[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

I don't believe anyone said that they didn't. They certainly need to make their purchases long before the expected date of delivery, especially in known periods of high customer traffic... Just as the delivery companies need to hire on temporary staff to deal with the higher traffic. Unfortunately, in this day of belt-tighening and bean-counting, hiring the lowest possible number of temporary workers has become the norm, and sometimes THAT bites a company in the ass...

And your factual basis for this statement is what? Is there a statistical report out there somewhere telling us all that for whatever reason, UPS or anyone else hired fewer temporary workers this year, or are you simply ruminating that that's what happened, to fit the scenario you think occurred?

When was the last time a California or Florida airport was shut down due to snow storms? Not all flights need to use hubs, especially companies that fly non-passenger routes.

You say this because you do not understand how UPS, USPS or FedEx work, the private companies in particular. If I may, allow me to enlighten you. (No sarcasm; I mean it.) With almost no exceptions, neither UPS nor FedEx ships material from X to Y. They don't dispatch trucks to, say, Miami and then run them straight through to L.A. Both UPS and Fedex work strictly out of HUB systems. All the packages are picked up from the senders by trucks assigned to that route, and are taken to airports nearby, in one large "lump," filling as many pallets as needed. From there, the planes are dispatched to hubs, where every single package is offloaded, moved down the conveyer, scanned, logged, recorded, sorted by geographic area, and then sorted yet again into suitable "piles" (for lack of a better description) for a given flight. The main hub for FedEx is in Memphis; the main hub for UPS is in Louisville, KY.

Now, using an example, if your package was shipped from Miami and headed to LA, it would a) depart MIA Intl, b) go to Louisville, c) get sorted, then get d) loaded on another plane, which would e) arrive in L.A. and your package would then be off-loaded, conveyed, scanned, recorded, sorted again, and put on a truck for delivery, OR, in a chained room to wait delivery (for a suitable truck).

Now, this is a remarkably efficient method. It works superbly well, as evidenced by the fact that we're all spoiled rotten. However--and this is a big "however"--once weather starts to close down airports, the ripple effect throughout the system is massive. Why? Well, because the entire systemic functionality is dependent on the idea that Plane A, which is in, say, Dayton, OH, (at a UPS Hub there), will actually leave Dayton at a specific time, and arrive in Louisville at a specific time; that its freight will be offloaded correctly, and more importantly, that that plane, that's in Dayton, will be available for use to then go on, having been offloaded and reloaded, to Los Angeles or wherever.

If planes are stranded, laden with cargo, at airports that are iced-in, the entire system is put at-risk, and packages cannot move. They can't get from where they are picked up, because they are now on a plane that's snowed/iced-in at Airport X. Or they can't get from the Hub, where they've been delivered, because the plane that they are SUPPOSED to be loaded on, is snowed/iced in at Airport Y. This causes massive backups and delays in the system. UPS and Fedex both keep extra aircraft for this very purpose--to do the southern runs--but they can't magically beam packages from the stranded aircraft to the hub, to be loaded onto the spare planes.

This is how it works. That's why weather can screw up an entire delivery system. Moreover, sometimes, a package leaves the geographic area ENTIRELY, and moves to another hub, (this happens very often with slower package deliveries that are scheduled), and change planes TWICE, not once, so a package originating in the south can change at Louisville, and again at Dayton--all depends on how the air traffic is being routed. Bear in mind: this system is DYNAMIC. While some routes are static, many actually go or don't go based on package volume. Or get re-routed. On the fly, as it were.

I'm not exactly sure with whom you are arguing. In my post, I didn't say anything about Christmas deliveries. My package wasn't a Christmas present. It didn't need to arrive on a specific day, it just had to arrive in a timely fashion. A total of seven days from point A to point B, both southern locations, when the company promised 3-4 days isn't good business practice.

I'm pointing out that your idea, that somehow, your stuff gets loaded on a truck that is leaving the area where you bought it, and, somehow laden with only those items that are coming to YOUR area, is just...not practical. What's the likelihood that everything that a specific truck picked up in Miami is ALL going to L.A.? Obviously, not high. Thus, the hub-and-spoke system. Thus, air-travel, to meet the 3-4 day delivery "promises." And thus, when weather screws with the system, things go awry. And if, by some chance, you opted for ground delivery, that takes 3rd priority, particularly when the 1- and 2-day deliveries get delayed.

Frankly, I find the Post Office far more reliable than UPS or FedEx. At least when they can't deliver and have to hold on to the package, the post office doesn't charge a storage fee plus and insurance fee for doing so as FedEx or UPS does.

I certainly can't second this. My "post office" is 30 miles away (60 RT). My carrier refuses to bring any type of packages to my door, so anything bigger than a breadbox is "come fetch it." Then I get to wait in line for over 30 minutes. Thanks, but no thanks. And I've never been charged storage fees or anything like that from either UPS or Fedex. So I can't relate to that part of the discussion.

I don't know when Amazon et al put their packages on the planes, I just know when UPS picked up MY package from the supplier and delivered it to the specified destination. That took seven days, six of which showed absolutely no movement according to the tracking record.

Oh, the humanity! No movement shown on the tracking record! You mean--just like the Post Office does? They show pickup and then delivery. Nothing in-between. So...???

That's very true. We've actually come to believe that when a company tells us they will do something, we believe they will do it. If they won't, we usually find a different company. To prove this point, think how many companies have gone out of business because they couldn't meet the customer's expectations. We 'could' say that the customers expectation were unrealistic, or, just as easily, we could say that the company failed to meet its promises. But when the customer's expectation is based on what the company promises but fails to deliver, there is no question of fault.

As you say, there is NO excuse for failure. There is, however, a result for failure. The result, in this case for me, is that I'll add UPS to the list of companies with which I will no longer rely upon for deliveries. I'm sure they won't miss 'my' business, but it would seem that I'm not alone in this complaint.

Well, I for one will be fascinated to see what companies you're going to use to buy products for your UPS boycott. I actually boycott companies that only use USPS, for the above-stated reasons (no home delivery). But that list is very, very tiny. The "uses UPS" list is massive, but...hey, good luck with that.

I would like to ask, though... It seems that you are taking a VERY personal stand in this matter. Are you somehow related to a UPS employee? Your level of anger seems to great for just a casual reflection.


Stitchawl

(Full disclosure: no, I have zero interest in/affiliation with UPS or Fedex or anything akin thereto at this time. A score of years ago, my family owned a cargo airline and fleet which subcontracted to UPS. Thus, my familiarity with the hub-and-spoke system, at which I have spent many a night. Moreover, at one point in time, over 30 years ago, my husband flew under contract for Fedex, working from their hub in Memphis. Neither of this things affects my opinion, other than knowing how the system works.)

Not angry. Annoyed and irritated. (Trust me: if I get actually ANGRY, nobody will think I seem angry.) I see this endless stream of complaints, everywhere I go, whether it's Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and now, heaven help us, here, about how X didn't happen, or Y didn't happen, and it's someone's fault, not so-and-so's fault, and so-and-so didn't have any responsibility WHATSOEVER in what happened, etc.

Or the endless, and I mean, ENDLESS ravings from low-information individuals about politics, going on and on about how they're "entitled" to this, or how (never mind, deleted before I go into no-no land). It's positively depressing and infuriating at the same time. People cannot be bothered to educate themselves, or shop earlier, like the raving Xmas shoppers whose last minute gifts didn't get somewhere on time, and apparently, they have ZERO responsibility, or can't imagine WHY the weather coming down and stranding over 100 planes could affect THEIR package, which originated in the south and was shipped to "the south," and therefore, of course, UPS should have taken a semi, loaded it up with those 20 packages, bygod, and run it to X, just to live up to their promise to have it there in 72 hours. I mean...really? A mere 10 years ago, you couldn't have received it in 96 hours, much less 1-2 days. 20 years ago, you would have had an orgasm over 7 DAY delivery. How ridiculously entitled have we all become? This didn't even have a gift-y deadline, and this warrants a rant? Really, Stitch?

I'm seriously not trying to attack you personally, Stitch. Most of this irritation isn't about you. However, the entire Internet is starting to sound like being trapped in a hell in which you're stuck in the birthing nursery of a major hospital, with a crapload of crying babies. Much of my irritation is NOT directed at you, but the endless whining from people who can't be bothered to read instructions, who can't bother to educate themselves, who regurgitate whatever ridiculous verbal diarrhea is poured into their ears, with zero fact-checking...therefore, your rant about UPS, given how the weather came down, and stranded all those airplanes (and pilots, personnel, etc.) just...got on my nerve. The last one that the idjits on social media haven't already frayed.

Social media may have brought the world together, but quite bluntly, for intelligent people, it sounds like the 7th level of Hell, being subjected to levels of stupidity that are excruciating. (I just deleted my description of the stupid-saturated threads I've seen in the last 24 hours on social media. No point in bringing it up here.)

Anyway, hopefully, you now have a slightly better understanding as to why packages do not go from A to B. And why your package was "late," so it seems.

Hitch