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[LHF2019]

This is what UPS did with a package for me a few days ago.,

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I can break this down with 95% accuracy as to what happened. The facility I work at the beginning and the end for packages. We are small and everything is done manually with human mistakes. The larger facilities are much larger and automated sorting. I recently worked an evening(Local Sort) and saw what happens at the beginning of a packages travels. Rest of the time I'm working mornings loading trucks for delivery(Preload).

From our facility 2 trailers leave. One for Buffalo, NY and one to New Stanton, PA. I have watched my own packages and it is interesting as you learn from the inside how things move.

Anybody reading this start at the bottom of the quotes to follow this packages journey.

 Times shown are in Local Time Change
06/02/2025
12:00 P.M.
Delivered
DELIVERED
GREENWICH, NY, US

Finally you have received your package that left you were wondering how in the world is it possible for it to travel the way it did. Imagine it getting on a different trailer yet...............................

06/02/2025
7:18 A.M.
Out for Delivery
Out For Delivery Today
Latham, NY, United States

Driver has been released and the truck is on the road.

05/31/2025
6:14 P.M.
On the Way
Processing at UPS Facility
Latham, NY, United States

Trailer is being unloaded and some nit wit like me is sweating their balls loading packages on a delivery truck. Only they are doing it in the evening where we do it in the morning.

05/31/2025
3:20 A.M.
Arrived at Facility
Latham, NY, United States

This is correct. Trailer arrived

05/30/2025
10:32 P.M.
Departed from Facility
Buffalo, NY, United States

Trailer released

05/30/2025
2:29 P.M.
Arrived at Facility
Buffalo, NY, United States

Mansfield to Buffalo is correct. Trailer arrived and unloaded and packages split pending loacation.

05/30/2025
9:03 A.M.
Departed from Facility
Mansfield, OH, United States

Trailer released.

05/30/2025
8:28 A.M.
Arrived at Facility
Mansfield, OH, United States

This is correct and a main hub. Trailer arrived and unloaded. Packages split to other trailers pending location.

05/30/2025
4:12 A.M.
Departed from Facility
Lexington, KY, United States

Trailer released and package is back on track.

05/29/2025
5:32 A.M.
Processing at UPS Facility
Lexington, KY, United States

4 Possibilities here.

1. Driver grabbed the wrong trailer and the whole trailer was supposed to go in a different direction.
2. It got scanned in Kingston and either mechanically or humanly was sent to the wrong trailer
3. If larger facilities do this and if it was a small package it was put in a bag. The bag is affixed with location sticker, then it is scanned before loaded on the wrong trailer.
4. If small package it could have been put in the wrong bag but the bag itself is correct.

All of these scenarios would have been corrected here.

I believe Lexington is a very large hub. We have what are called pass through trailers that get dropped at our facility. Then another driver delivering a trailer will pick it up and continue it on its way. Know of one that was bound for Kentucky in the past.

05/29/2025
4:38 A.M.
Departed from Facility
Kingston, NY, United States

Keep in mind I can only speculate. Trailer was released. The next timestamp above is KY. Highly unlikely that package was supposed to go there. I don't know where Kingston, NY is in relation to Buffalo but I suspect the package was supposed to go from Kingston to Buffalo. Each of these stops are considered main hubs where trailers are unloaded and sorted to other trailers to continue their journey as well as deliver to their local region. Each of these transitions open you up to a mistake whether human or mechanical. But everybody wants to blame the big bad company. Like non of use ever made a mistake.

05/29/2025
3:24 A.M.
Arrived at Facility
Kingston, NY, United States

Trailer arrived and unloaded packages split to other trailers pending location and here is where things get goofy.

05/28/2025
10:55 P.M.
Departed from Facility
Middletown, PA, United States

Trailer released.

05/27/2025
11:27 P.M.
Arrived at Facility
Middletown, PA, United States

Trailer arrived and was unloaded. This is a main hub. Packages were split to other trailers pending location either mechanically or manually.

05/27/2025
9:31 P.M.
Departed from Facility
Baltimore, MD, United States

Trailer has been released

05/27/2025
8:52 P.M.
Arrived at Facility
Baltimore, MD, United States

In our facility this is local sort. This time stamp indicates that it has been loaded on the trailer.

05/27/2025
3:17 P.M.
We Have Your Package
Pickup Scan
Baltimore, MD, United States

UPS driver picked it up toward the end of his day and it is now on the truck that started its day delivering packages.(I have not seen this process)

05/26/2025
7:23 P.M.
Label Created
Shipper created a label, UPS has not received the package yet.
United States

From MD to PA to NY to KY to OH to NY and then finally to me.

The company you purchased from created the label. Self explantory.

 

[KennyG]

That's one of the oddest shipping mishaps I have ever heard. Break open your package and add more to it. Wild.

And I needed one post to hit 5000, because I wanted to see what that was like.

I once had an empty package delivered. It was obviously broken open and nothing in it. I guess the driver decided it was easier to make it my problem than his.

Congratulations on 5000.

 

[blacktruck]

I work for a big company that ships and receives parts on an almost daily basis. Much heavier on the receiving than shipping but we do both. An issue we regularly see in addition to the parts mishandling by the carrier is shipments being dropped off by the driver without notifying the consignee. Also, any parts that have our company name (Typical packaging and not our address) on the box are likely to be dropped off if we do not adamantly tell the driver to check the shipping documents. Our company fails to adequately package goods for truck shipment but the carriers during the recent few years have dropped to a level of service unheard of a few years ago. All of the automation in tracking has not improved the level of service we typically see today.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Not to excuse UPS, FEDEX, etc., etc. but a large part of this not just in routing of deliveries but transportation in general is John Q. Public. Most everyone wants everything instantly, hence the pressure to deliver.

I drove LTL for awhile both local and line haul. The pressure on the dock workers to unload/load trailers is nothing short of organized chaos. Out on the road, ***t happens. A truck sitting in traffic for even just a few minutes can throw a monkey wrench into everything.

Think about how far we have come since the days of sending a check for something. Then the check would have to clear before whatever was shipped. All done by snail mail.

 

[dougtrr2]

Fastest is about 4 days for anything from Amazon, and it has gotten slower lately and here's why. USPS does not deliver packages to individual homes or mailboxes in the area where I live. They deliver to their own "banks" of mailboxes which are a few miles apart. Each individual "mailbox" is just a slot perhaps 12" by 18" deep - but only about 2" high. So not much besides an envelope can be put in those and if a package is shipped USPS, when it arrives we get a slip in our mailbox telling us to drive to town to pick up our package.

I live outside of town and my mail is delivered to one of those mailbox banks. But we also have two USPS parcel lockers next to the mailbox. They are pretty good sized and when a package is sent, the postman puts a key to the locker in your box. It might be worth checking to see if you could get one,

Doug in SW IA

 

[rontaki]

I'd like my cremated ashes to be shipped from the funeral parlor to home. If I'm lucky, I'd get one last national tour!

 

[Jstpssng]

I had a way to prevent vendors from using Fed Ex, I would, just to keep their drivers off our property and out of our neighborhood. Unfortunately, some vendors default to them, and so they're not entirely avoidable

I feel the same way. If there is any way to screw up, their Connecticut facility will do it. A few years ago I ordered plant material from a company somewhere past New York. It took over 2 weeks to get here; by that time it was dead. I should have asked for a full refund, but thought I could salvage some of the order.
I was wrong.
It didn't matter because a couple of months later they sold out to a big chain and my store credit was gone.

Some of the local drivers are good here. Some aren't. Last month I ordered a turntable. I finally recieved notice it was delivered but when I got home it was gone. The likelyhood of somebody beating me to it was slim...the likelyhood of somebody driving past my house in the 2 hours between dropoff and me getting home are almost none.

About 3 hours later I recieved a call from somebody who lives 40 miles away in a very remote area; he had my package. Apparently he has a dry place for them to leave things and is accustomed to doing the final delivery.

 

[Dftodd]

We ordered some limited edition sheets of stained glass, which is a routine thing for us. When we received the box it looked in bad shape and was very heavy, which is quite unusual. Seems along the way an employee at a FedEx facility cut open the box and stuck a John Deere front wheel adapter and an envelope with an antique license plate bracket in the box, both with shipping labels clearly showing they were not coming to us or even to the same town for one and a different state for the other. They then taped it back up and sent it along the way. Needless to say, the glass was destroyed. Called FedEx, they didn't seem to care. Called the glass supplier, they said it was not unusual and would sent us replacement glass at no charge, once it was back in stock. We notified the other 2 recipients that we had their packages and would return them to where we ship everything out so they could get back into transit. I did follow up to make sure they got their packages. The guy's tractor was broke down in the field waiting on the adapter. Seems like it was hard to find, coming from a dealer in PA to the customer in TX.

View attachment 3559674 View attachment 3559676 View attachment 3559677

I had to have our deere vendor (largest deere engine builder in the states) do a dealer search for a belt i needed.

Deere didn't make the belt anymore. And I didn't have the original to take to the auto parts store to find a gates alternative.

The only dealer that had one, was a little mom and pop store in rural Kansas.

I called them, explained my situation, gave them a credit card number over the phone. They shipped me the part and emailed me a copy of the invoice

Before installing the belt, I went over to the auto parts store and got a gates equivelant as well.

 

[WinterDeere]

Before installing the belt, I went over to the auto parts store and got a gates equivelant as well.

You might do well to post the equivalent Gates number here, both for your own future memory, and the benefit of anyone else hunting that NLA part.

 

[Dftodd]

You might do well to post the equivalent Gates number here, both for your own future memory, and the benefit of anyone else hunting that NLA part.

That belt was on a JD4045 diesel engine powering a water pump.

We've since sold off those pieces of equipment.

That was several years ago. For a few of them, I wrote on the box with the part number what it was for, and stapled it to the front of the shelf where I kept my JD belts

I wrote the engine model number on empty filter boxes and put them back in my filter cabinet at work for engines where I only have a couple in my fleet.

Especially for the few that are hard to cross the filters over to Baldwin or Wix filters.

My doosan Forklift was that way. Doodan changed their filter number for the forklift, and the old filters i bought from them wouldn't cross to either.

My last trip over to doosan, took them a 1/2hr to cross the old filter number for those filters to a working number in their system.

I was able to cross the new filters to Wix and Baldwin.

Yanmar was bugger to cross as well. The local Yanmar equipment dealer (Their tech) was able to give me the Napa numbers for those filters, and that's when I started saving the boxes since the yanmar number wouldn't cross

At least any of us could look in the cabinet and figure out what they needed for filters since I still only have a small number of those engines in my fleet.