My school absolutely forbids this. Part of our security plan is that all parcels delivered to the school arrive at an off-site receiving office before being delivered to the campus where children are. All packages are then opened and recorded in the district inventory. If anyone sends us something that goes “BOOM”, it will blow up a few unfortuntate maintenance guys rather than blowing up children. Personal deliveries are forbidden due to liability issues (and the fact that the receiving office is very busy and doesn’t want my stuff cluttering the place).
Hah. I got a note through my door yesterday that I’d had a special delivery package…I’d been in the house, and I was cursing the lazy bastards.
I later found out that they had a fairly good reason to be lazy on that morning, because the entire tickets for a sold-out Chilli Peppers gig had been sent out in one day, all requiring signatures. Normal posties who’d have half-a-dozen packages needing signatures suddenly had over a hundred.
As for whoever the shits are that Amazon uses, “left by back door” isn’t good enough, when (a) it’s visible from the road, and (b) it’s actually placed on the exact same right of way as you used when you crossed several properties to reach my back door.
I often work from home and sit within visual distance of the front door, which is a double door and has large windows in it. Once I witnessed the FedEx guy come to my door and SMACK the “sorry we missed you” slip on my window. He didn’t even need to stand at the door and write it up, which means he must have sat in his truck and wrote the damn thing up then did a hit-and-run at my front door.
Somebody once told me that UPS and FedEx drivers finish their shift as soon as they make their last delivery (or delivery attempt). I guess if they can play hit-and-run with delivery slips, they can get a whole day’s work done by noon. Call me cynical.
I avoid FedEx whenever possible. If a particular merchant only uses FedEx, I will go to another merchant even if I have to pay a little more.
I cornered a UPS guy where I worked and grilled him about this. Apparently there is a rating system of sorts based on completing your routes ahead of the time that the routing computers think it should take you. IIRC there is some kind of bonus plan for consistently beating the clock. Of course the estimated times are adjusted to the delivery times experienced in that area so guess what happens when somebody runs around slapping tags on everyones door and running. That driver looks like a star…gets promoted, and then nobody else can match his “performance”.
Bribe them. When they do come to the door, offer them a bottle of water or soda. I do that and now the guys will even leave wine without a signature.
and
See, this sort of shit pisses me off, and it happens far too often.
Companies advertise how great their customer service is, and how they do their best to make your life easy.
Then they set policies for their employees that virtually guarantee that their vaunted “customer service” policies will be fucked over at every opportunity. Sure, it’s easy to blame the delivery drivers for not doing their job properly (it pisses me off, too), but we should also make clear to companies that they should actually set reasonable goals for their employees in terms of work and time, so that the advertised level of customer service can be attained without cutting corners and fucking people (employees and customers) over.
But, but… think of the maintenance guys!
WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE MAINTENANCE GUYS?!?!
We went through several iterations of this type of problem at my last employer. The incentive programs for the sales force were all volume based. The result, massive volume but minimal revenues per sale or no consideration to return on investment often resulting in projects or orders that we lost money on. Management finally figured this out and changed the incentive programs. 75% of the sales force quit. The hired new sales people, who learned how to maximize the bonuses in the new program, as it turned out they found even more insidious loopholes in the system WRT order scheduling and timing. They finally put the sales people on the same incentive programs as the operations management teams and suddenly 90% of our problems evaporated because they were no longer fighting each other the conflicting aspects of their bonus plans.
Reward the behavior…no matter how wrong it may be and people will do it.
I do think of the maintenance guys. I rely on them and like them a lot. They keep the lights on and the water running, which, in my school, is no mean feat.
To add to the tragedy, many of the maintenance guys are also members of the local fire department. In fact, the head maintenance guy is the fire chief. Not only will they go “BOOM”, but there won’t be anyone left to rescue them.
I must be a weirdo (duh!) because I love my FedEx and UPS guys. I have medication delivered almost weekly and they know me and my schedule. My FedEx guy goes way out of his way to get me my deliveries. Say I have a 3-day delivery and it arrives at the station on the second day. He’ll pull it anyway and deliver it early to me. We have enjoyable conversations (quick ones, I don’t want to keep him from his route) and he’s even agreed to cell me if I’m not home when he arrives and I leave a note with my number. As does my UPS guy, his name is Ed, I think.
They KNOW that some folks track their incoming packages like crazy. I’ve said more than once to fabulous FedEx guy “You weren’t supposed to be here till tomorrow” and he acknowledges that, and says “no big deal, I knew it was for you and you’d appreciate it”. I also make a point of telling the drivers that I frequently post compliments on the company’s website. FedEx probably thinks I’m in love with my guy. I’m not, really. He just does a great job and I think is very considerate of my deliveries. Gee, I’m a lucky one!
PS…if you want special handling, call them and tell them it’s medication and you NEED it. They’ll go out of their way to get it to you; once even going so far as to hiring an independent delivery service to get it to me the same day when they had “lost” it.