5 ms·

At one of my addresses FedEx will happily sell anyone overnight shipping and then just keep the parcel at the depot for a week until they have a driver who can

by throwway120385 3y ago

At one of my addresses FedEx will happily sell anyone overnight shipping and then just keep the parcel at the depot for a week until they have a driver who can actually make the trip. I have had like 6 very urgent packages delayed like this. Once my wife ordered something perishable and they pulled this then told her she had to drive into town and pick it up at the airport. I've also been nearly run off the road by FedEx drivers on the highway before. One guy was so angry that I was only going 10 over that he tailgated me within a foot and then punish passed me. They're also the only service that still corrects my other address to the wrong address. I tried for a whole month to get ahold of anyone there who even knows what address correction is and then just stopped using them for anything important. They doubled down on "digital" during the pandemic and fired a bunch of CSRs and stuff. It doesn't look like it's working out very well for them.

zdragnar 3y ago
Strangely, I've had perishable medicine delivered to me (a biologic injection) for two years without a single hiccup by FedEx. They have been the most consistently reliable delivery service where I live (though the post office is pretty good too). My house is at the bottom of a hill that is difficult for rear wheel drive vehicles in winter. UPS, on the other hand, can go pound sand. They often refuse to deliver due to weather, then force me to either drive two hours round trip to their distribution center, or charge me to pick it up at the local UPS store. When when FedEx couldn't get their truck to my house due to road conditions, they were totally fine with my picking it up at their store.
- gopher_space 3y ago
  > They have been the most consistently reliable delivery service where I live (though the post office is pretty good too). Every service relies on the USPS to some extent, which makes the Republican attempt to gut the organization so baffling. There's no replacement and nobody is looking to replace it. From my perspective as an ex letter carrier, your personal experience with package delivery is determined almost entirely by whoever runs the local hub and handles last-mile. Unfortunately it's a McDonald's Assistant Manager kind of role; anyone truly competent will be able to find better work sooner or later.
  - ciabattabread 3y ago
    It took the 2020 pandemic for Republicans to finally get on board and pass the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.
    - eddiecalzone 3y ago
      Postmaster Dejoy began dismantling critical sorting machines, reducing and limiting overtime, &c only 6 months into lockdown, well before there was a COVID vaccine. Knowing full well the problems it would cause. For example, many remote rural addresses are only serviced by USPS, and people rely on it for timely prescriptions. IMO it was massive public outcry that prevented a great deal more destruction. https://www.vox.com/2020/8/18/21374014/post-office-usps-louis-dejoy-statement-trump-mail-in-voting https://www.vox.com/2020/8/18/21374014/post-office-usps-loui...
      - throwway120385 3y ago
        In Washington we were giving each other the advice to use ballot dropoff boxes because the postal service had disassembled half of their sorting machines in the month or two leading up to the November election and we were all concerned that mailing the ballots would have led to postmark dates after election day.
  - carom 3y ago
    I live in an apartment. I get mail for 4 or 5 previous tenants. I get corporate spam. I have unsubscribed from as much as I can, I have a return to sender stamp and have used it, yet I am inundated with trash on a daily basis. Technically, it is illegal for me to throw out this trash. In my opinion there is a massive amount of waste moving through USPS and the organization could use some serious cuts in order to take stock of what actually needs to be delivered.
    - gopher_space 3y ago
      You've done everything except talk to the one human being involved who appears at your residence every single day. If I was your letter carrier and knew you felt this way I'd honestly be hurt that you didn't bother to ask me about any of it. > the organization could use some serious cuts Miss the part about them being the backbone of package delivery in this country? Or the part where there's nobody to replace them? Well it doesn't matter since the USPS is financially self-sustaining.
- gffrd 3y ago
  It's almost as if they're giant companies employing thousands of people, and quality varies across geography …
  - Moru 3y ago
    This is what is so baffling with people. "The $company/government isn't doing their job, we need to fire/change government/privatise this function, it would solve everything!" Well, where do you think the former employees will work after their previous employer shuts down? It's not the form of government/company culture that is the biggest problem I'm affraid.
late2part 3y ago
today I learned a new thing: https://www.bikelaw.com/2017/07/punishment-pass-defined/ https://www.bikelaw.com/2017/07/punishment-pass-defined/
wormius 3y ago
That's really unacceptable. If they're going to be that late, they should at least ship it using Jiffy Express: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e134NoLyTug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e134NoLyTug
Arrath 3y ago
> just keep the parcel at the depot for a week until they have a driver who can actually make the trip. Depot workers can get up to the weirdest stuff. One time I was returning unused product (oil well perforating guns, a UN 1.4D explosive device) via Yellow Freight. I handed over the cases and signed all the appropriate paperwork to handover custody at the depot and went on about my day. The supplier called me ~10 days later saying they never received the shipment! Perturbed, I called down to the depot who basically shrugged it off with "no idea lol not our problem". Their attitude changed when I told them that in accordance with my license and federal law I would be notifying the ATF at the end of the day that there were missing or lost explosives and it would very much be their problem. A couple hours later they called back and told me the boxes had missed their truck and were just sitting in the corner of the secure cage in the loading dock, forlorn and forgotten. What the fuck, guys.
- Fogest 3y ago
  One of the big problems I find in the shipping industry is the reliance on insurance. The idea that most packages are insured or easily replaceable. When I was a bit younger and doing some seasonal postal work in a processing plant this was the mentality. The mentality being that sometimes things will go wrong and ruin a package, but hey, whatever. Machines would sometimes destroy a package, packages would get thrown around, heavy boxes would be stacked on very small/fragile ones, etc... Myself and many of the people I worked with all tried their best. But at the end of the day there is only so much you can do as a temp seasonal worker to prevent such things. They'd rather have a higher amount of damaged/lost items and a higher throughput. It'd be interesting to see a competitor that made it their goal to handle packages with more care and not have this attitude. However I can't see them getting too far. They would likely have to charge more money, and any of the big companies are not going to care to pay more. They'd rather take the risk and just ship it again if it gets broken on the way. It'll end up being cheaper for them that way. The ones who lose out are the smaller businesses and individuals shipping personal items. It pissed me off when I'd see a damaged package of an item that was clearly a personal homemade thing. Something that isn't easy to just quick send another copy of.
  - 3y ago

zdragnar 3y ago

Strangely, I've had perishable medicine delivered to me (a biologic injection) for two years without a single hiccup by FedEx. They have been the most consistently reliable delivery service where I live (though the post office is pretty good too). My house is at the bottom of a hill that is difficult for rear wheel drive vehicles in winter. UPS, on the other hand, can go pound sand. They often refuse to deliver due to weather, then force me to either drive two hours round trip to their distribution center, or charge me to pick it up at the local UPS store. When when FedEx couldn't get their truck to my house due to road conditions, they were totally fine with my picking it up at their store.

gopher_space 3y ago
> They have been the most consistently reliable delivery service where I live (though the post office is pretty good too). Every service relies on the USPS to some extent, which makes the Republican attempt to gut the organization so baffling. There's no replacement and nobody is looking to replace it. From my perspective as an ex letter carrier, your personal experience with package delivery is determined almost entirely by whoever runs the local hub and handles last-mile. Unfortunately it's a McDonald's Assistant Manager kind of role; anyone truly competent will be able to find better work sooner or later.
- ciabattabread 3y ago
  It took the 2020 pandemic for Republicans to finally get on board and pass the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.
  - eddiecalzone 3y ago
    Postmaster Dejoy began dismantling critical sorting machines, reducing and limiting overtime, &c only 6 months into lockdown, well before there was a COVID vaccine. Knowing full well the problems it would cause. For example, many remote rural addresses are only serviced by USPS, and people rely on it for timely prescriptions. IMO it was massive public outcry that prevented a great deal more destruction. https://www.vox.com/2020/8/18/21374014/post-office-usps-louis-dejoy-statement-trump-mail-in-voting https://www.vox.com/2020/8/18/21374014/post-office-usps-loui...
    - throwway120385 3y ago
      In Washington we were giving each other the advice to use ballot dropoff boxes because the postal service had disassembled half of their sorting machines in the month or two leading up to the November election and we were all concerned that mailing the ballots would have led to postmark dates after election day.
- carom 3y ago
  I live in an apartment. I get mail for 4 or 5 previous tenants. I get corporate spam. I have unsubscribed from as much as I can, I have a return to sender stamp and have used it, yet I am inundated with trash on a daily basis. Technically, it is illegal for me to throw out this trash. In my opinion there is a massive amount of waste moving through USPS and the organization could use some serious cuts in order to take stock of what actually needs to be delivered.
  - gopher_space 3y ago
    You've done everything except talk to the one human being involved who appears at your residence every single day. If I was your letter carrier and knew you felt this way I'd honestly be hurt that you didn't bother to ask me about any of it. > the organization could use some serious cuts Miss the part about them being the backbone of package delivery in this country? Or the part where there's nobody to replace them? Well it doesn't matter since the USPS is financially self-sustaining.
gffrd 3y ago
It's almost as if they're giant companies employing thousands of people, and quality varies across geography …
- Moru 3y ago
  This is what is so baffling with people. "The $company/government isn't doing their job, we need to fire/change government/privatise this function, it would solve everything!" Well, where do you think the former employees will work after their previous employer shuts down? It's not the form of government/company culture that is the biggest problem I'm affraid.

late2part 3y ago

today I learned a new thing: https://www.bikelaw.com/2017/07/punishment-pass-defined/ https://www.bikelaw.com/2017/07/punishment-pass-defined/

wormius 3y ago

That's really unacceptable. If they're going to be that late, they should at least ship it using Jiffy Express: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e134NoLyTug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e134NoLyTug

Arrath 3y ago

> just keep the parcel at the depot for a week until they have a driver who can actually make the trip. Depot workers can get up to the weirdest stuff. One time I was returning unused product (oil well perforating guns, a UN 1.4D explosive device) via Yellow Freight. I handed over the cases and signed all the appropriate paperwork to handover custody at the depot and went on about my day. The supplier called me ~10 days later saying they never received the shipment! Perturbed, I called down to the depot who basically shrugged it off with "no idea lol not our problem". Their attitude changed when I told them that in accordance with my license and federal law I would be notifying the ATF at the end of the day that there were missing or lost explosives and it would very much be their problem. A couple hours later they called back and told me the boxes had missed their truck and were just sitting in the corner of the secure cage in the loading dock, forlorn and forgotten. What the fuck, guys.

Fogest 3y ago
One of the big problems I find in the shipping industry is the reliance on insurance. The idea that most packages are insured or easily replaceable. When I was a bit younger and doing some seasonal postal work in a processing plant this was the mentality. The mentality being that sometimes things will go wrong and ruin a package, but hey, whatever. Machines would sometimes destroy a package, packages would get thrown around, heavy boxes would be stacked on very small/fragile ones, etc... Myself and many of the people I worked with all tried their best. But at the end of the day there is only so much you can do as a temp seasonal worker to prevent such things. They'd rather have a higher amount of damaged/lost items and a higher throughput. It'd be interesting to see a competitor that made it their goal to handle packages with more care and not have this attitude. However I can't see them getting too far. They would likely have to charge more money, and any of the big companies are not going to care to pay more. They'd rather take the risk and just ship it again if it gets broken on the way. It'll end up being cheaper for them that way. The ones who lose out are the smaller businesses and individuals shipping personal items. It pissed me off when I'd see a damaged package of an item that was clearly a personal homemade thing. Something that isn't easy to just quick send another copy of.
- 3y ago