Very merry logistics (6:30)
OK, so the Fat Man has the intel, he has it in enough time to place orders ahead of the Big Day, now he just needs to get it to you. Obviously, the idea that Old White Beard has his HQ at the North Pole is just a ruse to draw attention away from the fact that he has the most extensive shipping system in the world.
We asked our CEO here at Kin +Carta, J Schwan, what kind of organization that he thought would be needed to pull this off.
<Audio Clip>
J: Guys. We talked about this. This podcast is supposed to be about real problems that are important and how we can solve them. Not about the imaginary logistics of Christmas, OK?
Thanks, J. As always, you are an inspiration to us all.
So how could he do it? Hyperlocal micro-warehouses in every neighborhood across the world. You know from our interview with Andy Whiting of Better Trucks from the Shippageddon episode that retailers are experimenting with having more small warehouses in population centers to reduce the last mile problem of delivery so we would expect the World's Oldest Reindeer Jockey to have already pioneered this logistics breakthrough. Six to eight weeks ahead of Christmas, he has his list made, and after a quality control check and ANOTHER quality control check he places the orders giving him ample time to fulfill, ship and deliver to their final staging area IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
So now we are in the range of a reasonable effort. Depending on what hemisphere you are in, you have anywhere from 18 hours of darkness in Oslo to 9 1/2 hour of darkness in Melbourne but to make it simple, let's say they have 12 hours to do their work. A fedex driver can deliver 75 to 125 packages per 8 hour shift, so allowing time for getting in and out of the house, let's say they could do 100 deliveries in 8 hours or 150 deliveries in 12. The Old Chimney Jumper has to do 160 million deliveries so that means about 1.1 million helpers each with their own mini-warehouse across the world. Now that is on average of course, the Pitcairn Islands have only 50 total Christians so we may need one or two more delivery elves in Slovenia with 1.6 million Christians to pick up the slack.
The ultimate in last mile delivery (8:43)
More daunting would be the Chicago metro area with about 9.5 million people about 70% of whom identify as Christian, or 6.6 million. Sir Gives-a-Lot has his work cut out for him. Only 26% of those are under the age of 18, we are down to 1.7 million kids, and, knowing Chicago as I do, probably only 80% of those kids were good, what with remote learning and all. But I don't want to get my co-workers and neighbors pissed off at me so I'll just go with the 85% number from Spy Jr. and put it at 1.4 million kids in 400,000 households. So in Chicago and the surrounding area, we will need to have about 2,700 mini-warehouses packed into 11,000 square miles or about 1 location per 4 miles.
I was trying to come up with the number of churches in the Chicago area and see how that compares to the number of mini-warehouses needed but it looks like that is a hard number to get. A little too hard to get. It seems like that would be an easy number to know like the number of Starbucks, or how much Malort is consumed on a daily basis which makes me think that the Old Toy Slinger is using churches as drop locations.
Look around your neighborhood. There are an awful lot of churches aren’t there? And how often are there services going on there? One day? Two days per week? Maybe three at the most? What are they doing there the rest of the time? I don’t know for sure but I can guess that starting around Halloween and up until Christmas Eve, they are the drop box for the most sophisticated delivery system known to man.
Can I prove that organized religion is working hand-in-hand with the Great Red Roof Crasher to deliver presents to all the good children of the world? No. Not by myself. So this Christmas Eve if your COVID rates allow you to do so safely, stop by your local church, or maybe just peek in the window, and see if you can spot his helpers as they deliver joy and hope to children of all ages.
Wrap (10:57)
That’s it for this episode. We gave Katie Pooler the week off since there is literally no Cooler Term than Christmas. Don’t worry, she will be back with us for our next episode.
Please let us know what you think of our show, drop us a present or a lump of coal at Yulebook, Instalog, ReinedIn or SnapDeer, or just write it in the frosting on your Christmas cookies. The Spirit of Christmas will make sure we get the message.
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