Any packages I get are delivered to my work address. If I happen to be at home during the day I do not take callers unannounced. Works for me.
I disagree. I think what’s really killing off our society are the hypocritical, judgemental pricks who try to pass off self-rightrousness as compassion.
It must be swell, living in a 1950s sitcom like you do, but those of us in the real world often don’t get along with our neighbors. If I’m expecting a package, I want it delivered to me, not to anyone who happens to be living in my general vicinity. Maybe the FedEx guy will give my package to the nice old lady who lives on my left, who’s always home and will be certain to give it to me when I get home. Or maybe he’ll give it to the asshole on my right who beats his wife and kids, hates me passionatly, and will promptly sell my property for beer money. The guy who drives the FedEx truck is not in a position to determine which of my neighbors is to be trusted with my property, nor is he in any position to determine if I am to be trusted with anyone else’s. So you can bet your pasty, holier-than-though ass that if a deliveryman ever tries to pull bullshit like that with me (and I cannot fucking imagine that they could possibly be this stupid) I will abso-fucking-lutely refuse, and I’ll call their depot to file a complaint because this is something they should not be doing under any fucking circumstances.
Someday, you’re going to wake up to the fact that real life is, in fact, almost entirely unlike a Thornton Wilder play. That realization is likely to be very painful, but, if you’re very lucky, somewhat short of mortal.
This would be a truly repulsive sentiment if I believed for a second that you actually had any friends, to say nothing of friends with power and/or influence.
You truly are a vicious little turd, aren’t you?
I guess I’m strange, then. I have really, really nice neighbors. We watch out for each other. When someone isn’t home, I’m happy to accept delivery of a package for them; and they will do the same for me. If a package is misdelivered, as happens every year when the UPS guy, at 8 pm in a fog of exhaustion, leaves a package destined for #314 at my door, #214, I’ll just drop it off at the right address. Heck, we even trust each other with each others’ keys. And once, even though I have a permanent FedEx signature waiver on file since I get several packages a week from my employer so the FedEx guy left my son’s new computer outside the door, he stopped by the house 20 minutes later to make sure we’d actually gotten it.
I’m willing to accept that there are areas where you don’t want to do that kind of thing for other people. Fortunately, I don’t live in one of them. I like it this way. I know if I have a problem? There’s lots of people I can count on and who can count on me. Even if it’s something as simple as accepting delivery of a package.
But none of this is the issue. The folks on my street are all perfectly nice people too, and i’m sure every one of them would take the time to make sure the package gets to the right address.
The problem is that the UPS or FedEx driver has no way of knowing what my relationship with my neighbors is like. In the absence of specific instructions from me, the delivery driver should not be taking it upon him- or herself to decide whether or not my package can reasonably be left with someone else. The job of the delivery driver is to get the package to the address for which it is intended, not simply to get it on the right street or the right block. And if i’m not home, it’s unacceptable just to leave it with a random neighbor becuase that happens to be the easiest thing to do.
It’s precisely to avoid this issue that I always get any packages delivered to me at work.
But absent complaints, and since that’s totally customary practice around here, why shouldn’t the FedEx or UPS guy leave a package with a neighbor? I guess it all depends on the level of community trust. I appreciate that there may be areas where people don’t know their neighbors, but around here that’s the norm, so doing something for a neighbor without it being specified up front really isn’t unusual.
So why should the whole rest of the neighborhood suffer because one untrusting person moves in? What’s wrong with adapting to your community and trusting your neighbors, to the extent that even delivery people are part of the community trust to that extent?
silver1, I’m totally with you. If you know your neighbors, it’s fine to sign for a package for them, but I wouldn’t take a package for someone I don’t know. I don’t even like for my neighbors to have to sign for my packages, even when they say it’s okay. I don’t want them to have to deal with trying to get the package to me, and I don’t want them to have to deal with heavy boxes, and trying to keep them out of the rain. And I really wouldn’t want my packages left with neighbors that I don’t know.
I signed for some flowers for one of my neighbors, and then I thought, you know, that really wasn’t such a good idea. If she’d been out of town for a few days, they would have been dead by the time she got back, and then it would have been my responsibility. The flower shop should have called her to see when she’d be home. I won’t do that again.
I, uh, knew that. Excuse me while I reverse the polarity on the dumbass accusation.