The #1 son has an axe to grind. And he wants to grind it into the FedEx man.
I have tried to tell him that this will be frowned upon by the FedEx Corporation, the FedEx man, and society in general. Don't get me wrong. The Hillbilly family has several FedEx bones of contention stuck in their collective craw. But the tactics #1 proposes will not resolve the issues.
Here is his plan: leave a hateful note on the front door, in large print, as large as our printer can print. The proposed note would say something to the effect of:
"Since you are too stupid to read the note that has been on the door for four months, maybe you can read THIS. 'Put the package in the garage so the dogs don't eat it' does not mean to leave the package on the porch. Where there are dogs. That will eat it."
He called me on my way home from school Thursday to tell me that. I decreed that no such note would be left on my door. And that he needed to talk to his dad about that, because I was sure Farmer H would agree with me. #1 leaves the Mansion after The Pony and I are long gone. So I didn't want him sneaking any note out there when I was unaware.
Our problems with FedEx are fivefold. It all started with a pair of bowling shoes that took six weeks to arrive. I have no idea where they were cooling their heels while they were in limbo. The company showed they were shipped, and FedEx showed they were in transit. Then they suddenly appeared. Six weeks later.
The next issue was some special piece of electronics that the #1 son ordered. I don't remember if it was for his phone or computer. But it was important to him, and he followed it daily. It was on New Year's Eve. Around 1:00 or 2:00, #1 ran out of his room, at the front of the house, where he had been eagerly awaiting his package, to say the FedEx site showed that delivery was attempted, but could not be completed. He hit the roof. Got on the phone, and discovered that the driver said we were a business, and that we were closed for the holiday. #1 gave the dispatcher a piece of his opinionated mind, and declared that he had paid for express delivery, and HE WANTED HIS PACKAGE NOW! The dispatcher contacted the driver and chewed him out, apparently. Sent him on his merry way to the Mansion. Where he parked at the end of the driveway, one-eighth of a mile long, and waited for #1 to walk to the end and get his package.
The biggest issue was the time the driver backed into the front yard to turn around, instead of using the concrete area as big as half a basketball court, with an adjoining gravel area big enough for four cars. Not only did he back into the yard, he gleefully (I'm sure) spun his wheels until two twelve-inch-deep ruts, longer than Farmer H laid down, were left for posterity. Farmer H called FedEx headquarters, and was, after a several-day runaround, told that the driver admitted to "getting stuck" in the yard, and that Farmer H could hire a landscaper and send them the bill. Yeah. Like we had time off from work to deal with a landscaper. Farmer H just told them he wanted the shenanigans to stop, and to save other people from having their yards dug up by this maniac.
Another time Mr. FedEx wouldn't leave a package with nobody home, even though we'd left the signed note as instructed from the previous day's nondelivery. That time I had to drive #1 five miles chasing the FedEx truck to a local business to get the package off the truck.
So...this latest infraction involved Farmer H's delivery of two loaves of pumpkin bread and blueberry bread from The Daily Bread. A perk of doing business with a supplier at his job. The happy accident that the dogs didn't eat it before we got home was, most likely, and oversight on their part. That was the morning we spied the ribs and neck of a small-deer-sized carcass with meat still clinging to the bones in the front yard.
I am not in any way clearing FedEx of wrongdoing. But I keep thinking of the last time I had dealings with the FedEx man. This was the good guy. The one who told me that he thought there was a dog IN the garage. Because he saw eyes in there. So he tossed in the package and closed the door. Yeah. That guy looked like he was deathly afraid of dogs. He has come to the Mansion before, with #1 meeting him on the porch, assuring him that the dogs don't bite.
I would not want to hurt his feelings. The eyes in the garage must have traumatized that fellow.
Mrs. Hillbilly Mom DOES have a heart. Cold though it may be.
Here in Sioux's ghetto, our UPS and FedEx guys pet our Goldens (when they're outside, in the fenced-in backyard) and know them by name.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to imagine WHO was wearing those bowling shoes for six weeks, and what they were doing while they were enjoying the wearing of the bowling shoes.
Who do you think it was, and what kind of horrendous or heinous acts were taking place as those shoes were getting pre-sweated up?
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteI will venture that it was a petty little man whose feet fit into the shoes of a ten-year-old boy. A petty little man with a bad case of Little Man Syndrome, stamping his little foot and crying out that he is a force to be reckoned with.
Reminds me of a similar issue with UPS. We moved our business about 5 miles from our former location when we purchased a building in MN. We relied on our daily deliveries for parts and product. At least 3 times a week they would deliver to our previous address and I would have to go pick our packages up. The people receiving them on our behalf was giving our new address to the driver and I was calling with every delivery that was wrong.
ReplyDeleteWe had contacted all of our vendors and customer base with the new address and the boxes reflected this, but still, the boxes kept being put on the wrong truck and our old driver would leave them at the old address and would call me to tell me, because he knew some things to be time sensitive.
After several weeks of this, he who loved to delegate unsavory tasks to me (such as collections) directed me to call UPS and see if they could pull their heads out of their asses and get the delivery right. I am nothing if not obedient and I used his exact words after I went through all the steps on the phone to speak to an actual person and then insisited on speaker to management. It was very liberatibng to express my concerns!! The man I spoke to burst out laughing and apologized for the lack of good customer service, and apparently pulled his head from said orifice since we no longer experienced a problem.
It has occurred to me that I am long winded!
Kathy,
ReplyDeleteI suppose the UPS management dude was thinking the exact same thing...