Rant on shipping

[3 Horse Ranch]

The worst part about being on hold is that they keep playing that recording telling how important my call is to them. It wouldn't be quite so bad if they would just STFU or at least play elevator music. I honestly believe they do it intentionally to get people to hang up. I'll gladly oblige if it's a vendor. When it's a doctor's office or somebody else I need to talk though, to it's pointless to leave a message and hang up since I'm as hard to get hold of as they are.
On a similar note; I'm about to leave the vet I"ve been going to since getting my first dog in 1997. Their preview keeps getting longer and longer before I can actually leave a message; last week I waited 45 seconds, left a message only to have them call back asking me to call again.
Never mind...

 

[bcp]

We have a PO Box. Vendors-delivery services that require a street address deliver to the Post Office if we address it like this:

My name
Post Office's street address, #(my PO box number)
City state zip

Sendit Toome
12345 6th St, #789
Bigcity, WA 11111

Just like if I lived there in my PO box.

A year or two ago this was found on the PO website, but I can't find it now.

Bruce

 

[buckeyefarmer]

USPS reporting another Amazon delivery that they didn’t make. I hate USPS deliveries.

 

[japody]

I've tried doing that to eliminate the need to fill out my entire address twice, but most computerized ordering platforms will kick it out and state "We cannot deliver to PO Boxes." My road name is so unique that I don't believe there's another in the country. Yet I am often denied service and once was refused a CC from my local bank because "That road is not recognized by the postal service." Why do they think that I have a PO Box?

The machines at the PO that sort the mail are programmed to read the bottom street address. As far as your street not recognized, the Postmaster at your office can add it to the directory. It is not difficult to do.

 

[Alan W.]

We had a couple of weeks where various pieces of mail that were correctly addressed were being labeled, could not deliver as addressed. This was happening at the Lexington post office not the local one.
No one could explain it. It just fixed itself apparently.

 

[Jstpssng]

The machines at the PO that sort the mail are programmed to read the bottom street address. As far as your street not recognized, the Postmaster at your office can add it to the directory. It is not difficult to do.

It's got nothing to do with the Post Office. When filling out an order they need a shipping address, and a separate billing address otherwise the CC transaction will be declined. I'm lazy by nature and hate filling out info twice when the only thing different is one line.

 

[dragoneggs]

Not a rant but a bit of an adventure today. The UPS guy bravely climbed our 1000ft paved steep private driveway servicing us and three neighbors. Traditional truck w/dualies and outside tires chained. On the way down he realized our snowy driveway was all ice underneath. Not hard to get up but dang hard to come down.

I happen to be walking up the driveway after shuttling my wife into town in my F150 4x4. She insisted we park at the bottom because of much more snow predicted in the next few days. I tried to convince her it wasn't necessary but once seeing the UPS truck at the top of the driveway, I am glad I didn't get into the situation of having to back down to get out of his way.

Turned out that even with my guidance, he couldn't steer to keep it on the pavement. The chains kept him from sliding down but the fronts didn't respond no matter what. I walked back down to my truck and grabbed my ratchet straps. Hooked one on his front bumper and cinched to a tree opposite his sideways slide into the ditch. Worked well. 30min later we got him down to the bottom and I waved goodbye... but he didn't pull out onto the highway.

I wondered what was wrong... he then exited his truck on the pax side and walked back to me and said, "I can't leave without a handshake... thank you!" It made me feel good... and made me also appreciate delivery folks during Covid times and bad weather doing their job and going blindly into situations unknown.

 

[forestcreature1]

There was a guy down in NZ / AUS somewhere that made a song about being put on hold.

 

[kenmbz]

So my USPS guy is really great and has been the same one for many years. We talk regularly.
At my old house the postman was awful and could barely speak english, as we found out later on! (they did eventually fire him- it seems he was a thief too).

We just had an amazon delivery sent by my brother to my son. We have 2 mailboxes on the road, about 600' from the house. He left the package lying on top, across the 2 mailboxes.
We have had stuff stolen like that. We have no snow and it's warm out right now.
Found while walking dog, luckily in plastic shipping bag, as was covered in water from this mornings rain.

Fedex has been much better lately, see the same 2 trucks/drivers now. vs. the random people who left packages in many different places for me to scavenger hunt.

UPS guy , 90% of the time is the same person and he is incredibly reliable. Even after a snow, he will wrap our packages in a clear plastic bag and walk them up the drive a bit to hang them off a branch behind our garbage cans.

 

[Oaktree]

The worst part about being on hold is that they keep playing that recording telling how important my call is to them. It wouldn't be quite so bad if they would just STFU or at least play elevator music.

Or the ones that try to get you to go to their website, where there are generally no options for whatever it is you called the support line for in the first place. Sheesh, man...if this was something I could resolve from the website do you really think I'd be going thru this auto-attendant BS?

 

[JethroB]

Or the ones that try to get you to go to their website, where there are generally no options for whatever it is you called the support line for in the first place. Sheesh, man...if this was something I could resolve from the website do you really think I'd be going thru this auto-attendant BS?

I had to call the IRS recently. It took dozens of tries over several days to get something other than “High volume, please try again later”, click. I finally got in the hold queue and was given an option for a call back. That worked out well as someone called me back in about an hour.

 

[MossRoad]

At my last employer, one of my duties was to maintain the call center phone system. It was a first in, first out system. Very nice, fair, and elegant.

Then corporate took over and made us use a system that they forced on all of their child companies, which was analogous to a bucket system. You're a minnow, and when you call, they throw you in a bucket. The phone system would just grab any minnow out of the bucket. You could be in there for a minute or eternity. Just asinine.

 

[Dftodd]

I live in a newly built neighborhood. Actually homes still being built. Streets are just starting to show up on Google maps.

Builders used the same colored numbers for every house. But the numbers blend in with the darker colored trim paint on some of the houses.

Had a package on the door step from a rug place first thing that came to mind was "What did my wife order now????"

Got to looking at it and realized it wasn't our name on the package. Then realized it was for an address that was 1 digit off from ours.

I just loaded the package in the truck and went looking for the house. Saw an old guy standing out in front of his house.

So I asked him if his house number was xxxx. He said "yup".

Well I went on to explain that ups apparently couldn't find his house so they left his package on my door step.

Really nice guy, and met one of my neighbors

He brought up the fact that the numbers were the same color as the trim. And was gonna have his granddaughter paint the number white then next time she came over.

 

[Pixguy]

I live in a newly built neighborhood. Actually homes still being built. Streets are just starting to show up on Google maps.

Builders used the same colored numbers for every house. But the numbers blend in with the darker colored trim paint on some of the houses.

Had a package on the door step from a rug place first thing that came to mind was "What did my wife order now????"

Got to looking at it and realized it wasn't our name on the package. Then realized it was for an address that was 1 digit off from ours.

I just loaded the package in the truck and went looking for the house. Saw an old guy standing out in front of his house.

So I asked him if his house number was xxxx. He said "yup".

Well I went on to explain that ups apparently couldn't find his house so they left his package on my door step.

Really nice guy, and met one of my neighbors

He brought up the fact that the numbers were the same color as the trim. And was gonna have his granddaughter paint the number white then next time she came over.

See if your fire dept. offers the reflective numbered signs that you can put on your mailbox post. My town did not offer them but my nephew is a firefighter so he hooked me up. They'd have no problem finding my house.

 

[Dftodd]

See if your fire dept. offers the reflective numbered signs that you can put on your mailbox post. My town did not offer them but my nephew is a firefighter so he hooked me up. They'd have no problem finding my house.

No mail box. Neighborhood is a new development and all rentals. They have locking mailboxes in a couple spots in the neighborhood. One pedestal handles about 20 households plus 4 lock boxes for packages. If you have a package that won't fit in your box, you'll find a key numbered for the corresponding package box. Granted if it won't fit in the package box, you'll find it on your doorstep.

House numbers are above the right outside light next to the garage door just under the eaves. Shows up fine on the lighter trimmed houses. But on the really dark trimmed houses the numbers blend in with the trim.

Hence why the neighbor was gonna have his granddaughter repaint the numbers on his place.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

See if your fire dept. offers the reflective numbered signs that you can put on your mailbox post. My town did not offer them but my nephew is a firefighter so he hooked me up. They'd have no problem finding my house.

I ordered one on Amazon years ago.

 

[Oaktree]

See if your fire dept. offers the reflective numbered signs that you can put on your mailbox post. My town did not offer them but my nephew is a firefighter so he hooked me up. They'd have no problem finding my house.

Yeah, our town did that a few years ago, sold 'em at cost and the road crew put them up.
You could probably get everything you need at HD and DIY.

 

[dragoneggs]

He brought up the fact that the numbers were the same color as the trim. And was gonna have his granddaughter paint the number white then next time she came over.

If it is anything like my daughter's new neighborhood, better check the HOA rules. Pretty strict. Would drive me crazy to live back in suburbia.

 

[ponytug]

We have four sets of numbers by the street, three of which are reflective. All of them are at least four inches high. We had lots of new visitors to our location get so distracted by the views that they drove on by; for many missing the numbers turns into a two mile detour, as the road changes to a one lane road stapled to a rock face for close to a mile.

That does not stop the delivery service that shall not be named from being "unable to locate the address". UPS, Amazon (both A+), FedEx air (current driver is very good), USPS are all great. FedEx Ground has been hit or miss. The delivery service that shall not be named is just plain terrible.

 

[California]

DHL? Instacart?