Wednesday, January 04, 2006

United States Postal Service

When it absolutely never has to get there in your lifetime.


yesterday I sent in my revised manuscript overnight with a noon guaranteed delivery. Not cheap. So my editor emailed tonight to tell me that it never arrived! I check the tracking number online, and it says a delivery attempt was made and a failed attempt notice left at the address. Will attempt second delivery tomorrow. Okay, this is a publishing house. I waived the signature. How can they not deliver a package at 10:36 a.m.? I'm guessing some clown was running late and didn't even attempt the delivery. Just said he did. Or he didn't know where the mail room was and stuck the notice on the revolving door. Idiot.

10 comments:

emeraldcite said...

That's like the UPS and Fedex deliveries that list that an item was signed for but was really left on the porch. All day.

anne frasier said...

i recently received a package from DHL that was EMPTY. I even signed for it, but didn't noticed that it was split up the side. completely empty. I don't even know who sent it, but it cost 35.00. there was no return name, just a warehouse and DHL said they couldn't tell me, that the sender had to report the problem!

Rob Gregory Browne said...

DHL once gave me a free trip from Hawaii to California for accompanying a package that I never had to touch.

UPS, I've found, is very reliable.

anne frasier said...

i usually use UPS, but when I overnight something I tend to use USPS because they have the boxes right there. guess i learned my lesson.

a free trip to hawaii would be pretty nice.

Kelly (Lynn) Parra said...

That sucks.

I usually get packages in okay condition, but I got a UPS delivery the other day and one entire corner was smashed in and open. I was going to rag on my bro-in-law who works for him. Just haven't seen him yet. =D

Jeff said...

Yep, sounds like the only "failed attempt" here was the failure of the delivery person to get their lazy butt out of the truck with the manuscript and knock on the right door for receiving packages.
This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when the postal service hires out of work pizza delivery people and turn them loose without proper inservice!
Unbelievable!!!

anne frasier said...

the package arrived.
whew.

this is what i was told by USPS.
the publishing house has a deal with USPS, something they pay quite a bit for. it's called caller service. all the mail for the publisher gets dropped at a nearby postal station at 6:00 a.m. and is picked up shortly after that by mail room peeps. so an overnight delivery will arriive after the pickup. (still doesn't explain the whole failed delivery thing.) today the publishing house supposedly received so much mail that USPS drove the truck and mail to the publisher rather than leaving it at the drop point.

Jerilyn Dufresne, author said...

I once used FedEx or UPS (sorry, can't remember which) to send in something that had to be there by 10 AM or we were disqualified from receiving the grant. Well it got there late and I received my money back--maybe $12 back in those days, but we lost a multimillion dollar contract. From that day on we hand delivered those puppies. (My old job--13 years ago.)

Rob Gregory Browne said...

Ouch, Jer. That's HURTS.

Bonnie Godbee said...

(Late)
When comcast sent my modem, it said on the fed ex website that it was signed for. Comcast didn't want to hear that I had no modem and I was flipping. Fed Ex says "it was left at your front door and we will email your signature to you" Well, it wasn't my sig. Since I live in the woods, I was wondering just how someone had been at my house when fed ex came and signed and stole my modem. 2 weeks later we go out in the shed to work on something. There in the corner sits a big box from comcast.
Seems the guy had put it in the shed and signed some garbly goo as my name.