Handballing, stripping, lumping, and humping

What is handballing, stripping, lumping, and humping?

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If you work in logistics, you already know. If you don't, welcome to the industry's vocabulary.

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These are all legitimate terms for unloading freight, used daily across warehouses, ports, and container yards around the world.

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Handballing: floor-loaded cargo with no pallets, moved entirely by hand. The standard UK term for manual unloading.

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Stripping: emptying a container of its cargo and seals. The direct counterpart to "stuffing" (loading). Both terms come from maritime law.

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Lumping: the word comes from 19th-century British dockyards, where a "lumper" shifted coal and timber. Now it refers specifically to third-party workers hired to unload a trailer.

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Humping: early 20th-century warehouse slang describing the physical shape of a worker's back when carrying heavy loads on their shoulders.

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Oak Tree's crew does all of it, every day, across New Zealand and Australia. The terminology might raise an eyebrow out of context. In context, it's just the work.