Life as a package

Speaking of Christmas presents, and weather etc, I had two very different experiences with package deliveries over the last week or so.

First off, Fedex is great - I had ordered something for Heidi early last week on a two day delivery, and despite the snow and travel problems, they somehow managed to get it into town, and were very helpful on the phone and let me arrange to pick it up befopre the holiday from one of their depots, so Heidi got her gift in time. Everyone was friendly and helpful (even though the people at the depot were all working ridiculously hard on Christmas Eve when I called in), I got what I needed in time, and everything worked out fine.

Now onto UPS. Ordered (and shipped) the same day, this one was a next day delivery (I had seen the snow report in between ordering, so thought I better make it as fast as possible). Package was picked up fine, and even said it had left the first UPS depot on the tracking system. And then everything went quiet. I placed a similar call to UPS, even managed to work out the code to get to a real person (after 15 minutes of faking my american accent so the voice recongnition software they're using these days could understand me), and then was promptly given the message "All of our representatives are busy during this high period of demand. Please call back later" before the call was dumped. Nice, eh? So, resorting to daily tracking on the web site of the status of the package, I tried to follow along to see when it was likely that I'd get something delivered (in the meantime heading over to the local mall to make sure Heidi's stocking was filled, even if the delivery didn't make it in time). The long and short of it is, I still don't have the package - it somehow turned up in Colorado Springs yesterday, and is alledegdly on a van to be delivered today (although the site said that yesterday as well).

Location	Date	Local Time	Description
ENGLEWOOD, CO, US	12/28/2006	6:45 A.M.	OUT FOR DELIVERY
	12/28/2006	6:40 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
COMMERCE CITY, CO, US	12/28/2006	6:00 A.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
DENVER, CO, US	12/27/2006	9:08 P.M.	DESTINATION SCAN
COMMERCE CITY, CO, US	12/27/2006	9:04 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, US	12/27/2006	7:20 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	12/27/2006	4:20 A.M.	AN INCORRECT ROUTING AT A UPS FACILITY CAUSED THIS DELAY;THE PACKAGE WAS MISSORTED AT THE HUB. IT HAS BEEN REROUTED TO THE CORRECT DESTINATION SITE
LOUISVILLE, KY, US	12/21/2006	11:12 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	12/21/2006	1:58 P.M.	ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS CAUSED THIS DELAY
	12/21/2006	1:05 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
COLUMBUS, OH, US	12/21/2006	12:15 A.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
COLUMBUS, OH, US	12/20/2006	10:03 P.M.	ORIGIN SCAN
US	12/20/2006	3:06 P.M.	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

So, if you have the chance to choose between the two companies, I'd vote for Fedex anyday.

Oh, and slightly related, but not really, if you want see how busy it gets at Amazon over the holidays, check out this shot from Gizmodo