What Can Brown Do To You?

I fired UPS today. I get a lot of packages each week, often daily, with probably two-thirds of them from my main distributor via UPS. Another 20% are delivered by FedEx, and those are rarely a problem. The issue with UPS is they just don't care anymore. They're unionized and they'll go only so far in their customer service efforts, and then they stop, even when they're contractually obligated to keep going. For example, several times they've misplaced packages, only to find them at my local UPS hub, ten minutes away. Someone from the hub will call to tell me to come pick up the package, as if it's beyond their ability to jump in their car and bring me a box. It's supposed to be simple: You get paid to deliver packages; I receive them. Your personal problems in doing your job are not my concern and it's unlikely I can call you to come over and take a turn at my job when I don't feel like performing.

The drivers are often great, but there are bad ones too. With union benefits, it means my main driver can be gone for months for various reasons leaving me with a series of bonehead fill-in drivers. They're also finding their benefits cut as UPS attempts to absorb fuel costs by reducing overhead. It sucks when you're the overhead at a corporation, something I can tell you about from my IT days. Morale is not great at UPS. But you know what? Suck it up.

The current bonehead driver has been trying my patience. Not only does he deliver irregularly, but he has a habit of coming early and dropping off those little sticky notices, letting me know he'll be delivering my order the next day, or perhaps the day after, depending on his mood I guess. UPS is not supposed to do this with businesses with posted hours, but they do it anyway. You can call and yell at them, but the odds are fifty fifty that he'll just deliver that package the next day, or the day after.

Today this same bonehead driver refused to pick up an outgoing package because I didn't schedule it with UPS. In four years, it has been common practice for drivers to pick up packages during a drop off, but this guy decided he would stick to the letter of the law, the official policy. After spending $5 online scheduling the delivery, this bonehead returned an hour later to pick up the box. After some heated words, I expressed to him that if it's not the policy, then it must be a courtesy. He agreed, and I told him that explained an awful lot. From now on, hundreds of thousands of dollars of goods that they used to deliver will go to this little company that works harder and isn't unionized called Fedex.