I just had the unique privilege of watching a FedEx delivery man drop off some of his packages. I was sitting outside, quietly reading a book, and the guy pulls up. Apparently unaware of my presence, or not caring whether someone saw him or not, he proceeds to throw five packages out of the truck. He picks them up, then he throws them on the person’s porch. All of this occurred with obvious indifference to the very large words on the box that said FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE. I guess he thought they were just kidding.
Having worked at RPS (now FedEx Ground) many years ago, I know that they don’t care about that at the hubs, either. So basically everything you get from FedEx or UPS (and probably the post office) gets beat to hell and back, making you wonder how anything ever arrives intact at your doorstep. Of course, it’s your inconvenience when it’s broken, but more importantly it’s their inconvenience to deliver the replacement, so you’d think they’d be a little bit more careful.
There I go thinking again. What I just saw was the most unprofessional thing I’ve seen in a long time. I’d try to avoid FedEx based upon that, but I doubt if any of the other services are any better, so I’ll just offer a bit of advice for you guys: If you’re sending something, pack the hell out of it and pray. If you’re expecting something, pray that the sender packed the hell out of it.
I have a feeling “fragile” stickers are just like putting a bullseye on your package. I suspect the rough treatment was a deliberate response to it being labeled fragile.
I wish you had gotten his name down to complain to his manager. Have you mentioned it to your neighbor? I’d drop off a little note on his porch mentioning that the packages were deliberately roughed up. That’ll be a fun conversation with the manager of the FedEx depot.
It’s a cost-benefit analysis. Careful handling takes more time and uses more space. The extra expense of insurance for replacement and additional redelivery is less than the benefit of delivering more packages faster.
Is there anybody left in North America who expects a fragile package to be treated like a fragile package? What you saw was shameful, Airman Doors, but I send packages expecting them to be drop-kicked around.
It is sad to think there are many people out of work when such careless unprofessional people have jobs. It is about time some investigative reporting started filming inside Fed Ex and UPS hubs and exposed this behaviour. Maybe followed up by a class suit from all those whom have had damaged items delivered to them?
As a former package agent for Greyhound Package Express, no, I have never wondered that. What I do wonder is why so much poorly packaged crap actually arrives intact.
I worked in a warehouse for a retail store for a while a few years ago. We would get shipments from UPS, RPS, FedEx, Airborne, etc. on a daily basis. RPS was hands-down the worst. We got more broken shit from them than from any other carrier. I once spoke to an RPS deliveryman about it and he said “UPS breaks just as much shit as we do! You know what they do, those sneaky SOBs, they just take anything they obviously broke and send it back to the shipper to get a replacement so you never see it. To you it just looks like it took a little longer to deliver it. They hide the shit they break so it looks like they break less.” I replied “That’s better than you fuckers! You go ahead and deliver broken shit and WE have to deal with it.”
He laughed and life went on. If FedEx has subsumed RPS then I wouldn’t be suprised at all if they are still breaking shit and delivering it broken.
I’ve always wanted to box up a three axis accelerometer attached to some sort of datalogger and send it all over the place via UPS and FedEx just to confirm my suspicions.
The mechanical sorting at the hubs is far from a gentle affair and fragile packages are treated no differently than any other packages. As unprofessional as it may be to throw parcels, those same goods have been through the wringer already.
I love my UPS guy in a “he knows where my house is and knows where to leave the package if I am not there to get it and he isn’t afraid of my arthritic graying dog.”
His truck got stuck in my drive one day and he ended up laying a patch through the snow and ice down to the dirt before he was able to rock his truck out. I figured out it was the UPS guy and it didn’t matter any at all about the damage, but the guy came back the next day to apologize and offer payment to fix the area. Not necessary.)
The FEDEX Guy, who must have been a newbie in the sticks as everyone out here either has invisible fence or free range dogs ( ours being the latter quite happily.), would not get out of the truck because of said dog above. HAH! (Speaking of that, the meter reader guys are equally fearful of my ‘hey how you doin’’ slow moving lab.)
FED Ex guys are pussies. Yeah, I know all about dog bites and attacks are more common than shark bites, but you don’t see FedEx making any deliveries to Jacque Cousteu, do you? Know why? Cause he’d DEAD, Jim!
Still, I’ve never received a broken package.
I’m doomed now.
Actually, after a bit of poking around, it would seem that Consumer Reports actually did this. I couldn’t find anything on the actual Consumer Reports website, but I did see it mentioned in several online articles. The one linked above had the best description of the process.
I also found a government report which studied the effectiveness of the major carriers and FedEx had the highest rate of being able to deliver on time in the overnight and two day categories. This may explain why the USPS now uses them for their priority stuff.
Out in the woods where we are, we have great Fed-Ex and UPS guys. They have to pick-up and deliver to a lot of folks who are always home, to the park rangers who are always around. They are country boys themselves and wave and recognize you and go out of their way to be helpful.
When you are sitting on the front porch with a rifle or shotgun across your knees, they don’t do any of that silly ‘go fast and hurry’ stuff. Bawahahaha
I still show off to my kids how I can throw a box and have it slide into exactly where I wanted it as smoothly and gently as if I had placed it there, but I’m a package tossing god and I cannot say the same for my former co-workers.
DHL is on my shitlist today. I send contracts overnight for a reason, yet they seem to think two-day is just as good. Stupid fuckers. I hate that my company is using them now.
I find your ideas intriguing, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Moreover, I would like to join you in your crusade against independent thinking. Together, you and I will wipe out all hijackers, like…
[ul][li]Cheesesteak on interpersonal relations and corporate hierarchy[/li][li]Homebrew on insurance assessments and cost accounting[/li][li]Featherlou on the demographics of North America[/li][li]KidCharlemagne on cinematic studies[/li][li]Jackmannii on United Parcel Service service[/li][li]Bippy the Beardless on unemployment[/li][li]Dropzone on Greyhound busses[/li][li]Mtgman on retail angst[/li][li]Shirley Ujest on stuck trucks, winter wonderlands, and neighborhood dogs[/li][li]Mtgman again on government reports[/li][li]GusNSpot on the right to bear arms[/li][li]Dropzone again on his legendary tossing skills[/li][/ul]
In fact, let us together purge each and every poster who did not respond in a perfectly linear manner to the original OP — including yours about politics. And this one, which is about the whole thread.