What *can* brown do for you?
I got the last of my presents wrapped yesterday. It was sent next-day air on Monday, but didn't get here until Wednesday. UPS decided it made sense to ship the package from Denver to Seattle via Kentucky. How on earth did they expect it to get here in one day when they take it a few extra thousand miles?? Actually, the log shows that it did arrive in Seattle on Tuesday, around 6:30 p.m. The first thing they did with the package, though, was send it to Redmond that night. So then Wednesday morning, they drove it back to Seattle.
I'm not sure posting the list of the when and where of packages is in the best interest of UPS if it exposes customers to this sort of nonsense.
5 comments:
My worst UPS experience was sending a package about 300 miles from Seattle to Kelowna, BC. I paid extra ($300) for next-day delivery. It made it to Vancouver, BC in a blink of the eye, but there it sat. I called, I gave them information for customs over the phone ("they" were in Fredericton, New Brunswick), I faxed information to them, I called again (they never called me), and it finally arrived a week after I sent it. I could have driven the package to Kelowna myself in 8 hours.
And now they've shipped something (work-related) from Spokane to Seattle via Ontario, California (near L.A.). It was put on a van in Redmond at 7:52 this morning, but has yet to show up at our office. Which is great, because I needed it by 10:00 a.m. today.
We do our shippings through UPS at work, and I've heard lots of "fun" stories. Luckily I don't have to deal with that mess. (Poor Tofutti Cutie!) My favorites are when they mis-read the label and sent a package to Nevada instead of New Jersey and when they sent a box that a company was sending us to some random woman in Seattle. In the latter case, the situation was made worse when the woman decided to call us instead of the sending company or, gosh, I don't know, UPS?? Yeah, sure, call the people who have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and who can't authorize a pickup!!! (eye roll)
I can't remember if it's for UPS or USPS, but we have a little sticker in our shipping area that says "Answers Fast!" and gives their information phone number. Tofutti Cutie (who, poor soul, is in charge of our shipping) added "Wrong" to the beginning. After overhearing some of her conversations with UPS and USPS, I think she should cover the last word with "Slowly".
Indirect doesn't imply slow. Fed Ex sends everything through Memphis and still manages to get it there the next day. (Incidentally, the Fed Ex business plan was first created as a Harvard Business School homework assignment and got a very low grade from a professor who didn't believe it would work).
The USPS, though, delivers a local letter the next day because it never leaves the area, but a long-distance letter in a couple days because it has further to go. That sort of sorting just makes sense to me. And they don't have to have planes flying local letters back and forth all night long.
Too bad the USPS doesn't make money...
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