Maybe not your Fed Ex guy, but I’d still love to help.
Fed Ex seems to be a frequent target of vitriol here. I think that is understandable considering our unique relationship with you; we take your personal belongings and drive them around the country. How do you know that we are being careful with them? How do you know they won’t disappear into the ether? That’s enough to make anyone edgy, and when things go wrong, Fed Ex gets a public lashing here. Fair enough.
Maybe I can help you understand what goes on behind the scenes, clear up some gross misconceptions I’ve read here, but more importantly, maybe help your next shipment go swimmingly.
Qualifications: I started in management, now I am a contractor. I have delivered to the most rural of areas, and the inner city. I have worked in more than one region in the United States. I have several years of service.
Why the heck doesn’t our FedEx dude ever ring the doorbell? Quite often when I’ve been home all day, I will go out to get the mail, and there’s a box on the porch. No ring, no knock.
What branch of FedEx are you in, Ground I suppose? How many drivers do you have? What city do you deliver to? How long is your day?
(My dad is a contracter for Alamance County, a pretty big freaking area. He works from around 8 in the morning till, usually, 11 or 12 at night. Travels 200 or more miles a day.)
Why did the FedEx guy leave a package I sent to Rhode Island on my friend’s doorstep, when my friend lives in an apartment building with a front door you have to ring? He essentially left the package there on the sidewalk in the middle of a bad neighborhood. Of course, it got stolen - it was her birthday present/care package, the douchebag!
Sorry. Anyway, another question that kinda ties into the other one - why do I have to ASK for signature service, and why was I not told that?
I’ll ask the opposite question: Why does the FedEx guy occasionally leave my package outside on the front deck, right in front of the never-locked screen door to the enclosed front porch that we built specifically for leaving packages on? I thought I had a standing order with both FedEx and UPS that they can leave packages INSIDE the front porch, where they are out of sight and out of the weather. (The UPS guy always leaves packages inside the door, as requested.)
He is being lazy. I’m sorry, I know you deserve a better reason than that, but it is all I can surmise. As drivers get busier, they sometimes go into what I call “just get done” mode. Just get your truck empty, because you’re already out an hour later than normal, and you see you still have 25 stops left, and rush hour is here…
Terrible excuses, but sometimes, it happens.
If you called FedEx, and said “I just received a package with tracking number xxxxxxx. The driver did not ring my bell again. Could you please pass this along to the terminal?”, that conversation would be emailed to our terminal manager within hours. They are kept as a paper trail, and discussed with the driver.
I am now in Home Delivery. I personally have several routes with drivers, our terminal has ~40. My terminal is located in a city of about 350,000 people, with all weather seasons. My day usually runs from 7:00a-5:00p. I feel for your dad, I really do. Honestly though, 200 miles is a lighter route for my terminal, as most guys run 250-400 per day.
Man, am I going to take some heat for this. Honestly, no. Pleasantries, yes, because I genuinely like people and I will always be polite. But I really just want to get your package to you, and then your neighbors’ package to them…
I really don’t want to come off as rude but look at it this way; let’s say I make small talk with each customer that only takes 30 seconds. Easy, huh? Now, remember that I do ~150 stops per day. That small talk just added 1 hour and 15 minutes to my day. Of small talk. If you could get off work 1:15 earlier and make the same amount of money, would you?
Many. But the one that is burned into my brain is when an old gentleman at a assisted-living complex answered his door buck nekkid. And wet. “He was in the shower”, he told me. He was all of 90 pounds, and in the .5 seconds it took for my brain to comprehend what I was seeing, I looked at it. Couldn’t help it.
Went home and sat in the shower with my clothes on.
My UPS guy occasionally initiates the small talk if I happen to meet him at the door. Usually he asks about my dogs, especially my youngest springer, because he met her when she was a brand-new (8-week-old) pup and he has springers himself. Showed me a picture once. Sometimes he comments about some obvious outdoor project, or how nice the flowers look, or something. But usually he drops and runs. Fine by me; I can see him coming and going through my window, and I’m usually busy working.
What is the policy when you find yourself delivering an obviously damaged package? The drivers that I’ve dealt with act like it’s no big deal to drop something off that’s been halfway crushed or ripped open by a forklift or something.
Tahsabot, your guy did not deliver that package correctly as spelled out in our contract, and therefore is liable for the cost of the claim. I think about that everytime I set a package down. Dumb on his part.
Signatures are an additional paid for service on your end, and I don’t know why the clerk didn’t upsell it. Was this at a Fed Ex or a local pack-n-stuff-n-ship-n-mail?
Scarlett67, I feel a little uncomfortable opening screened in porches sometimes. Sometimes it is just a thin line between a porch and a foyer, or the inside door is open, so it feels like going in the house. Kind of weird, I know, but people are understandibly protective of their domicile. A far as a standing order to leave packages inside, make sure you communicate that to your driver directly, maybe even with a small note attached to the door next time you are expecting a package. Maybe the last driver knew that, but a new one doesn’t.
And Shirley Ujest just answered her own question, “Why does every envelope I get delivered from Tragically Dip look like it has been used to dry the sobs and tears of a grown man?”
I just want to say that I freakin’ love my FedEx carriers (both at work and at home). My FedEx carrier at work makes a point of learning the names of everyone in my office (even with a decent turnover rate) and watching for misaddressing. She even knows weird stuff like “deliver stuff for this doctor to room X unless it’s from Company A in which case deliver it to room Y” and so on. The home FedEx carrier knows that my husband is a USPS carrier and will find him on his route if a package for us needs a signature, or if not, will deliver later in the evening when we’re home from work.
(We also love our UPS carrier who has a similarly good interaction with my husband. These delivery people are in contrast to the ones who serviced our last apartment, when we’d get the “you weren’t in so we didn’t leave the package” stickers - if we were lucky, they’d actually leave the sticker instead of letting us wonder - when we were home and waiting eagerly, and no doorbell ring.)
In your opinion, what’s the difference between UPS, USPS, DHL and FedEx (or at least UPS and FedEx)?
When I need to ship something I go to those one-stop shops where they will ship via any of the above companies, and I just pick the cheapest one. Any reason why I should choose FedEx?
[hijack]I could be wrong, but IIRC you’d probably save money if you went to an actual center for one of those shippers - the one-stop places add a fee to your shipping for their cut.[/hijack]
I know you work at FedEx, so you may not be able to answer this, but what the heck. My question pertains to the methods employed by some of your competitors to motivate their warehouse staff.
Specifically, with regards to the chimpanzees whose job it is to smash my package with a sledgehammer, how many bananas a day does it take to keep them optimally productive? It seems to me that the FedEx chimpanzees aren’t quite as industrious, why is that? Are the unions at fault?
My mailman used to enter my garage by about six feet to leave a package on a counter. That bugged me. I didn’t like the thought of him sauntering onto my property, perhaps looking around at my stuff and making judgments. Oooh, that’s a really cheap rake; hey, lookit this woman’s stash!; dude, check out the VW this guy’s working on. Whatever. Made me very uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s right that delivery people enter a person’s premises to drop a box. I filed a complaint with the USPS, I think I have a different carrier now. I think it all boils down to the fact that I didn’t like my mailman.
I REALLY like both my UPS (Ed) and FedEx (Terrance) drivers. They know me, and work with me to get my deliveries to me as expected. Once I knew I had a UPS package due and was going to be out during my normally scheduled delivery time. I left my cell number and Ed called me to let me know where he was on his route. I went looking for him and got my package, rather than having to wait until the next day. He’s really cool. He could probably walk right in the front door and I’d have no problem with it. Not that he would, he’s always very polite. He also kinda looks like Michael J Fox. Kinda. Vaguely.
I regularly file compliments with both websites, simply because I really like the drivers and want them to get a pat-on-the-back when they’ve done good!
Ever have anyone draw funny pictures on that screen we scrawl our names on? I’m so often tempted…
I personally love FedEx…never had a bad experience, and the carriers I’ve dealt with have always been super. They even remember my name after only one or two visits.
Do you find remembering names easier as time goes on, or more difficult?