Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[rashea]

My conversation with UPS.

BG: I live in the middle of nowhere. Technically, because our drive branches off the other road, we had to choose a name for it for 911 purposes. My DF picked a name with a funny spelling. Something like: Allweighswrite (not the real name, but works for now). This is our legal address. It's our mailing address, and it's our 911 address. Sadly, being not a town road, it doesn't show up in google maps, and may deity help you if you try to get a GPS unit to find us.

We had a package coming. Apparently the store shipped it in two packages, but only gave me 1 tracking number.
Monday
Me: Hi, need to let you know where to deliver tacking number 1 (that would be so much easier than the 16 character code!).
UPS: Sorry, that package isn't out for delivery yet. We can't input that information into the system until it reaches the delivery office. Try again tomorrow.
Me: So, I have to check every day, and then call you just on the day when it's going to be delivered, or you won't be able to deliver it?
UPS: Basically

Wednesday (package is now out on the truck for delivery)
I call and tell them that Allweighswrite drive is one they probably won't be willing to deliver on, and they won't find. So leave it in the shed next to the mailbox at the end of Pitkens Rd. End of day I go down and find the package. I know immediately that it's not a big enough box to have the whole order. I open it up, and the packing list shows a second package with a different tracking number. Okay, I get that they got separated. I'm a little confused that no one noticed that it was package 2 of 2 or that there was another package going to the same name on the list. I go online and find that the second package wasn't delivered because the "street address is incorrect".

I call up. I insist that the street address is correct. That their inability to Google it (if you google it you will find the address) does not mean that the street address is wrong. This is important, because last time they sent the package back. Finally, I just want to change the delivery address to 105 Pitkins Rd (105 is our house #, and the number on the mailbox). They insist that they can't change the road name, only the number. They want to change it to 151 (the neighbor with the shed on Pitkins) Allweighswrite dr. I ask how that will help, because it's the allweighswrite dr part they can't find. Not that 105. This continued for a while until I finally lied and said they could deliver it to the shed at 151 allweighswrite dr which was right off of Pitkins Rd (almost true).

They promised to have someone call within the hour to resolve this for future issues. I'm still waiting.

[WillyNilly]

^ That hurts my brain... why not just give the address originally as where you want it delivered to begin with?  I UPS daily, you can absolutely deliver stuff to be dropped off in weird places. I had one customer who's UPS delivery was "Joe Schmoe, Throw box over fence, 123 Anywhere St, Brooklyn NY" and I've sent my niece boxes addressed via UPS delivery label "Amy Jones, The Cupboard under the stairs, 987 Townhouse Rd, Sacramento, CA".  Why not just put your address in as "Rashea Smith, Shed next to the mailbox, 105 Pitkins Rd, Yourtown, ST" to begin with? (Simply use the "company name" line for the "shed next to mailbox" bit.)

[mbbored]

Rashea, UPS will not leave any package by my house: it's their policy to not leave packages in my town. Instead they leave a notice and I'm supposed to drive to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere 45 minutes away to pick it up before 7, otherwise it goes back out on the truck so they can NOT deliver it another day. If I'm busy 3 days in a row until 7? Too bad, it gets returned to the shipper.

Right now my 91 year old grandmother is very upset and anxious that the present she shipped me did not make it to me and now I'm going to have to ask her to ship it again.

[gramma dishes]

^^^^   

Why won't UPS leave packages in your town?  I never heard of such a thing!

[Morticia]

It sounds like a scam if they take money to deliver parcels to you when they know they won't.

[Hillia]

It sounds like a scam if they take money to deliver parcels to you when they know they won't.
[/quote

I think what she means is they won't leave the package unattended; someone has to be there to accept delivery, probably because of high theft rates in the area

[Piratelvr1121]

I remember hearing stories last year around the holiday season where in some areas of Maryland a woman was seen going around and stealing packages off porches, and I think it might have happened in other parts of the country too, so I can see where the delivery guys may be doing the CYA thing.

[rashea]

^ That hurts my brain... why not just give the address originally as where you want it delivered to begin with?  I UPS daily, you can absolutely deliver stuff to be dropped off in weird places. I had one customer who's UPS delivery was "Joe Schmoe, Throw box over fence, 123 Anywhere St, Brooklyn NY" and I've sent my niece boxes addressed via UPS delivery label "Amy Jones, The Cupboard under the stairs, 987 Townhouse Rd, Sacramento, CA".  Why not just put your address in as "Rashea Smith, Shed next to the mailbox, 105 Pitkins Rd, Yourtown, ST" to begin with? (Simply use the "company name" line for the "shed next to mailbox" bit.)

Because I didn't know it would be UPS. Everyone else has managed to deliver to us. And because with this particular product, the shipping address and billing address needed to match.

[jpcher]

When I first moved into this home I was expecting a UPS delivery. I wasn't home at the time of delivery, but there was a note taped to my door saying the package was delivered to "Bush."*

I hadn't met my neighbors yet so I went up and down the street, both sides knocking on doors asking if they were the Bush family and if a package for me was delivered to them.

I called UPS to ask which specific address the package was delivered to.

They told me that the package was left behind my front bushes.






In my childhood home, my next door neighbors had the surname of "Bush"

[Twik]

I'm actually surprised at the general honesty of society where packages presumably contain new shinies can be left on doorsteps, and not disappear forthwith (most of the time).

[kherbert05]

I'm actually surprised at the general honesty of society where packages presumably contain new shinies can be left on doorsteps, and not disappear forthwith (most of the time).

True. My laptop was left on my porch without a signature and was there when I got home. They were supposed to deliver to apartment office.

I ordered a Chromebook and put the school address in. It was backordered - and they shipped it today. I am hoping that it gets to the school before the school closes for the holiday.

[mbbored]

It sounds like a scam if they take money to deliver parcels to you when they know they won't.

I think what she means is they won't leave the package unattended; someone has to be there to accept delivery, probably because of high theft rates in the area

I don't know about high rates of theft in my area, since FedEx leaves packages by my door all the time and they're always there, but neither UPS or the Post Office will leave packages at an empty hosue. UPS not only needs a signature, they want a picture id as well. I spoke to my grandmother, who also lives in a small town, and she marched down to the UPS office and demanded they refund part of her money and they did! "I pay you to deliver packages and since you wouldn't do that, I deserve my money back." After she gave them a stern talking to, she swore to never ship via UPS again and this woman sends a lot of presents to her 4 children, 14 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

While I'm still furious with UPS, I have firmly decided that I want to be like Grandma when I grow up.

Edited to fix the quote tree.

[Diane AKA Traska]

It made my brain hurt when we first got computers at work.  I didn't have one at home and rarely used one in my previous jobs.  There was a problem with the computer.  I called our new computer tech (CT) over for help. 

CT: Did you reboot?
MK: Reboot?
CT: Turn it off and on again.
MK: Why would turning it off help?
CT: It usually does.
MK: How would that change anything?
CT: Try rebooting first.  Then call me if that doesn't help.
MK: I don't understand: How can turning it off fix the problem?
CT: Just try it.

OK, her brain probably hurt, too.  I don't think she had an answer as to how rebooting fixes problems, only that it usually works.

To be fair, rebooting often will help.  It lets the hard drive spin down and park, and that's often enough to make the computer "forget" the software glitch that's giving you grief.

Now you are probably thinking "OK, just buy the house and paint it." Noooooo.  The last time it came on the market the sellers insisted on a covenant in the sales paperwork.  Any new owners had to agree to leave everything pink.  IIRC, they also had a condition that the old owners could inspect the house on an annual basis to check that it hadn't been repainted.  Not surprisingly, they didn't find any buyers willing to agree to that.

No, no, nuh-uh.  When I buy a house, I will be *buying* it. Not purchasing a license to use said house, so I will not be signing a glorified EULA thankyouveryruttingmuch.  I'm sorry, built once you sell it, it's GONE.  Paint your new house Pinkie-Pie pink for all I care, crazy over-obsessed former house owners, but leave me out of it.

[Kiara]

It sounds like a scam if they take money to deliver parcels to you when they know they won't.
[/quote

I think what she means is they won't leave the package unattended; someone has to be there to accept delivery, probably because of high theft rates in the area

I don't know about high rates of theft in my area, since FedEx leaves packages by my door all the time and they're always there, but neither UPS or the Post Office will leave packages at an empty hosue. UPS not only needs a signature, they want a picture id as well. I spoke to my grandmother, who also lives in a small town, and she marched down to the UPS office and demanded they refund part of her money and they did! "I pay you to deliver packages and since you wouldn't do that, I deserve my money back." After she gave them a stern talking to, she swore to never ship via UPS again and this woman sends a lot of presents to her 4 children, 14 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

While I'm still furious with UPS, I have firmly decided that I want to be like Grandma when I grow up.

I wanna be like your Grandma too!!

[Virg]

Midnight Kitty wrote:

"OK, her brain probably hurt, too.  I don't think she had an answer as to how rebooting fixes problems, only that it usually works."

If you want an answer as to why rebooting often fixes problems with computers, it's both simple and complex.  Computers store the data they need for running programs in RAM (random access memory, in case you care about the acronyms).  RAM only works when it's powered, which is why a computer forgets everything you were doing when the power goes out.  Many problems that computers develop are because something in RAM went wrong, like a program getting scrambled or loading into the wrong section of memory or whatever.  Rebooting a machine clears the RAM and forces the computer to reload it all, which will sort out a pretty big variety of errors and get things working as expected again.  The reason for turning it off and back on is that sometimes a computer will reboot without properly powering down the RAM, which means that the (messed up) data can still be there when the system restarts, and power-cycling the machine prevents that.  How memory gets messed up can be a very complex issue, but the simple answer is that a lot of computer problems are related to messed up programs in memory and rebooting is a simple and usually effective fix for it, so most technicians will suggest it as a first resort to try to clear up a problem.

Virg