It's 4:30pm. You've been going since 5am. You're tired, the van still has 20 parcels in it, and your shift officially ends at 5. Even the best drivers have days where the numbers don't add up — traffic was worse than expected, a dock ate 45 minutes of your morning, or the stop count was just too high for the area. What you do in this situation matters for your record, your pay, and your safety. Here's how experienced drivers handle it.
Step 1: Call Your Supervisor
First thing — call dispatch or your supervisor before you make any decisions. Tell them how many stops you have left, where they are, and what time you realistically expect to finish if you keep going. They may tell you to prioritise certain deliveries, send another driver to take some, or authorise overtime to finish the run.
This call protects you. If you bring parcels back without communicating, it looks like you gave up. If you communicated and your supervisor made the call, it's a management decision, not a performance issue.
Step 2: Prioritise
If you're going to run out of time, not all deliveries are equal. Prioritise in this order:
Time-critical deliveries: Anything with a guaranteed delivery window (e.g., "before 5pm" or "next day express"). Missing these triggers service failures and potential refunds.
Business addresses: Businesses close at 5pm. If you can't deliver today, they won't get it until tomorrow — and that's if someone attempts redelivery. Residential customers can usually receive the next day.
Clustered stops: If 8 of your remaining 20 parcels are in the same street or complex, knock those out. High stop count in a small area is efficient and reduces your return count quickly.
Single outliers: That one parcel 15 minutes in the opposite direction? It goes back. The time it takes to deliver one isolated stop could be used to deliver four clustered ones.
Step 3: Know Your Rights on Hours
According to Fair Work Australia hours of work guidelines, maximum ordinary hours for most full-time employees are 38 hours per week (or an average over a roster period). If you're being consistently given more work than can be completed in your contracted hours, that's a workload issue — not a performance issue.
Don't feel pressured to work unpaid overtime to finish deliveries that weren't achievable in your shift. If overtime is available and you want it, great. If it's not offered and you're expected to work past your finish time for free, that's a conversation you need to have with your employer — or your union rep.
For contractors, the equation is different. You're paid per delivery or per run, so unfinished deliveries directly affect your income. But fatigue is still real, and driving tired is dangerous. If you're too fatigued to drive safely, stop. No delivery is worth an accident.
What Not to Do
Don't rush. The last 30 minutes of a long day is when mistakes happen — wrong addresses, missed scans, parcels left in unsafe spots. Slow down and do each remaining delivery properly.
Don't hide parcels. Some drivers scan parcels as delivered and leave them in the van to deal with tomorrow. This is a termination-level offence at most companies. If a parcel is coming back, scan it as undelivered with the correct code.
Don't blame yourself. Every driver has days where the numbers don't work. If it's a one-off, it's just a bad day. If it's happening regularly, the issue is likely route design, stop count, or loading — not you.