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I'm always amazed at the stark differences between UPS drivers, and Amazon drivers. UPS trucks are always clean. They follow the rules of the road. The drivers

I'm always amazed at the stark differences between UPS drivers, and Amazon drivers. UPS trucks are always clean. They follow the rules of the road. The drivers wear neat uniforms, they walk on the sidewalks, they're polite, they're just professionals held to a higher standard. Then there are Amazon drivers. They park blocking half the road, music blasting, the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a month, most of the time it's not even an Amazon marked van, it's just some generic white rental. The drivers often don't have Amazon clothing, maybe just a hi-viz vest, they walk through your grass and plants, lazily toss a package on the porch and walk away. Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile...

Jochim 3y ago
> Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... Do you expect them to do so? Are you ensuring that they're paid and treated well enough to do so?
jxf 3y ago
You get what you pay for. UPS drivers are unionized, and Amazon's aren't.
- jvmfjvfjvf 3y ago
  FedEx delivery drivers aren't unionized.
  - jxf 3y ago
    They very much want to be. FedEx is more effective than UPS at union suppression: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/14/fedex-anti-union-campaign-teamsters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/14/fedex-anti-u...
- tiahura 3y ago
  Why would I want to pay for somebody else’s clean trucks and neat uniforms? Sounds like a scam to me.
  - otikik 3y ago
    That is not the only thing he said, though.
  - croes 3y ago
    Good service needs good equipment.
  - jxf 3y ago
    If the employees charged with doing the work are miserable and uncomfortable, how well do you think the packages are getting treated?
- tekla 3y ago
  Wait, UPS fucking sucks though. Amazon drivers make a attempt to hide packages, UPS tosses it 10 feet over the gate and mark it delivered in person.
  - briandear 3y ago
    UPS has, for me, been the most consistently atrocious. One anecdote: During the later part of the Covid hysteria, I had a large check arriving overnight. It was in the truck of a driver who supposedly got exposed to Covid. They left the truck parked in the lot, filled with packages. I went to the distribution center counter. The envelope I needed was literally 100m away in a truck I could see behind the fence in the parking lot, according to their internal tracking system. Rather than simply going outside to get the envelope (that contained a huge check from cashing out a 401k to buy a house,) instead they said that there wasn't anything they could do until that driver returned from a two-week quarantine. And to top it off, I didn't get a refund for the "overnight" shipping costs. So if that's "union," then I want no part of it. I have had minor issues with all shipping companies, but compared to UPS, they've been minor. DHL, FedEx, and Amazon -- they consistently perform much better in my experience. Amazon drivers are a bit punk-rock in that they aren't so polished and can be "sloppy" -- but my stuff always arrives on time and I've never had a damaged package. FedEx is quietly consistent for the most part. This idea that "unions make it better" is just false. It's also interesting that UPS wanted to force FedEx to be reclassified under the NLRA in order to harm FedEx. FedEx was formed in 1971 and since their original focus was air freight, they were under the Railways Act, while UPS was formed over 100 years ago as a trucking company, thus putting them under the NLRA. UPS doesn't like that because since the Teamsters run the show over there, FedEx had an advantage due to lower costs. The Teamsters union has annual revenues of almost $200 million and have over $300 million in assets. How does an organization that simply negotiates labor contracts accumulate that many assets? That $300 million isn't pension fund money. That isn't money going to the workers, that's money going to the union. That's money that customers are paying, employees aren't getting, but the union is getting. It's essentially a private tax that benefits the few at the expense of the many. That the Teamsters has a long history of corruption and organized crime involvement is no secret. Why would anyone support such a corrupt organization? FedEx driver salaries in Texas are $34k-52k, while UPS drivers make $30k-43k. Additionally, the UPS driver salaries also have deductions for union dues. So how exactly is a union benefitting UPS in Texas? Competition for drivers is extremely fierce, especially in long-haul trucking. Here are some thoughts on unions from readers of the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/unnecessary-and-political-why-unions-are-bad-for-america/258405/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/unneces...
NikolaNovak 3y ago
Fair enough, but I wonder how much areas and personal experiences matter. My experience with UPS over last 2 decades, as a receiving individual, has been dismal (condos in Toronto and now house in satellite residential community). I understand they optimize toward businesses, and I'm sure as a business their procedures are streamlined and efficient, but as a resident receiving package, it's awful. Majority of packages don't get delivered when I'm in the house eagerly expecting a package. Sour attitudes when I do. Amazon delivery on the other hand is always with a smile and a wave - and it gets here every.single.time. But I recognize it's a personal / individual experience. I don't know what a broader picture is.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Aunche 3y ago
  My experience with UPS has been similarly poor. For two addresses in different states, whenever UPS sent me a package that required my signature, they simply forge it and mark it as delivered. They don't even bother to ring the doorbell.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    In my hood they might look at your door before marking you as not home requiring a trip out to a holding facility.
  - rincebrain 3y ago
    At least in my area, forging signatures for "must have signature" deliveries started during COVID and hasn't stopped even though many people are not actively dodging human contact any more.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  It is also likely, as pointed out here, an employer difference: You may regionally be seeing Amazon drivers from different employers who add different expectations beyond Amazon's.
- 3y ago
jtreminio 3y ago
> music blasting Far be it from me to say a driver can't listen to music while they are at work. > the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a month Good. Washing work vehicles so that they are always sparkling seems like a waste of resources. > Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile This is such a weird American fixation. Here, take my money and hand me my burger and receipt, there's no need for a conversation or a fake smile. You don't care how my day is going, I don't really care about yours. Let's keep this transaction professional and solely focused on this exchange of money for burger.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  I can not stand people who love setting weird standards on others. Music? They didn’t say hello to you when giving you your delivery? Why on earth do you care.
  - redwall_hp 3y ago
    Because they culturally see anyone "beneath them" as NPCs that exist to serve them, and anything other than perfect servility is seen as a personal insult. American customer service mentality is supremely fucked up. I actively avoid businesses that more actively force employees to interact with customers in certain artificial ways, because some are even worse than the norm.
  - Moomoomoo309 3y ago
    Playing music is fine. Blasting music is the problem. I don't like it when anyone blasts music in their car, not just mail carriers.
- glimshe 3y ago
  Gosh, whenever you find the world you want to live in, please let me know because I don't want to live there. I'll keep the smile and the clean trucks, thank you. A lot of good manners are "fake" and simply a social convention that people follow even if feeling miserable inside - "Good Morning", "Excuse me", "Thank you" etc. In a world filled with hostility, disease, death and danger, good manners and social conventions such as cleanliness help signal safety.
game_the0ry 3y ago
One time, I had amazon delivery driver show up and they just threw my package at the door. Literally, just chucked at my door and I heard the thud in my home office.
- macinjosh 3y ago
  They were beta testing a new SNS feature.
Tempest1981 3y ago
Around here, UPS and FedEx are equally noisy. And the Amazon trucks are brand new Rivian EVs. Pretty clean so far. FedEx drives the fastest.
Zigurd 3y ago
I wish this were not true, but on multiple deliveries I have had UPS falsify a delivery attempt and status. Amazon drivers have never done that. This has to be a systemic problem with UPS selling service level agreements they can't actually meet. There is no way that UPS's tracking system don't know this is happening.
- kova12 3y ago
  Just another day UPS was supposed to deliver an item with signature. I needed the item. I was waiting for driver, but even if I wasn't, my whole family was at home. Looked outside, bam! UPS label "sorry we missed you" on the door.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    Well, at least you got the notice. I was in the same situation at my parents' house. Three people in the house, loud doorbell, my mom doing whatever in the garden. UPS says no-one was home and they left a notice. Didn't leave anything. And unless they had an electric truck or something similarly quiet, they didn't even drive down the street. To the other commenter's point up the thread, I've never had such an experience with deliveries made by Amazon. I live in an apartment, and if I have a bigger item that won't fit in the mailbox, only Amazon will call me up to see if they can deliver it in hand. They usually call anyway instead of defaulting to the mailbox, but not always. Other delivery services will never call, just leave a slip in the mailbox, if that.
whalesalad 3y ago
Here in Detroit the Amazon drivers are pretty great. I would say they are no different than UPS. Always in uniforms. I also see them about 10x as often, so there is a bigger sample size. Once in a while someone will be blasting music, but tbh I would probably be doing the same if I were in their shoes. FedEx drivers are hands down the worst.
josefresco 3y ago
"lazily toss a package on the porch and walk away" I tried to help an Amazon driver by taking the package from him at the edge of my driveway. He stopped me, told me he had to take a photo of it sitting on my property first. He was very serious about this. I doubt this behavior is from these contracted drivers unless the photo requirement is new and your experience is not.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  Same here, just last week. He politely told me that he could hand it to me, but then I'd need to sign for it. If he put it on the front step, he could just take a picture. I opted to just let him continue his normal routine. Undoubtedly faster than doing a one-off signature because I happened to be standing out in front of my house.
- rincebrain 3y ago
  I think the requirement is basically only in areas that have high rates of people complaining about things not turning up, and even then, Amazon doesn't really seem to care. For a while, my home had very poor labeling of its address on the building, and getting anything delivered was always a crapshoot of drivers giving up and just picking a random location to leave it instead. They would happily take photos of them having left it at a home that was not mine, not remotely mistakable for mine, and Amazon didn't treat that any differently from the cases where there were no photos at all.
- pc86 3y ago
  It's very driver dependent. Sometimes I'll get the super professional, uniformed delivery driver driving a marked van who seems to actually care about doing a good job at his job. Other times it'll be the guy in jeans and a t-shirt who throws the package on to the porch from 8 feet away before going back to their nearly broken down white rental van. Both get the picture before leaving though. My guess is this is just a difference in contracting companies and not anything specific to how Amazon contracts the work out in the first place.
- Steltek 3y ago
  This comment and sibling comments read like bizarro world for me. I've never seen anything close to this level of attention to detail. I've had my packaged signed for by "mailbox". This is practically the default message for me. I've been on vacation and seen "Handed directly to a resident". Which would be more disturbing if I didn't already know the whole system was broken. In this case, the package was sitting on the front steps. (Edit: These are all Amazon branded van deliveries, fwiw).
coldtea 3y ago
>Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... They aren't even putting on a little dance for each customer, to celebrate the wonderful minimum-wage soul-crushing git they got!
- macinjosh 3y ago
  There is a middle ground of basic social interaction between failing to acknowledge a party in a transaction and being forced to do an impromptu dance for them. In the case of Cold Stone Creamery though I agree, those kids should not have to sing for tips.
  - Zetice 3y ago
    No there isn't; you pay for a service you get that service. Let these people live their lives, society is already massively underpaying them. We should have to apologize to them when they hand us our meal, that should be the "basic social interaction".
    - pc86 3y ago
      > that should be the "basic social interaction" Well, it's not. If "living your life" involves being rude to people and ignoring even the most basic social courtesies, you're an asshole. Part of the service people pay for when they go anywhere is not dealing with rude employees, and yes ignoring basic social courtesies is rude. If you're in Europe you get to have the European social courtesies of minimal interaction, no small talk, etc. If you're in North America you don't get that, sorry.
      - Zetice 3y ago
        My friend you have not visited the northeastern part of the US if you think not actively smiling while serving fast food is abnormal. Further it is rude in no part of the world to not be cheerful, and the fact that you require this of people who are paid unlivable wages shows a distinct lack of compassion or empathy. They’ll smile when you pay them what they’re worth.
ouid 3y ago
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Lolaccount 3y ago
... throws packages through our open windows instead of ringing the doorbell ... Your comment rings true.
ncr100 3y ago
Amazon Corporate has NO love from me. The employees seem to me to be pressured to be sociopathic: A few days ago in Seattle I was threatened by an Amazon driver - I was walking my small dog across a large two-lane street in my neighborhood and an Amazon driver (wearing the vest) driving a White Honda Fit floored-it, revved his engine at me, gave me the middle finger, and drove into the opposing lane of traffic. Bizarre.
altairprime 3y ago
I regularly hear music in UPS vans, and they always seem to be happy that they have music. Their vans are dirt brown which does notably reduce the cleaning burden.y apartment complex regularly has one road out front blocked all day long by private delivery cars, commercial delivery drivers of every sort, police cars, and people double-parked to use the ATM. UPS and Amazon show up at different times, and stay for the same length of time. However, you’re still seeing something valid, but I want to call it out plainly: Amazon contracts delivery to the lowest bidder in each region, exactly the same as FedEx Ground (formerly RPS) does. The variability you describe in Amazon drivers and vans stems directly from Amazon trying to be “hands off” enough to not get them all labeled employees; whereas UPS just employs them, with a resulting degree of consistency in appearances and behavior that Amazon cannot match. But .. music? They all listen to music.
rootusrootus 3y ago
I suspect this is very regional. My Amazon deliveries come in a marked van, clean enough, with a uniformed driver. They have been just as personable as the UPS & FedEx drivers, they don't walk through my lawn, they all deliver packages to my doorstep just the same. But the Amazon guy does take a quick picture. Can't really just toss it and walk away. > Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... That's a sad place for sure. I don't eat a lot of fast food, but our closest restaurants are usually courteous. But that might also be partly how I address them. I decided many years ago that common courtesy just made the whole world a nicer place, whether in person or driving down the road. Even if you start out forcing it, as your mood improves so will the moods of the people you interact with, and it spreads. Bad attitude also spreads. So I don't choose that.
- adra 3y ago
  I think even the "outside consultants" can use the Amazon marked vehicles, probably getting them leased cheaply just to as a further f-u to employment law. Just don't hurt yourself on the job, because nobody's there for you when it happens.
deviantbit 3y ago
I've not had the same experience w/ UPS drivers. I had a lawsuit with UPS for them hitting my gate. They're in such a hurry they can't let it finish opening. After 6 years they finally paid the $14k to replace it. I'm still trying to get them to pay the attorney fees that were awarded. Amazon drivers stop, wait for it to open, and drive down the drive at a reasonable speed. Amazon takes a picture after they have left the items.
stronglikedan 3y ago
It must vary from area to area. In my area, you could swap "UPS" and "Amazon" in your story and it would fit. (Minus the music blasting - neither do that around here- and both wear identifying clothing.) I always cringe a little when I get a UPS shipment notification, and I try my best to be home for it, for the best chance of success.
renewiltord 3y ago
Interesting how you can rehabilitate your image by just the existence of someone else that people want to hate. On the Internet, now: - UPS is now apparently the height of professionalism - Zuckerberg is the hero fighting off Elon Musk - Microsoft are the good guys reining in OpenAI Of course, this doesn't really match the common brand view. Really goes to show how Internet commenters are not representative.
- bena 3y ago
  As to UPS. It is weird. Now, I mostly don't pay attention to which service I'm getting stuff from. Mostly because I don't have the option most of the time, I'm getting it from the service the seller is using. A while back, I did notice that USPS was by far the best option in the area I was in. They were often faster and had fewer problems. Now, it's pretty much all the same. I never have any major issues with any of them. Regarding the Zuckerberg/Musk thing, I think it's just mostly an artifact of it being completely fucking bizarre. Two middle-aged billionaires are about to throw down in a fucking cage match. I believe people are mostly rooting for Zuckerberg because he seems to be able to actually fight whereas Musk has strong "street fight/smarts" vibes. The kind of guy who says he doesn't have "conventional" training, but is secretly really competent because of reasons.
barbazoo 3y ago
> Then there are Amazon drivers. They park blocking half the road, music blasting, the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a month, most of the time it's not even an Amazon marked van, it's just some generic white rental. The drivers often don't have Amazon clothing, maybe just a hi-viz vest, they walk through your grass and plants, lazily toss a package on the porch and walk away. I despise the company as much as the next person but let's stick with the truth and acknowledge that this doesn't seem to be universally true. At least not in my neck of the woods.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nwah1 3y ago
I see drivers from UPS and FedEx speeding through my neighborhood in huge trucks, hip hop music blasting, and see the drivers carelessly toss packages on doorsteps. While children are around. Amazon trucks at least are smaller.
axus 3y ago
My experience in the US with Amazon drivers is sometimes similar, except for walking through the plants. I don't think the professionalism is necessary to receive my package on time and in good condition. When I've been outside and received the package directly, I never felt any disrespect in either direction. How many other countries have Amazon drivers? Is it the same there?
Zetice 3y ago
> Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... For some reason this disturbs me, like something an NPC in a cyberpunk dystopia masquerade ball level would say, to underscore how little they think of the people who serve them...

Jochim 3y ago

> Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... Do you expect them to do so? Are you ensuring that they're paid and treated well enough to do so?

jxf 3y ago

You get what you pay for. UPS drivers are unionized, and Amazon's aren't.

jvmfjvfjvf 3y ago
FedEx delivery drivers aren't unionized.
- jxf 3y ago
  They very much want to be. FedEx is more effective than UPS at union suppression: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/14/fedex-anti-union-campaign-teamsters https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/14/fedex-anti-u...
tiahura 3y ago
Why would I want to pay for somebody else’s clean trucks and neat uniforms? Sounds like a scam to me.
- otikik 3y ago
  That is not the only thing he said, though.
- croes 3y ago
  Good service needs good equipment.
- jxf 3y ago
  If the employees charged with doing the work are miserable and uncomfortable, how well do you think the packages are getting treated?
tekla 3y ago
Wait, UPS fucking sucks though. Amazon drivers make a attempt to hide packages, UPS tosses it 10 feet over the gate and mark it delivered in person.
- briandear 3y ago
  UPS has, for me, been the most consistently atrocious. One anecdote: During the later part of the Covid hysteria, I had a large check arriving overnight. It was in the truck of a driver who supposedly got exposed to Covid. They left the truck parked in the lot, filled with packages. I went to the distribution center counter. The envelope I needed was literally 100m away in a truck I could see behind the fence in the parking lot, according to their internal tracking system. Rather than simply going outside to get the envelope (that contained a huge check from cashing out a 401k to buy a house,) instead they said that there wasn't anything they could do until that driver returned from a two-week quarantine. And to top it off, I didn't get a refund for the "overnight" shipping costs. So if that's "union," then I want no part of it. I have had minor issues with all shipping companies, but compared to UPS, they've been minor. DHL, FedEx, and Amazon -- they consistently perform much better in my experience. Amazon drivers are a bit punk-rock in that they aren't so polished and can be "sloppy" -- but my stuff always arrives on time and I've never had a damaged package. FedEx is quietly consistent for the most part. This idea that "unions make it better" is just false. It's also interesting that UPS wanted to force FedEx to be reclassified under the NLRA in order to harm FedEx. FedEx was formed in 1971 and since their original focus was air freight, they were under the Railways Act, while UPS was formed over 100 years ago as a trucking company, thus putting them under the NLRA. UPS doesn't like that because since the Teamsters run the show over there, FedEx had an advantage due to lower costs. The Teamsters union has annual revenues of almost $200 million and have over $300 million in assets. How does an organization that simply negotiates labor contracts accumulate that many assets? That $300 million isn't pension fund money. That isn't money going to the workers, that's money going to the union. That's money that customers are paying, employees aren't getting, but the union is getting. It's essentially a private tax that benefits the few at the expense of the many. That the Teamsters has a long history of corruption and organized crime involvement is no secret. Why would anyone support such a corrupt organization? FedEx driver salaries in Texas are $34k-52k, while UPS drivers make $30k-43k. Additionally, the UPS driver salaries also have deductions for union dues. So how exactly is a union benefitting UPS in Texas? Competition for drivers is extremely fierce, especially in long-haul trucking. Here are some thoughts on unions from readers of the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/unnecessary-and-political-why-unions-are-bad-for-america/258405/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/unneces...

NikolaNovak 3y ago

Fair enough, but I wonder how much areas and personal experiences matter. My experience with UPS over last 2 decades, as a receiving individual, has been dismal (condos in Toronto and now house in satellite residential community). I understand they optimize toward businesses, and I'm sure as a business their procedures are streamlined and efficient, but as a resident receiving package, it's awful. Majority of packages don't get delivered when I'm in the house eagerly expecting a package. Sour attitudes when I do. Amazon delivery on the other hand is always with a smile and a wave - and it gets here every.single.time. But I recognize it's a personal / individual experience. I don't know what a broader picture is.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Aunche 3y ago
My experience with UPS has been similarly poor. For two addresses in different states, whenever UPS sent me a package that required my signature, they simply forge it and mark it as delivered. They don't even bother to ring the doorbell.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  In my hood they might look at your door before marking you as not home requiring a trip out to a holding facility.
- rincebrain 3y ago
  At least in my area, forging signatures for "must have signature" deliveries started during COVID and hasn't stopped even though many people are not actively dodging human contact any more.
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
It is also likely, as pointed out here, an employer difference: You may regionally be seeing Amazon drivers from different employers who add different expectations beyond Amazon's.
3y ago

jtreminio 3y ago

> music blasting Far be it from me to say a driver can't listen to music while they are at work. > the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a month Good. Washing work vehicles so that they are always sparkling seems like a waste of resources. > Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile This is such a weird American fixation. Here, take my money and hand me my burger and receipt, there's no need for a conversation or a fake smile. You don't care how my day is going, I don't really care about yours. Let's keep this transaction professional and solely focused on this exchange of money for burger.

aaomidi 3y ago
I can not stand people who love setting weird standards on others. Music? They didn’t say hello to you when giving you your delivery? Why on earth do you care.
- redwall_hp 3y ago
  Because they culturally see anyone "beneath them" as NPCs that exist to serve them, and anything other than perfect servility is seen as a personal insult. American customer service mentality is supremely fucked up. I actively avoid businesses that more actively force employees to interact with customers in certain artificial ways, because some are even worse than the norm.
- Moomoomoo309 3y ago
  Playing music is fine. Blasting music is the problem. I don't like it when anyone blasts music in their car, not just mail carriers.
glimshe 3y ago
Gosh, whenever you find the world you want to live in, please let me know because I don't want to live there. I'll keep the smile and the clean trucks, thank you. A lot of good manners are "fake" and simply a social convention that people follow even if feeling miserable inside - "Good Morning", "Excuse me", "Thank you" etc. In a world filled with hostility, disease, death and danger, good manners and social conventions such as cleanliness help signal safety.

game_the0ry 3y ago

One time, I had amazon delivery driver show up and they just threw my package at the door. Literally, just chucked at my door and I heard the thud in my home office.

macinjosh 3y ago
They were beta testing a new SNS feature.

Tempest1981 3y ago

Around here, UPS and FedEx are equally noisy. And the Amazon trucks are brand new Rivian EVs. Pretty clean so far. FedEx drives the fastest.

Zigurd 3y ago

I wish this were not true, but on multiple deliveries I have had UPS falsify a delivery attempt and status. Amazon drivers have never done that. This has to be a systemic problem with UPS selling service level agreements they can't actually meet. There is no way that UPS's tracking system don't know this is happening.

kova12 3y ago
Just another day UPS was supposed to deliver an item with signature. I needed the item. I was waiting for driver, but even if I wasn't, my whole family was at home. Looked outside, bam! UPS label "sorry we missed you" on the door.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  Well, at least you got the notice. I was in the same situation at my parents' house. Three people in the house, loud doorbell, my mom doing whatever in the garden. UPS says no-one was home and they left a notice. Didn't leave anything. And unless they had an electric truck or something similarly quiet, they didn't even drive down the street. To the other commenter's point up the thread, I've never had such an experience with deliveries made by Amazon. I live in an apartment, and if I have a bigger item that won't fit in the mailbox, only Amazon will call me up to see if they can deliver it in hand. They usually call anyway instead of defaulting to the mailbox, but not always. Other delivery services will never call, just leave a slip in the mailbox, if that.

whalesalad 3y ago

Here in Detroit the Amazon drivers are pretty great. I would say they are no different than UPS. Always in uniforms. I also see them about 10x as often, so there is a bigger sample size. Once in a while someone will be blasting music, but tbh I would probably be doing the same if I were in their shoes. FedEx drivers are hands down the worst.

josefresco 3y ago

"lazily toss a package on the porch and walk away" I tried to help an Amazon driver by taking the package from him at the edge of my driveway. He stopped me, told me he had to take a photo of it sitting on my property first. He was very serious about this. I doubt this behavior is from these contracted drivers unless the photo requirement is new and your experience is not.

rootusrootus 3y ago
Same here, just last week. He politely told me that he could hand it to me, but then I'd need to sign for it. If he put it on the front step, he could just take a picture. I opted to just let him continue his normal routine. Undoubtedly faster than doing a one-off signature because I happened to be standing out in front of my house.
rincebrain 3y ago
I think the requirement is basically only in areas that have high rates of people complaining about things not turning up, and even then, Amazon doesn't really seem to care. For a while, my home had very poor labeling of its address on the building, and getting anything delivered was always a crapshoot of drivers giving up and just picking a random location to leave it instead. They would happily take photos of them having left it at a home that was not mine, not remotely mistakable for mine, and Amazon didn't treat that any differently from the cases where there were no photos at all.
pc86 3y ago
It's very driver dependent. Sometimes I'll get the super professional, uniformed delivery driver driving a marked van who seems to actually care about doing a good job at his job. Other times it'll be the guy in jeans and a t-shirt who throws the package on to the porch from 8 feet away before going back to their nearly broken down white rental van. Both get the picture before leaving though. My guess is this is just a difference in contracting companies and not anything specific to how Amazon contracts the work out in the first place.
Steltek 3y ago
This comment and sibling comments read like bizarro world for me. I've never seen anything close to this level of attention to detail. I've had my packaged signed for by "mailbox". This is practically the default message for me. I've been on vacation and seen "Handed directly to a resident". Which would be more disturbing if I didn't already know the whole system was broken. In this case, the package was sitting on the front steps. (Edit: These are all Amazon branded van deliveries, fwiw).

coldtea 3y ago

>Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... They aren't even putting on a little dance for each customer, to celebrate the wonderful minimum-wage soul-crushing git they got!

macinjosh 3y ago
There is a middle ground of basic social interaction between failing to acknowledge a party in a transaction and being forced to do an impromptu dance for them. In the case of Cold Stone Creamery though I agree, those kids should not have to sing for tips.
- Zetice 3y ago
  No there isn't; you pay for a service you get that service. Let these people live their lives, society is already massively underpaying them. We should have to apologize to them when they hand us our meal, that should be the "basic social interaction".
  - pc86 3y ago
    > that should be the "basic social interaction" Well, it's not. If "living your life" involves being rude to people and ignoring even the most basic social courtesies, you're an asshole. Part of the service people pay for when they go anywhere is not dealing with rude employees, and yes ignoring basic social courtesies is rude. If you're in Europe you get to have the European social courtesies of minimal interaction, no small talk, etc. If you're in North America you don't get that, sorry.
    - Zetice 3y ago
      My friend you have not visited the northeastern part of the US if you think not actively smiling while serving fast food is abnormal. Further it is rude in no part of the world to not be cheerful, and the fact that you require this of people who are paid unlivable wages shows a distinct lack of compassion or empathy. They’ll smile when you pay them what they’re worth.

ouid 3y ago

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Lolaccount 3y ago

... throws packages through our open windows instead of ringing the doorbell ... Your comment rings true.

ncr100 3y ago

Amazon Corporate has NO love from me. The employees seem to me to be pressured to be sociopathic: A few days ago in Seattle I was threatened by an Amazon driver - I was walking my small dog across a large two-lane street in my neighborhood and an Amazon driver (wearing the vest) driving a White Honda Fit floored-it, revved his engine at me, gave me the middle finger, and drove into the opposing lane of traffic. Bizarre.

altairprime 3y ago

I regularly hear music in UPS vans, and they always seem to be happy that they have music. Their vans are dirt brown which does notably reduce the cleaning burden.y apartment complex regularly has one road out front blocked all day long by private delivery cars, commercial delivery drivers of every sort, police cars, and people double-parked to use the ATM. UPS and Amazon show up at different times, and stay for the same length of time. However, you’re still seeing something valid, but I want to call it out plainly: Amazon contracts delivery to the lowest bidder in each region, exactly the same as FedEx Ground (formerly RPS) does. The variability you describe in Amazon drivers and vans stems directly from Amazon trying to be “hands off” enough to not get them all labeled employees; whereas UPS just employs them, with a resulting degree of consistency in appearances and behavior that Amazon cannot match. But .. music? They all listen to music.

rootusrootus 3y ago

I suspect this is very regional. My Amazon deliveries come in a marked van, clean enough, with a uniformed driver. They have been just as personable as the UPS & FedEx drivers, they don't walk through my lawn, they all deliver packages to my doorstep just the same. But the Amazon guy does take a quick picture. Can't really just toss it and walk away. > Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... That's a sad place for sure. I don't eat a lot of fast food, but our closest restaurants are usually courteous. But that might also be partly how I address them. I decided many years ago that common courtesy just made the whole world a nicer place, whether in person or driving down the road. Even if you start out forcing it, as your mood improves so will the moods of the people you interact with, and it spreads. Bad attitude also spreads. So I don't choose that.

adra 3y ago
I think even the "outside consultants" can use the Amazon marked vehicles, probably getting them leased cheaply just to as a further f-u to employment law. Just don't hurt yourself on the job, because nobody's there for you when it happens.

deviantbit 3y ago

I've not had the same experience w/ UPS drivers. I had a lawsuit with UPS for them hitting my gate. They're in such a hurry they can't let it finish opening. After 6 years they finally paid the $14k to replace it. I'm still trying to get them to pay the attorney fees that were awarded. Amazon drivers stop, wait for it to open, and drive down the drive at a reasonable speed. Amazon takes a picture after they have left the items.

stronglikedan 3y ago

It must vary from area to area. In my area, you could swap "UPS" and "Amazon" in your story and it would fit. (Minus the music blasting - neither do that around here- and both wear identifying clothing.) I always cringe a little when I get a UPS shipment notification, and I try my best to be home for it, for the best chance of success.

renewiltord 3y ago

Interesting how you can rehabilitate your image by just the existence of someone else that people want to hate. On the Internet, now: - UPS is now apparently the height of professionalism - Zuckerberg is the hero fighting off Elon Musk - Microsoft are the good guys reining in OpenAI Of course, this doesn't really match the common brand view. Really goes to show how Internet commenters are not representative.

bena 3y ago
As to UPS. It is weird. Now, I mostly don't pay attention to which service I'm getting stuff from. Mostly because I don't have the option most of the time, I'm getting it from the service the seller is using. A while back, I did notice that USPS was by far the best option in the area I was in. They were often faster and had fewer problems. Now, it's pretty much all the same. I never have any major issues with any of them. Regarding the Zuckerberg/Musk thing, I think it's just mostly an artifact of it being completely fucking bizarre. Two middle-aged billionaires are about to throw down in a fucking cage match. I believe people are mostly rooting for Zuckerberg because he seems to be able to actually fight whereas Musk has strong "street fight/smarts" vibes. The kind of guy who says he doesn't have "conventional" training, but is secretly really competent because of reasons.

barbazoo 3y ago

> Then there are Amazon drivers. They park blocking half the road, music blasting, the vans usually look like they haven't been washed in a month, most of the time it's not even an Amazon marked van, it's just some generic white rental. The drivers often don't have Amazon clothing, maybe just a hi-viz vest, they walk through your grass and plants, lazily toss a package on the porch and walk away. I despise the company as much as the next person but let's stick with the truth and acknowledge that this doesn't seem to be universally true. At least not in my neck of the woods.

deleted 3y ago

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nwah1 3y ago

I see drivers from UPS and FedEx speeding through my neighborhood in huge trucks, hip hop music blasting, and see the drivers carelessly toss packages on doorsteps. While children are around. Amazon trucks at least are smaller.

axus 3y ago

My experience in the US with Amazon drivers is sometimes similar, except for walking through the plants. I don't think the professionalism is necessary to receive my package on time and in good condition. When I've been outside and received the package directly, I never felt any disrespect in either direction. How many other countries have Amazon drivers? Is it the same there?

Zetice 3y ago

> Reminds me of fast food employee who simply hands your meal out the window, no greeting, no thank you, no smile... For some reason this disturbs me, like something an NPC in a cyberpunk dystopia masquerade ball level would say, to underscore how little they think of the people who serve them...