Thursday, August 14, 2003
Today I spent most (55 minutes) of my lunch hour on another futile mission. I recently went on a short vacation and filled out the US Postal Service form for holding mail. There's a block on it for the date to restart delivery and a bigger block to check that says "Hold until picked up" and with an extra note that says "you need to understand that the mail will not be delivered until it is personally picked up." And I put a big check mark in it. I put the form in the mailbox before I left and sure enough no mail was delivered. OK - today I go to pick up the undelivered mail. The post office is clear across town from where I work and takes me almost 25 minutes to get to. Then I wait in line for about 10 minutes more while the lady in front of me jaws with the post office worker. Finally I get to the line and ask for mail. She asks for my driver's license which I give to her and she asks if it has my current address -- I tell her on the back. Naturally when she looks she uses the wrong address. I tell her and she wanders off to check for my mail. Guess what? Yep - it's being delivered. (At least it was delivered and it all just fit into my mailbox this time.)
Last week I ordered an LCD monitor from Dell. When selecting the delivery type, I chose the slower ground delivery. I wanted it to come by UPS instead of by air. The next day I call for a UPS shipping number -- they tell me Airborne Express - rats! I get the tracking number and call Airborne and tell them to hold the package for pickup at their office since I'm not home during the day. They say OK we will. I get home and there's a message on my answering machine saying my package is being held for me at their office and I can come and pick it up. I double-check the Airborne website that night before going to bed and sure enough, it shows the package as being held for pick up. (you can see where this is going, right?)
The next morning I get up an hour early and make the 14 mile trip to Airborne. I get there and the package is being delivered. I have to admit I went off at the clerk behind the counter. This is about the third time this same exact thing has happened. I make the 28 mile round trip just to be told -- oops, it's not here, it's being delivered. And then end up making the 28 mile round trip again. So that afternoon I call Airborne -- again -- and ask if the package is there for my pickup this evening. They say it is. I ask again -- can you physically see it? and they insist it's there. 28 miles later I finally have my monitor at home. sigh....
2fers: http://www.ups.com/ and http://www.mbe.com/
Last week I ordered an LCD monitor from Dell. When selecting the delivery type, I chose the slower ground delivery. I wanted it to come by UPS instead of by air. The next day I call for a UPS shipping number -- they tell me Airborne Express - rats! I get the tracking number and call Airborne and tell them to hold the package for pickup at their office since I'm not home during the day. They say OK we will. I get home and there's a message on my answering machine saying my package is being held for me at their office and I can come and pick it up. I double-check the Airborne website that night before going to bed and sure enough, it shows the package as being held for pick up. (you can see where this is going, right?)
The next morning I get up an hour early and make the 14 mile trip to Airborne. I get there and the package is being delivered. I have to admit I went off at the clerk behind the counter. This is about the third time this same exact thing has happened. I make the 28 mile round trip just to be told -- oops, it's not here, it's being delivered. And then end up making the 28 mile round trip again. So that afternoon I call Airborne -- again -- and ask if the package is there for my pickup this evening. They say it is. I ask again -- can you physically see it? and they insist it's there. 28 miles later I finally have my monitor at home. sigh....
2fers: http://www.ups.com/ and http://www.mbe.com/
