Today in "Tis the Season", I'd like to discuss holiday deliveries. Whether it be gifts delivered to my home, gifts sent to other locations or just general every day deliveries, this is a crazy time of year for those folks at UPS, FedEx and the USPS.
So doesn't it seem they'd like to make their lives easier by not making it a nightmare to leave their packages? What's the point of having a waiver on file if they
still insist you be home to sign for a delivery? I can understand in the case of our
daily weekly monthly quarterly wine shipments - those have to be signed for by someone over 21. But we recently had to chase down a package at the UPS place because they wouldn't leave a $20 power cord. All of this because that vendor has a blanket "must sign in-person" policy regardless of the purchase amount. Really, why bother having the waiver at all?
By the way - did you know that FedEx delivers Tuesday through Saturday? I don't like Mondays either but I can't believe they'd want to work Saturdays. How is that any more efficient? They're just as unlikely to catch me home on the weekend as they are during the week.
And of course they attempted delivery of our latest "in-person signature" package on Friday at 12:42pm, Saturday at 1:07pm, and the final delivery attempt on Tuesday? Somewhere around 9am. How does
that make any sense? Joe figured it was safe to run out to a meeting this morning because they'd delivery somewhere between noon and 2pm (which is also the time marked on their "next attempt" note) but of course they came early so now we have to track down
that package as well.
Don't even get me started about deliveries to the family back "home". Their delivery people just do whatever they want because it's a small town and they all know each other. You'd think that's helpful except it's not. They leave things with random neighbors and don't bother telling anyone where it was delivered. Then you're left calling everyone in the neighborhood to try to find your packages because half the neighbors can't be bothered to let you know.
Last year, I sent my grandmother flowers deliberately from a place that said they would require in-person signature because where she lives it is damned cold. They were supposed to call her to arrange delivery time but of course they didn't. Instead they chose to leave her flowers out on the front step where they froze and were completely destroyed.
Let's hope this delivery season is a good one, hassle-free for the deliverers AND the deliverees.
P.S. Also, if someone wants to send something via FedEx to my work so I can see the totally hot delivery guy? Let me know. I might be willing to disclose my location in that case.