low-quality people.
Are you an idiot? That's true of literally any job — most people already assume any job is tough without needing a field trip to prove it.
The main reason is that delivery drivers have a fixed assigned area, and within that area they only pass each address once during the morning. If there were two morning packages for the same address — say one for 8-10am and another for 10am-noon — delivering them would require looping through the area twice, which is extremely inefficient. As for why the afternoon can be split into narrower windows: delivering a lot of packages in the morning frees up enough time to make multiple loops in the afternoon.
If you want to know roughly when your morning-slot package will arrive, just remember what time your morning packages have shown up in the past — since the route order never changes, it'll usually arrive around the same time.
Correction:
I work for a major delivery company, and there are several reasons the morning slot is a 4-hour window.
The main reason is that delivery drivers have a fixed assigned area and a fixed route order through it. The driver makes one loop through that area in the morning, so each address only gets passed once during that time. If there were two morning packages for the same address — say one for 8-10am and another for 10am-noon — delivering them would require two loops, which is extremely inefficient. As for why the afternoon can be split into narrower windows: delivering a lot of packages in the morning frees up enough time to make multiple loops in the afternoon.
If you want to know roughly when your morning-slot package will arrive, just remember what time your morning packages have shown up in the past — since the route order never changes, it'll usually arrive around the same time.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Home delivery time slots are split into 2-hour increments in the afternoon at most companies, but mornings get just a single 4-hour window. According to a poster in the thread claiming to work for a major delivery company, that’s because drivers follow a fixed route through their assigned area and can only make one loop through it in the morning — if the same address had multiple morning slots, the driver would need two loops, which would be inefficient. The thread split over where to put the weight: on consumers’ demand for tighter time slots, or on the burden that would place on delivery workers in the field. A proposal to charge for time-slot requests came up, but so did concerns that it would just increase missed-delivery redos, or that paying customers would complain more over even minor delays. The reaction cited in the reporting — “On X, people are saying ‘Do you have any idea how hard this is?’” — reflects sympathy for delivery workers more than agreement with Hitori’s comment itself. But on 5ch, the discussion tangled together criticism of customers who vent without understanding how the system works, and anxiety about the labor shortage in the delivery industry — a nuance the original news article doesn’t fully capture.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports Breaking News+) thread “Hitori Gekidan complains that delivery’s morning slot spans “8am to noon, a full 4 hours” — on X: “Do you have any idea how hard this is? Seriously.”“
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